
Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name is a mouthful, a hell of a title hailing from a series known for confusing naming conventions, made worse since the Yakuza franchise rebranded as Like a Dragon in the West. It's so confusing that even developer Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio appears to have gotten mixed up in its latest game and mistakenly used a tutorial card from Lost Judgment instead.
Spotted by Redditor InfernusXS and confirmed by IGN, the card reads, "Both Kamurocho and Ijincho are known for their long-established bar districts, " referring to the EX Gauge. Kamurocho is not featured as an explorable area in The Man Who Erased His Name, and the EX Gauge is a mechanic from the Judgment series, as the Heat Gauge governs special moves in Like a Dragon/Yakuza games.
Since Like a Dragon Gaiden is the first title released to adhere to this new naming system, it's fun to know we aren't the only ones having trouble keeping everything straight. Just so we're all clear, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, the sequel to Yakuza: Like a Dragon (the eighth and seventh mainline entries, respectively), releases next, launching on 26th January. Ichiban is the protagonist now, but the former, Kiryu, will serve as the deuteragonist, the game's second main character. Got it? Good.

Do you know your Kamurochos from your Kabukichos? Do you have the larger RGG Studio universe correctly compartmentalized and mapped out in your mind? Let us know in the comments section below.
[source reddit.com, via ign.com]
Comments 14
I mean they still go by numbers but it's weird with this game in particular since it was apparently supposed to be a continuation from Yakuza 7 as DLC.
@BeerIsAwesome Infinite Wealth is Ryu Ga Gotoku 8 (Like a Dragon 8) in Japan. The problem in the west was not the numbers but because the game had a different name in Japan than the west and they wanted to change it over and unify them.
Going Yakuza 6 -> Yakuza: Like Dragon-> Like a Dragon: [Name] is clearly not as confusing for people as Yakuza 6 -> Like a Dragon 7 -> Like a Dragon 8.
70% percent of assets are re-used if not more (including the tutorial prompts, as it turns out), but I'd still play a RGG game over literally anything else on my PS5.
I still call it Yakuza whenever I'm talking about the series in normal conversation. It just rolls off the tongue better than Like A Dragon. It was going smoothly until Yakuza: Like A Dragon. I can't think of another series that made the subtitle the main title after multiple entries used the original main title!
I get that they wanted to unify both the Japanese name and the Western name but honestly in the end I don't think it was really worth it and just causes confusion more than anything. Still though, I'm really enjoying Gaiden so far. Be it Yakuza, Like A Dragon, or Judgment I'll still play it if it's from RGG.
@Korgon Resident Evil 7: Biohazard is Biohazard 7: Resident Evil in Japan. Not exactly the same situation but close enough.
@TripleKing333
It's still known as Resident Evil first and foremost in the West. They didn't call RE8 Biohazard 8 in the West so it's not really what I'm talking about. You are right though in that it's probably the closest comparison out there. It kind of just proves how weird of a choice changing Yakuza's name really was.
@BeerIsAwesome
I think, generally speaking, it might be because it puts new players off in the same way many won’t want to read the third book in a trilogy for example.
But what if it was the localisation team that did that?
Yes all those names are like 🤔.i see why even them would be confused also.word up son
I just want a go-kart to collect trash, play the real estate market, meet beautiful ladies and kick some ass without hearing “so itchy” every 5 minutes.
Really wanted to get into this series ..and I tried with this but man the cut scenes are just to much ...like 30 seconds of gameplay then another cut scene...ended up skipping the cut scenes
Seems to have improved in chapter 2...but now I have no interest in the story because I don't know what's going on
@StylesT
THE STORY you mean, you skipped THE STORY. Some of the best crime, no, HUMAN drama in video games, and you SKIPPED IT. <faints while clutching pearls>
It's really not as bad as you think, and after you get past the early chapters of these games it gets better. Once you are let loose in the main area/areas of each game you can pretty much do what you want.
RGG releases so many games in such a short time span, this stuff is bound to happen. At least it's just a minor thing.
You’re missing the key point here. Yakuza and Like a Dragon is the same series. Yakuza is called Like a Dragon in Japan, Yakuza 2 is called Like a Dragon 2 etc.
This was almost certainly Sega marketing dudes changing the name for the west and the studio was never into that but had no say, and now they’re reclaiming the name it always was known by in it’s primary market. Like Resident Evil, that name makes no sense and the guys that made the games hate it.
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