Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth Ruins Dondoko Island With A Forced Introduction

The Like a Dragon franchise has always featured one or two mini-games that the player can play to earn a lot of cash while also having a ton of fun. The latest addition to the franchise, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, isn’t any different and features a significant amount of side content for the players to enjoy alongside the story, but something that can totally hook you for hours while also being unexpectedly rewarding is its Dondoko Island.

Dondoko Island can be considered a mix of multiple games blended into one, such as Animal Crossing, The Sims, etc. You can build stuff, beat pirates, collect all kinds of things, go fishing, and much more. It is also one of the best ways to earn a huge amount of money to get that juicy end-game gear from the shops quite early.

Despite all that, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth introduces Dondoko Island in an unfortunate way at a fairly interesting point in the story. The players feel stuck in this place as they try their best to get out as fast as they can instead of appreciating the mini-game’s potential, which turns quite a few players away from it.

Dondoko Island’s Forceful Introduction

While playing Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth’s main story, the game forcefully shoves you into Dondoko Island and locks you up there for a fair amount of time. The player is unable to return to Hawaii and is forced to spend at least 3 days at Dondoko Island. After 3 days, a dolphin shows up at Dondoko Island that can take Ichiban back to Hawaii, and you can return to the island whenever after that by talking to the Dolphin at Hawaii beach.

A few players quit Dondoko Island right after that and never return to it, but the fact is that they’re missing out on one of the most fun sections of the game. At first, the everyday tasks feel like a chore, but the more time you spend on Dondoko Island, the more addictive it gets as you try to restore the resort to its former glory.

How Is Dondoko Island Better Than Every Other Mini-Game In Like A Dragon?

Dondoko Island stands out because of how different it is from the main game, owing to its light-hearted theme and funny mascots, providing a peaceful haven to the player from all the chaos that’s been going on in Hawaii. Yes, we still have to fight the pirates/Swashbucklers here, but the real-time battles here where you swing your bat around to fight are a much-needed relief from all the turn-based fights we’ve been in so far.

You can build just about any building you’ve seen in either Kamurocho or Hawaii, alongside the neat decorations. You can also host tours where a bunch of tourists come to stay at your resort and have fun. The number of tourists that you can invite to your resort grows as you do other substories and talk to the people in Hawaii.

The resort continues to grow as you progress and host more tours, unlocking more unique tasks and getting rid of some of the tedious ones. There’s also Dondoko Farm, which can be visited by taking a raft from the island. Dondoko Farm gave me Palworld vibes as you’re making the Sujimon do all the work for you, like farming and cleaning.

The crew at the Dondoko Island is also pretty interesting. Each character is unique and fun in their own way, and there’s plenty of content to enjoy. One issue I had with the mini-game was that the time just stops whenever you’re back in Hawaii, forcing you to spend hours at the resort to claim the rewards from the Dondoko Farm.

The only other mini-game from the Like a Dragon franchise was the real estate one from Yakuza 0. But waiting till the end of the game to get proper rewards was a turn-off that made me prefer Dondoko Island over it. If you’re a fan of any city-builder game or social simulators, you’ll undoubtedly love Dondoko Island.

Takeaway

Like a Dragon games are always full of fun mini-games and side content, but we rarely get anything as intuitive as Dondoko Island, and it could’ve been so much better if the players hadn’t been forced into it. It is an incredible addition to the game, and I hope the developers continue to get inspired by it and put something similar in future titles, except for the “not being allowed to return to the main game” part.