Best abilities to learn early in Like a Dragon Gaiden

Like a Dragon Gaiden allows you to rid the streets of Sotenbori of thugs while utilizing a wide variety of abilities learned along the way. Here is our guide telling you the best abilities to learn early in Like a Dragon Gaiden.

Like a Dragon Gaiden – best abilities to learn early

Early in your Like a Dragon Gaiden adventure, you gain access to a variety of powerful abilities. To activate abilities, you must meet the corresponding requirements. The most common requirement is that you have enough money and enough Akame Points. You’ll also need plenty of both currencies to upgrade an ability you have already learned. You gain points and money by improving the Akame Network.

Related: How to access and use the Akame Network in Like a Dragon Gaiden

Most of the best abilities in the game are fairly expensive. It pays to be selective about the ones you learn most quickly, so you can thrive and activate more advanced abilities. The various abilities fall into four categories: Stats, Shared Abilities, Agent, and Yakuza. Below, I’m listing some of the important abilities to aim for early in your adventure in each of those categories.

Stats

Go for Boost Attack first. This ability lets you hit your foes harder. You’ll fight in a lot of brawls, both in Sotenbori (usually with random thugs) and at the Castle, in the coliseum. Your health is important too. But if you can hit hard right as a battle begins, your enemies will have less time to inflict damage. You should also fare better against bosses. Once you fill Boost Attack, you can gain additional attack abilities that allow you to inflict additional damage.

Shared Abilities

Although some of these abilities relate to your combat prowess, many of them affect other areas. Increase Equippable Gear, which appears right at the top of the list, is arguably the most important. Without it, you can only have one piece of gear equipped at one time. There is a lot of gear to find in Sotenbori, so you’ll want to up that limit soon. I’m also partial to the No Reservations ability, which allows you to eat as much as you like at a restaurant, provided you can pay. This is useful because otherwise, you can usually only eat one or two dishes per visit. Eating every dish in the neighborhood will take a lot longer.

Agent

I didn’t use this discipline as much as I should have throughout the main campaign. It’s surprisingly useful, especially in late-game coliseum matches. I suggest learning its intricacies much earlier than I did. In particular, the Agent Gadget: Serpent Lv. Up ability should receive some attention. It lets you jet around the field of battle like you’re on roller skates. I win some fights just by cruising around without throwing a punch. Another useful ability is Agent Gadget: Hornet Lv. Up. You can walk around the street, just summoning an army of hornet drones to hit enemies. It’s enormously satisfying. The ‘Agent’ fighting style is quite robust.

Yakuza

This fighting style is fairly bland, mostly because it is the most familiar if you’ve been playing the games for years. There’s not a lot to surprise you, although I do still like The Countdown. It lets you come to your feet with a counter that enemies seem to fall for pretty often. I don’t recommend spending a lot of Akame Points in this overall category until you have tended to some of the more intriguing abilities available in the other ones.

The above list should give you a good idea where to start as you master and upgrade your first few abilities. There’s no definite answer that’s right for everyone, since you’ll likely gravitate to one fighting style over another. Have fun experimenting but, in general, don’t dismiss one category or another until you’ve properly explored its potential.

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