While Kiryu often finds himself working with the leaders of the Tojo Clan to thwart conspiracies aimed against them, the primary theme of the series is his desire to leave the yakuza for good and start over by raising orphans and trying to assimilate into civilian life. The gameplay of Yakuza / Like a Dragon has the player controlling Kiryu in an open world where he can fight random groups of punks and gangsters, take on side missions and activities to earn experience and money, learn new moves from non-player characters , eat and drink at various restaurants, visit hostess and cabaret clubs, craft items, and engage in a variety of mini games such as golfing, bowling, batting cages, video arcades, karaoke, and gambling games including poker, blackjack, Cee-lo, and Koi-Koi.
The franchise has become a commercial and critical success, and as of 2022, Sega has reported that the video game series has sold a combined total of 19.8 million units in physical and digital sales since its debut in 2005. Strong sales of the games in its original Japanese market has led to the franchise's expansion to other media, including film adaptations.
The Yakuza / Like a Dragon game series is set primarily in the fictional district of Kamuroch? , which is based on Kabukich?, an actual red-light district of Tokyo. Other actual locations reproduced in the game series include:
The appearances of the in-game districts and towns are based on their contemporary actual locations from the year each game came out, and are often renovated and remodeled in newer games. However, specific stores and buildings are often different or carry fictionalized branding compared to their real life counterparts, replacing them with real-life product placements or plot-important locations.
The primary protagonist of the Yakuza / Like a Dragon franchise is Kazuma Kiryu, who is playable in every numbered entry of the main video game series through Yakuza 6: The Song of Life. Some games, such as Yakuza 4 and Yakuza 5, feature multiple playable characters, with players switching between them at predetermined points in the story.Ichiban Kasuga became the new lead character of the main series games beginning with Yakuza: Like a Dragon, with up to six of his companions available as playable characters during combat sequences, though Kiryu appeared in a non-playable capacity and became playable again in subsequent installments.
Other characters have appeared as the protagonists of various spin-off titles. Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise, a video game adaptation of the manga franchise Fist of the North Star by Buronson and Tetsuo Hara, features some thematic links to the Yakuza / Like a Dragon franchise, with many of its characters like Kenshiro voiced by the same voice actors who play recurring characters in the main series games.
All Yakuza / Like a Dragon games feature a mixture of combat, story and exploration. In fights, the player character uses hand-to-hand combat, using combos, grabs, throws and finishing moves, and some games allow the player character to select from and use multiple fighting styles. Battles end quicker by finishing the enemies using powerful moves called Heat Actions, which require the filling of the 'Heat Gauge' to become usable. The seventh installment in the series, Yakuza: Like a Dragon, includes a new battle system where the player character recruits party members to fight alongside them in turn-based role-playing game battles against enemies, and to play alongside them in mini-games.
