Like a Dragon: Ishin! Is Playable Four Days Early If You Pre-Order Digitally

Im probably in the minority here, but nope. I refuse to buy games that does bs like this. Release to everybody at the same time.

A shame as I was looking forward to this.

I have no interest in buying a game at launch anymore (and even less a game with these kind of shenanigans), but my curiosity makes me ask : if you get to play the game before the official launch date, aren't you missing the inevitable Day One patch?

@Olmaz Depends when the 'Day One' patch actually launches. Most of these patches actually release days or even weeks before the commercial launch of a game — it's just that they're ready and available on 'Day One'. So the name's a little bit misleading!

Hmmm I see, makes sense in a way.
It's just that I have heard a lot of reviewers say things like "we'll have to see if this issue will be solved in the Day One patch", so I thought actual "day one" patches were more the norm.

I can’t see this as anything other than trying to get people to go digital instead of physical to kill the secondhand market. Not falling for it.

I'll be honest. I don't see why this is such a big deal. If people are willing to go a certain route to play something a bit early, why not? If it was a multiplayer game I could see an argument since that could put them at an unfair advantage. This is a single player game however.

Plus they aren't asking for more money from the customer here. They are pushing players to go digital which makes sense since they get a bigger cut of the profit. Sure one could say they are just trying to kill the physical market but if that were the case they wouldn't release a physical version at all. Plus I'm pretty sure the physical market started struggling long before this practice became a thing.

Bottom line Sega does make questionable decisions every now and then but I don't really see how this is one of them.

@Korgon I think the main concern is the people who pre-order might spoil the game for everyone else. 4 days is enough time to finish a game if you're a hardcore gamer, assuming it's 50-60 hours long like the previous entries. I guess by then there will be major spoilers all over the internet.

@ShogunRok Rather have a good working game dat one instead of a massive day one patch.

@fido
That's a good point I didn't consider. Though at the same time games seem to leak out early anyway all the time. Sonic Frontiers and God of War just went through that last month.

I was about to pre-order it, thinking it said playable in 4 days. Would have been a nice Christmas surprise.

I don't mind this kind of perk, and even happened to take advantage of it with Lost Judgment since I was going to buy the Deluxe Edition for the DLC anyway. That said, I'll probably just wait for release day in this case, since I'd like to have Ishin's physical version.

As for the exclusive weapons, that is scummier for whoever cares - but I personally don't. Typically those are just some early game items that become unviable soon enough, and even if they were better than that the game's probably got like over a hundred different weapons.

I don't like this direction from Sega. They did something similar with Lost Judgement, locking three girlfriends behind a pay wall and there was only one in base game.

For context, Judgement had four by default

Already pre-ordered it digitally so this is fine with me.

Doesn't bother me. I waited many years for this one. 4 or more days won't matter.

I'll buy this game physically. I don't usually buy digital games. And it doesn't bother me that digital buyers get it 4 days early.

@fido you can avoid spoilers by avoiding Yakuza related sites. It's also a remake of an old game. So spoilers are already out there.

@fido This is a game released years ago, there's not much to spoil.