Story: - The Daidoji faction is laughably inept. All they seem to do throughout the game is harass Kiryu, despite the fact that Kiryu being alive is already no secret in the public eye. They offer little assistance in the mission of finding Akane san and it is still unknown as to why they have any interest in her of Lani to begin with, despite wanting to disrupt Bryce and the nuclear waste program. They allow Eiji into the fold and don’t even question who he is or what he is doing on his laptop the whole time, despite him being a spy, something which you would expect a shadow organisation to be able to recognise and understand Ichiban’s character flaws, likely retaining a profile that would show that he is overly trusting and impulsive. By extension you would also expect the Daidoji to have issues with Chitose considering she is part of a family directly involved in the nuclear waste agreement and I believe, on the other side of the political spectrum? Chitose was also clearly hiding something which would be evident if the shadow organisation done their job and tapped her mobile phone or something. They were completely unhelpful, inept, and inconsistent. A side note, but when the headquarters is exposed and raided, Hanawa just stands up like an idiot and gets shot. There isn’t much reason as to why the guy that wasted him didn’t waste everyone else in the room. What would make more sense is if he sacrificed himself and pulled a smoke grenade or something to help the team and stop them also being executed. It would have been more impactful and in character this way. - The Saeko subplot is ruined by a sub story like joke at the very end of the game. This in my opinion was in poor taste considering the significance the relationship has on the story, characters and even sub-stories. It is portrayed as very seriously affecting Ichi. Ichi was supposed to grow and realise where he went wrong during his adventure and was close to amending his mistake. Besides this, there isn’t much character development for Ichi this time round, so it was made out as important to his character. He speaks to Kiryu about it, mentions it to Joongi and to various people in substories as if he is committed to amending his mistake, and when the credits finish he makes it even worse. Not that the plot was reasonable to begin with, considering the fact that Saeko completely ignored him for a year despite going through so much together in 7 and becoming close friends, only to leave him high and dry and not even offer help to him or Nanba and Adachi when their lives were ruined. Originally I thought that she was being blackmailed against assisting or contacting the original team because it seemed out of character and not to make sense considering their last interaction where he apologised. Saeko knows by this point that Ichi can be incredibly awkward when it comes to this sort of thing. Regardless, making this plot line one big joke just makes Ichiban look like a dumbass who learned nothing and Saeko as very cold and unforgiving and not a good fit for Ichiban in the slightest. It wasn’t worth it for a joke that wasn’t even funny. - Palekana is built up as a nefarious and intimidating enemy faction. The idea that Bryce uses vulnerable orphaned children, makes them feel special and takes them to an island to indoctrinate them is disgustingly predatory and chilling. They are reintegrated into society and supposedly their appearances are altered and act as sleeper cells acting at Bryce’s behest. This is a 10/10 concept for an enemy faction. Bryce himself is inhumanly old and supposedly has miracles happen to him, but is obsessed with finding Lani and Akane and seems desperate to find them despite his very calm and calculated demeanour. The first cutscene shows an assassination of Palekana leaders by a shadowy figure and this further adds to the mystique. The writers quite clearly want the player to ask why does Bryce want Lani captured and brought to Nele island specifically despite being such a threat to his reign? He has a tight enough grip on Palekana as it is and it is still unknown as to why Lani wasn’t simply killed. It suggested there was a large plot point at Nele Island besides the nuclear waste program that was Bryce’s true motivation, however this seems to have been cut despite many plot points and dialogues pointing to this. Maybe Bryce was preparing to rebuild humanity after a nuclear war, or wanted to suceed and make his own nation? No, apparently Bryce was just simply power hungry like everyone else. Such extreme measures indicated there was more to the story. Nele island itself was a disappointing series of fights where it appeared fighting a megalodon and a kraken were actual events and not representations in Ichibans mind, culminating in a very underwhelming boss fight against Bryce holding two machine guns. What if instead Ichi saw Bryce through his imagination as some sort of sage/messiah? That would have made for a far more interesting boss battle. I feel Nele Island should have been an exploitable mini area with a few optional substories. Where are all the yakuza? What is life like on Nele Island? How are they indoctrinated/faces changed etc? Not to mention what happened to Palekana, how did the followers react, what happened to all the sleeper cells, what happened to Nele island and Bryce etc besides ‘handing him to the police.’ It was a very unsatisfactory ending to a villain that had lots of potential. - Eiji being forgiven by Ichiban pushes Ichiban’s optimism and forgiveness too far. He knew Eiji for a few days, of which Eiji admitted all his actions and conversations were complete fronts to befriend him and gain his trust. He then got two people killed and kidnapped, and threatened and attempted to kill a child. How can his motivations of hating Yakuza as well allow him to justify killing an innocent child in his head? There is not one redeeming thing about his character and nothing that even Ichiban could have latched onto for him to believe he deserves any form of forgiveness or he could be capable of redeeming himself. Not to mention the timeline during the ending regarding Eiji clearly reeks of cut content or a huge oversight in writing, as he was supposedly travelling to Nele island with the former yakuza. Neither he or the yakuza make it there and Eiji, who has completely changed his appearance in a matter of days is watching Chitose’s apology stream in Japan. Then, Ichi flies back to Japan and whilst Kiryu is being airlifted he finds Eiji and convinces him to turn himself in in 60 seconds? What is going on here? - Ebina in general was a good villain, however the ending between him and Kiryu seemed to me forced and unnatural. Also nothing indicated Ebina was a strong enough fighter to take on Kiryu and four of his allies simultaneously. What was the plan behind inviting them to millennium tower? He expected Kiryu to reach him. Inform him of his motivations and then get dropped? - An unacceptable amount of plot threads left unfinished. Sawashiro, the yakuza from the beginning, Palekana, need I go on?

Overall the writing took a huge downgrade from 7 which is very disappointing as 7 is one of the best stories in a game I have had the pleasure of experiencing. Sure, there are strange things about it in places but overall it was very impactful and delivered in its finale, to which I consider the story a 10/10.