Like a Dragon: Ishin! SIDE BY SIDE CAST CHANGES 

Even in 1866 Japan, Kuze will not leave you alone.

Damn, Kuze’s instinct to fight Kiryu is deep rooted

I can't believe they let Zhao keep his hipster glasses in a game set during the 1800s lmao

F in the chat for Baba I'll really miss him

I like to imagine that Isshin's actually a TV series shot in an alternate timeline where nobody died during the events of the series and that one director whose samurai movie Kiryu starred in got really hyped about having had a legendary Yakuza as an actor, deciding to shoot an period piece with cast made up primarily of underworld figures. Majima, of course, demanded to play a character that got to fight Kiryu.

The new engine for the remake is just unreal

Given the nature of the game, it's understandable and not the worst thing to have these swaps. It would just be nice if they included a "classic mode," especially if making a mod to do that is too difficult.

Personally I don’t like the switch from Katsuragi to Sera. Katsuragi was a rat basstard who got himself into a good place that he didn’t quite like, tried to escape it like a rat, and then died for doing so. Sera, on the other hand, simply risked his neck for his clan and lost it.

0:33 I'm still conflicted on Joon-Gi Han replacing Kugihara. The guy Kugihara portrayed in OG Ishin was a perfect fit for his character.

0:13 I know it's not really Sera but at least we now see "Sera" die on screen. Rather than the "He died" in the original Yakuza.

although i’m gonna miss hamazaki, Kuze is one of my favorite Yakuza characters so i don’t really mind. zhao for baba on the other hand, i’m not so crazy about.

Hayashi disrespect continues lost his theme in Kiwami 2 and not even in Ishin Kiwami 🤧

As someone who never played the original, I really appreciate this side by side. Thank you!

Looking at this again, yeah I'm still bummed Heisuke and Takechi got their characters swapped. I do feel like Baba as Heisuke looks miles better than Zhao, considering their part in the story. Trying not to be too spoilery here, but Heisuke's supposed 'treason' on the OG Ishin is handled better when you consider Baba's story in 5. On the other hand, Takechi as an original character only for OG Ishin works better too since you don't get comparisons with Shibusawa's own character from 0. At the end of the day I'm still ecstatic to finally play Ishin on English, but some changes are weird. I suppose it's to draw audiences with newer casts, but Joon-gi wasn't even remotely Japanese lol

Replacing Kugihara with Joon was a huge miss

Why did they change all the older characters? It's not like the west only played 0, Kiwami, 6 and 7, eh?

As much as I love seeing the always fun and charismatic Riki Takeuchi in a Ryu Gotoku game again, it also kinda saddens me that they had to shove Hayashi again. He's so criminally underutilized.

On the one hand, I wish I could've experienced this with the older characters. On the other? I'm impressed this remake has alot of the newer characters instead of just doing a remaster thing by recycling previous assets and fluffing it up a bit. This looks cool and makes me want to play both editions.

it's shame that they changed todo, the voice actor of Baba chan did excellent job in the old inshin...

Oryo searching for vinegar: "Am I a joke to you?"

They did Hamazaki dirty.

I don't mind the swaps but it would have been best if it only happened for minor characters that were only featured in that one game. Recasting Goh Hamazaki (though I love seeing more Kuze but still...), Y5 prison psycho Kugihara and others is a bit much

Bruh they should’ve just added in the new characters and kept the ogs. No one can replace Baba sorry. I hope the mod community can do gods work and get him back into this remake.

Kashitaro Ito = Hamazaki in the original (from Y3 and Y4) = Kuze in the remake (from Y0) Kanryusai Takeda = Hiroshi in the original (from Y1/Kiwami and Y2/Kiwami 2) = Awano in the remake (from Y0) Mikisaburo Suzuki = I'm not sure on this, Ogita in the original (from Y5) = Also not really sure, but I believe that is Koshimizu in the remake (from Y6) Heisuke Todo = Baba in the original (from Y5) = Zhao in the remake (from Y7) Sanjuro Tani = Yahata in the original (from Y5) = Mabuchi in the remake (from Y7) Don't know who that is? = Katsuragi in the original (from Y4) = Sera in the remake (from Y1/Kiwami and 0) Hanpeita Takechi = He was played by no former Yakuza character in the original = Shibusawa in the remake (from Y0) Rintaro Katsu = Aoyama in the original (from Y5) = Ryo Aoki/Masato Arakawa in the remake (from Y7) Isami Kondo = Pretty sure he was also played by no former Yakuza character in the original = Adachi in the remake (from Y7) Susumu Yamazaki = Kugihara in the original (from Y5) = Joon-gi Han/Korean Vergil in the remake (from Y6 and Y7) That's all the characters that where changed in the remake, from what we know so far. The only one I kind of don't like is Shibusawa being Takechi Hanpeita, since Takechi was his own character in the original. But everyone else is fine to me and I especially like seeing Kuze again :)

Aww man, I wish they had just added them as entirely new characters

After playing Yakuza 0 and Kiwami back to back I really was missing Hitoshi Ozawa (Kuze) so glad to see him comeback 😊 along with rest of Y0 cast.

Changing Todo and Takechi's actors were the worst choices in the remake. Changing Todo Heisuke from Baba to Zhao made absolutely no sense. Baba's Story in 5 matches with Todo Heisuke as both were tasked with doing things they were afraid of doing, working with both sides, and Baba being a tragic hero/villian, it works really well. With Zhao, you can't take him seriously when he has those stupid glasses on for the time this takes place in, Zhao is great in 7 cause he fits in that environment, changing Baba to Zhao makes no sense, at the very least they could've taken his glasses off for the remake but they didn't, such an awful change, same with Joon Ji Han. Takechi Hanpeda's change was just straight up inept imo, changing the original Takechi (Katsunori Takahashi) to Shibusawa (Hideo Nakano) was the worst thing you could have done to the game. Regardless if you say " we all know Takechis going to be the antagonist, what's the issue, also most likely the actors contract expired" The issue is Takechi has a brotherly bond with Ryoma as both are equal and apart of the same coin in a way of the same moral but having a different way of going about it. They might hate what eachother do, but they still respect eachother as this is conveyed through Katsunori Takahashi performance, but replacing it with Hideo Nakano, just means that it's essentially a part 2 of Kiryu vs Shibusawa, all emotional aspects from original Ishin will be eradicated because of this change. Now I get it, perhaps either Katsunori Takahashi didn't want to reprise his role or RGG studios couldn't afford him to come back/didn't want him to. Then in my opinion the better choice would've have been Daisaku Kuze (Hitoshi Ozawa) since his dynamic with Kiryu would be a perfect equal to Ryoma and Takeshi. Also having super powers away from the dungeon, allowing you to have super move abilities was a bad move. I will be getting this remake, but as someone who has played and beaten the original, this honestly feels like a prettier looking downgrade

Since it's coming out for pc, restoration mod for model swaps would likely happen.

I'm blown away at how incredible this game looks now Like I'm seeing the characters facial features so clearly. Unreal

I generally find these changes very unnecessary, especially replacing Kugihara with Joon-gi Han. I think they should've not changed any of them and done a third Samurai game that uses characters from 0-7 (with maybe some JE and LJ characters idk)

I have mixed feelings... I'm ecstatic to see more of the three lieutenants, but sad to see that other characters are being replaced by them.

Jung really doesn't fit as Yamazaki imo (at least visually). Bro's got bleached white hair in 1860's Japan and looks like a supermodel but he just puts a rag on his head like "ahhh I am a master of disguise"

I will be honest, the cast from 6 and 7 are not very good fits. Their original characters were very different, so the choices feel like purely done to attract western audiences. The original had a connection between the original characters and the ishin ones.

I honestly like the old designs better. The playing the game with the new ones felt like playing a game where everyone was doing cosplay.

I was hoping someone would make a video about this. I was so confused to see all the Dojima patriarchs since the game was originally made before Yakuza 0. Interesting that they outright replaced Hamazaki tho

They're very much aware that none of the new yakuza 0 zoomers have played 1-3

Maaaaaaaaaaaaan, some of the originals I would've been so hype to see

New characters means new battles themes And kuze with guns.

Pretty much night and day. From Yakuza 5's engine to Lost Judgment's engine, this is a big jump in quality.

Not gonna lie, after played all the Yakuza games, watching all these familiar faces and voice in different roles is extremely distracting.

Replacing Kugihara's character model with Joon-Gi's makes the least sense, in my opinion. Also, Fs in the comments for my boy Hayashi. As much as I love Takeuchi, I'd rather have Hayashi play Takeda.

Fucking replacing the original character with shibusawa is criminal and is enough to make me refuse to the buy the game until it can be modded in or given an alternate option by the devs

Did they really change the characters so that the people that ONLY played 0 (wich are probably 90% of the RGG community) will also play that game? :/

The old face models looked more believably criminal, the new ones look like actors

NO BABA, NOT MY BABA

The old designs are far better

I'm absolutely happy to have Ishin in the west, but I prefered to keep the original cast. Now I feel like two Ishin exist and we'll never have one of them...

Kinda wish hamazaki stayed since his personality fits more than kuze for the character

Kuzeeeee

THATS SO FIRE

I can take most of the cast changes. The only one that really bothers me is Hanpeita being replaced from a totally original face to look like Shibusawa. I always thought it gave him a good bit of uniqueness as the game's main antagonist, as well as Ryoma's sworn brother. Especially since they had a charcter that looks like Nishiki in the game, but they went the extra mile to make him unique and stand out as his own character, not being a copy of anyone and have a completly unique face. Replacing him with Shibusawa feels like a weird decision to me motivated purely by popularity of Y0, as it kinda defeats the purpose of the original. Also seeing Shibusawa and Kiryu as sworn brothers is just something i really cant imagine. As much as I like the game, I feel quite negative about this change.

Looking forward to experience the story for the first time

I imagining that this is going to be turned into an ancestors story and im all for it

I just realized how good the old ones are

I think they should’ve kept baba, takechi and kondo Maybe the tortue guy who Joon-gi is now but the other 3 were pretty important and it sucks they were changed I dont think adachi fits the role that kondo had

It’s curious that the only swap they made backwards was Katsuragi for Masaru Sera

Really don't like how rgg is just trying to appeal to people who only played 0 and 7, it just doesn't look or feel right imo. Not to worry tho since I'm pretty sure there will be a mod which restores the original cast.

They're putting in much more, though best to discover, since the replacements aren't the only.

I really like the remake/new cast tbh

This’ll be my first time playing but I’m just happy we got Kuze lol

The best part is the removal of the piss filter

Thank god I found this video as I was so confused how Yakuza 7 characters were worked in in the trailer since I've never seen the original Ishin

ゲームの中でくらい夢を見たっていいじゃないか...

0:16 biggest downgrade possible

They replaced baba 😢

i thought they were addiing new content but this? This is pretty bad tbh. Some of these changes are VERY questionnable Why change Takechi's face?? he was like one of the only new characters in Isshin for a reason, and now we have to pretend that Shibusawa of ALL CHARACTERS IS REPLACING HIM?? Han joon gi is also a TERRIBLE CHOICE FOR THE CHARACTER THEY SWAPPED HIM FOR LMAO

I will play this game in English THEN after memorizing the story I will play the PS3 japanese version

KUZEEEEEEEEEE!!!

rip baba

so they changed the guy thats bald and a huge scar over his eye for a kpop guy, wow

I am so happy I get to see the guys from the family in this samurai setting

Tbh im not the biggest fan of these changes, even though I understand that they did probably to bring more players in and maybe some issues with getting the original actors in... But damn I really wished they kept the original Takechi. Imo Shibusawa doesn't really fit that role (no hate to the actor, he was great as Shibusawa in 0). But I'm still excited for the game

The only cast change i don't like is replacing kugihara with joon gi han. The others i like or I'm neutral on.

Kuze and awano are coming back? nice

Nicee

Great work, from RGG and Dev7!

nice

We need a Nod that Restores the Original Faces.

Damn. Some of these characters got a major glow up o_o

They gutted baba 😢

Old is actually better

Shibusawaaaaaa

I didn't expect replacing the yakuza characters .

Basically, there is a big difference in pay between terrestrial drama actors and V cinema actors. Moreover, Katsunori Takahashi as Takeichi and Eiichiro Funakoshi as Isamu Kondo are among the most famous drama actors, and I don't think the budget for the remake could pay their portrait rights fees. Probably the voice actors without portrait rights would have the cheapest pay.

I saw the thumbnail and thought you'd taken Captain Falcon's helmet off

I really want to see Andre Richardson in Unreal

I can't wait for the Ito kashitaro fight, I hope we get like 50 health bars on that dude, 3 battle phases, and a bad ass Kuze 0 theme samurai remix

The only disappointing change I find so far from this remake is the removal of the "With You" song

KUZE is BACK ...he is not kuze , but still , he is Kuze

Yo at 0:05 bro went from Japanese to straight up Italian. “Ayyy Tony, I’m a samurai now y’hear?” *hand gestures*

Maybe because the old actor in old games have technical issue like their contract is ended or something. That's why they decided to change it.

When I played this and finishedi it (I finished it last night) I was sorta was expecting to see the Shinsengumi abandon that name and create a new name which would be the Tojo clan (because of the Rise Of The Tojo outfit in this game) and have it tie into the actual Yakuza world but then I found out that Like A Dragon: Ishin is actually based on real world Japanese history of the story of the real Sakamoto Ryoma and the Meiji Restoration and after I found that out like minutes after watching the after credits cutscene, im glad they didnt do that and this game has now sparked my curiosity into the Edo period of Japan, especially the Bakumachi period of that time since thats when the story takes place irl For those who dont believe me, look up "Sakamoto Ryoma" and "Is Like A Dragon: Ishin based on real life events" Trust me, you wont he disappointed

Awano's back to roll those R's like a goddamn katamari again. Hell yeah.

Riki Takeuchi is the man!

They did my man Hayashi dirty

Man, imagine this but in dead souls, kurohyou and kenzan with this motor

KUUUUZEEEEEE!!!!!!

The og game has aged well

Not that I despise the changes, I hope they listened to the negative comments and make a last-minute update in which we have the option to switch between new and old characters.

Not sure why they changed up 0:33, that dude looked way more intimidating. Also the original brother looked more like he'd be dude's brother, if they were changing it up, should have swapped in Nishiki.