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Like a Dragon: Ishin

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How to Play Buyo Dancing in Like a Dragon Ishin

By
Jarrod Garripoli

There are a variety of minigames in Like a Dragon: Ishin, with the ability to play some of them as soon as you get to Chapter 2 in the main story. Buyo Dancing is a rhythm-based minigame that might seem easy at first, but can prove difficult to those not experienced with rhythm games.

Where to Play Buyo Dancing in Like a Dragon: Ishin

You won’t be able to play this minigame until you’ve reached Chapter 3 of the main story. Once you have, head to Rakunai and look at your map. There is a large, purple building towards the northeast, which is where you should be heading. As you approach the southern side of that building, you will trigger a scene that will begin the Nichibuza’s Newest Fan Substory. You will actually have to do the minigame during the course of the Substory, but it will be on the easiest difficulty. After completing the Substory, you will be able to attempt any of the difficulties for the minigame, by visiting the Nichibuza building. Note that it costs 1,000 Mon each time you want to participate.

(1 of 2) You can see white dots on the inner parts of the circles for where the notes will appear

You can see white dots on the inner parts of the circles for where the notes will appear (left), Hit the note at the perfect spot for a Beautiful rank (right)

How to Play Buyo Dancing in Like a Dragon: Ishin

As you can already tell, if you’ve completed the Substory, Buyo Dancing is a rhythm minigame. You will use the directional pad on the easiest difficulty, but both the directional pad and face buttons on all other difficulties. The goal of this minigame is to press the required direction/face button whenever the white bar approaches the end of the circle. If you hit it perfectly, then you should see Beautiful pop up on the screen, but there are various grades given for successfully/unsuccessfully hitting a note. Your score will be in the upper right corner and next to your score will be the goal you need to reach to pass the song.

If you look below your score, though, you should see a flower that fills up as you successfully hit notes. Once full, you can press L1/LB to initiate a bonus minigame, where you need to guide a fan along a track, using the designated analog stick, to the end. This little bit is timed, so you need to act fast. If you get the fan to the end, then you will receive some bonus points (4,000 points). If you are hitting all of the notes, it’s better to ignore the bonus, as you tend to get more points from just hitting notes. This is especially true on higher difficulties, since there will be more notes to hit. If you miss a note, are playing on the easiest difficulty, or have trouble with a spot in the song, it’s a good idea to use the bonus.

How to Complete Buyo Dancing in Like a Dragon: Ishin

(1 of 2) Non-Beginner difficulties will have inputs on both sides of the screen

Non-Beginner difficulties will have inputs on both sides of the screen (left), The bonus has you guiding a fan from one end to another (right)

There’s a total of three different songs in Buyo Dancing, with each song have four different difficulties. In order to achieve completion, as per the Completion List, you will need to achieve the rank of First Class on all difficulties of all three songs. Just beating the required score to pass the song won’t be enough here, as First Class is achieved by getting a better score than that. This isn’t too bad, on the lower difficulties, but the Advanced and Geisha difficulties can be quite challenging. However, there are some tips and tricks you can utilize to make things a little easier, with most of them concerning the higher difficulties.

What makes the difficulties past Beginner more challenging is that you have to kind of split your focus between the directional pad on the left side, and the face buttons on the right. All of the songs will switch between them, which may seem like random, at first, but there is a bit of a trick to it. Whenever a string of notes ends with the Square/X or Right D-Pad, the game will tend to always switch to the other set of inputs (usually the Right D-Pad/Square or X). This makes it much easier to keep tabs on when it will switch over to the other side, so you aren’t constantly wondering when it will switch. There are some exceptions to this rule, but it’s mostly ironclad.

How to Complete Fubuki Kouta on Geisha Difficulty

Note that in order to max Maijo-sensei’s bond, you will be playing this song on the Geisha difficulty. The song starts out fairly normally, but there will a tricky bit at the end of the second verse. When you see two notes, then a string of another note, there will be a single note following those two notes in succession that can be hard to miss. This is done multiple times in a row, too, so be careful with those. The ending will have single notes in a circle on the right side, then with one last single note on the left side.

(1 of 3) Be careful of the stray note before the consecutive ones near the end of Fubuki Kouta

How to Complete Heartbeat on Geisha Difficulty

This might be the easiest song on Geisha difficulty, since the majority of the song is rather straightforward, although the ending portion can be a bit rough. Most of the notes will be triplets for a good set of the song, then it will switch things up a bit once the tempo increases after the little bit of slowdown. Here, the song will make consecutive notes when it goes from one button to another. The finale, as mentioned, is the most challenging, as the game will alternate between two buttons on either side (ex. alternate between Right D-Pad and Square/X). It will return to more consecutive notes, then end with two full circles, starting with the right side, then the left, and one final note on the right.

How to Complete Samurai Enbu on Geisha Difficulty

Samurai Enbu can be a difficult song to complete on Geisha, as there is a section near the end that doesn’t really follow the normal conventions mentioned above. The song starts out rather tame, with a lot of consecutive same notes. When it first switches to the left side, be careful about the tempo of the song slightly throwing you off. The song will keep to this slightly off-beat rhythm throughout the entire thing. When the song gets a little quiet and then picks up again, you are nearing the end portion that is challenging. Here, the song will alternate between the Right D-Pad and Square/X, then it will make a full circle with the face buttons in quick succession, before becoming somewhat normal. The last four notes are going to be two D-Pad ones, then Square/X and Circle/B.

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Guide Information
  • Publisher
    Sega
  • Platforms,
    PS4, PS5, Steam, XB One, XB X|S
  • Genre
    Action RPG
  • Guide Release
    17 February 2023
  • Last Updated
    20 March 2023
    Version History
  • Guide Author

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Like a Dragon: Ishin is set in 1860’s Japan during the Bakumatsu era at the end of the Edo Period. Take up the sword of Sakamoto Ryoma, framed for killing his father, and restore honor to his name while dealing with the political intrigue that he gets thrown in to. This guide for Like a Dragon: Ishin contains the following:

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