Dondoko Island in Like A Dragon Infinite Wealth explained, including how to increase the resort star rating

How to unlock Dondoko Island in Like A Dragon Infinite Wealth

Dondoko Island actually doesn't unlock in Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth until you've played a considerable part of the game. Fortunately, it's impossible to miss as it unlocks during Chapter 6 of the main story.

After a number of cutscenes at the start of the chapter, there comes a point where you will have a natural break before the story can progress. Kasuga will be left on his own and a fight will start on the beach to protect a turtle from some thugs. After this easy fight, another cutscene will play, and bizarre circumstances lead to Kasuga waking up on a mysterious remote island, which is distinguished by a change in design for the dialogue screens and an in-game time that is separate from the events of the main game.

How long it will take you to unlock Dondoko Island will depend on whether or not you're playing through other sub stories, with many becoming available from Chapter 3 onwards. But we estimate it will likely take around 15-20 hours to unlock.

Once it does begin, you will automatically play through Substory 33: The Island at Rock Bottom, setting up Dondoko Island's situation, as Kasuga decides to help its residents clean up the island and work from rock bottom to turn it into a 5-star resort.

The island has its own day and night cycle, a full day lasting roughly 15-20 minutes, with time paused when you’re in a menu screen. You will have tools, including an all-purpose bat for cleaning up garbage, farming natural resources on the island, and fighting enemies who routinely invade the island. As well as a harpoon for fishing, a bug net for catching bugs and a house where you'll return to rest and recover at the end of the day.

Your bat, harpoon and bug net can also be upgraded, making them quicker to use. You can do this by speaking to Kenzo, who arrives on the island at the start of your second day.

If you have lost any health while fighting during the day then you need to make sure you rest inside the house before the day is over otherwise you’ll wake up tired the next morning without having recovered any health.

Once you've had a few days to settle in, you'll be introduced to Dolphine, a dolphin that you can ride back to Honolulu to continue the story. After this, you can return to Dondoko Island anytime when you are playing as Kasuga by interacting with Dolphine or a sign with a dolphin above it, located to the south east of the Honolulu map down by the beach. Dondoko island's in-game time will also remain the same until you return each time.

How to expand Dondoko Island in Like A Dragon Infinite Wealth

Life on Dondoko Island follows a daily routine of activities that all work towards returning it into the resort it once was. You generally want to aim to do the following each day:

Get rid of garbage

The island is filled with junk piles that can be gotten rid of by simply equipping and swinging your bat. Junk piles can be found all around the island, such as the beach, which respawn each day. The most important junk piles to get rid of are at sites that you're aiming to clear out, which will permanently get rid of garbage in that area so that the land can be used for building and placing attractions.

You'll also have to get rid of trash in the form of enemies calling themselves the Washbucklers who turn up regularly on the island to cause trouble, and unlike the main game, combat here is in real time. Usually, you'll find a group of them in the areas that you're aiming to clear so will naturally encounter them this way. Very occasionally they will also appear randomly on the island, but you'll get an alert when this happens. You'll just need to hit them a few times with the bat to knock them out and make sure to also dodge attacks with R2/RT.

Farm for resources

Your all-purpose bat can be used for farming all kinds of resources, which are essential for crafting DIY furnishings that can be used to decorate the island to raise its satisfaction and popularity.

Junk piles can yield cloth, iron, plastic, glass, and semiconductors. For natural resources, you can farm wood from smashing trees, and stones from smashing rocks. Both wood and stone will be especially important resources to have when it comes to crafting buildings later on.

While junk piles no longer respawn in areas that have been cleared out, you don't miss out on resources as fortunately you'll also unlock a recycling area to the side of the shop where you'll just be able to collect resources from once a day. The amount of resources you obtain from the recycling area increases as you clear out more areas.

Craft and place DIY furnishings

You can use your resources to craft DIY furnishings from a work bench near Kasuga's house. Just approach the bench and press the button when a prompt comes up to DIY. This brings up a menu displaying all the blueprints that you can craft, which can also be categorised as furnishings (these can be placed inside Kasuga's house or outside), outdoor furnishings, floor decor, and even a tab for any blueprints you have favourited.

Each furnishing will have a number indicating the level of satisfaction and popularity it will add to the island when placed (the green heart indicates satisfaction while the pink thumbs up indicates popularity). Provided you have enough of the required materials, you can select the blueprint and the number of them you wish to craft and it will be done immediately.

Some furnishings will also have one of the following themes: rustic, sleazy, pop, or elegant. The more furnishings you place belonging to a certain theme, that will also indicate the island’s general theme, which will have an impact on guests, though more on that later.

As you craft more DIY furnishings, you'll also gain experience, levelling up your building talent. Each time you level up, you'll also unlock more blueprints for more elaborate furnishings, including buildings. More blueprints can also be discovered from picking up bottles that wash up on the beach every day, and after Dondoko Island has been unlocked, when you return to Honolulu, some NPCs you speak to might also give you new blueprints.

To furnish your island you need to open edit mode which shows your surroundings in a gridded format and a hand cursor to navigate. Press Triangle/Y to open your bag and select the furnishing you'd like to place and you'll then be able to select where to place it, using the bumpers to rotate its position and then pressing Cross/A to confirm. If the grid under the furnishing is highlighted in bright green then you will be able to place the furnishing there.

This process is the same for furnishing the island's outdoors as well as for Kasuga's house. While furnishing the island will raise its satisfaction and popularity rating, decorating Kasuga's house improves its livability. This increases Kasuga's lifehearts, which is important when fighting the Washbucklers. Essentially, the more furnishings in his house, the better his wellbeing (although this seems to be the case even if you populate it with all kinds of junk).

You can also speak to Kenzo to expand your house, including adding a second floor so that you can decorate it with even more furnishings to further increase your health. Adding a second floor is, however, very expensive and we found that the enemies aren't that difficult so expanding the first floor is sufficient, unless you really just want more space to decorate.

How to increase Dondoko Island's star rating in Like A Dragon Infinite Wealth

The ultimate goal of the Dondoko Island mini game is to transform the island into a five-star resort, which you'll be working towards one star at a time.

Each star requirement includes reaching a set satisfactory and popularity target. Increasing this primarily comes from decorating the island with more attractive furnishings, and the most appealing of these will be buildings. Popularity can also be increased from farming specialties, such as collecting shells, mushrooms, ores, fish, and bugs. The more of these you collect, the more the island’s popularity increases, while each specialty item will increase its selling value.

A quick way to increase popularity comes later when you are able to spend money to run commercials, but more on that later.

Another star requirement is clearing out new garbage-filled areas, which in turn give you more space to place more furnishings to increase the island's ratings. To clear out an area, walk up to the sign at that area's entrance and press Cross/A when the prompt comes up. This will give the conditions you can to clear the area out, which will have a big red button displaying 'Cannot Clear Out' if you don’t meet the conditions. These will include having reached the required building talent level, and having enough Dokobucks, the island's currency.

While you just need to keep crafting more furnishings to increase your building talent, the cost to clear the site depends on the cleanliness of the area. The grade of this goes up as you clear junk piles from the site each day. Smashing up all junk piles in a given area is usually enough to raise the grade once, so it's recommended that you do this every day. Even if you happen to have enough Dokobucks, we still recommend spending time to increase the grade of the site's cleanliness to at least A before opting to clear out the site to save Dokobucks that you could be using on other upgrades, items or unlocks.

Once the island has reached the required satisfaction and popularity rating and the requested areas have been cleared out, you'll be able to speak to Matayoshi at the general store and you'll get a visit from an inspector who will award you the island a new star. You can then work towards the next star requirement and unlock new features, while you'll also get a nice bonus of funds to help with the next milestone, such as spending money to build a bridge to reach new areas.

Guests on Dondoko Island in Like A Dragon Infinite Wealth explained

After Dondoko Island has become a one-star resort, you'll be able to start having guests come to stay on the island, which will be your main source of generating income on the island. To do this, you first need to buy lodgings from Kenzo in the general store. As a one-star resort, you only have two options but we recommend spending extra to get the E-ranked Simple Tent to start with.

Bought lodgings then go into your inventory and you will need to use the edit mode to place them on the island. In order for guests to access lodgings, these need to be placed next to a path. While there are pre-made paths, you can also create your own paths when in edit mode by pressing Square/X to open a menu with different types of paths. You need to start from an existing path it can connect to before you start building and then just confirm when you have its end point.

Once lodgings have been set, you'll be able to select guests to visit the island during the morning assembly the next day. The number of lodgings you can have on the island will increase as you clear out more areas and raise the resort's star rating, with five lodgings being the most you can place.

Each guests' visit lasts for three days and the goal is to raise their approval so that they leave feeling like they've had the best holiday ever. This can be seen from a figure above their head that indicates whether they are dissatisfied, unmoved, satisfied, pleased, or overjoyed. Each guest has four requests so the easiest way to meet their approval is to ensure your island meets those four conditions at the start, and overjoyed guests will pay out a bigger tip. Not only do you earn Dokobucks at the end of their stay but your bonus also converts into real dollars that you can then spend back in Honolulu.

Guests also have their own grade, which usually indicates their budget and difficulty of their demands. You can, of course, make changes and additions to your island to fulfil their requests, but if they remain dissatisfied by the end of the second day then they’ll leave the island before their holiday is even over.

One of the important things to pay attention to are furnishings that correspond to a certain theme, as a guest may want to see a set number of sleazy things, for example, while later guests want the island to be very elegant (but as long as you have a large number of themed furnishings, that is sufficient rather than being the island’s dominant theme).

To have the required satisfying effect, guests also need to be able to interact with these furnishings, which means they need to be placed next to a path. In addition, furnishings can also help generate more income, such as vending machines and market stalls, though the big earners are facilities like restaurants, a karaoke bar, or even a cabaret club. As long as you place these buildings at a path, or build a path that leads to it, guests can find it and you’ll also receive alerts when someone has interacted with a furnishing and responded positively. Naturally, guests will more likely interact with furnishings and facilities that are their preferred theme.

Raising guests' approval can also be done incrementally each day by greeting them with Square/X when they're nearby and by giving them souvenirs. While the latter can be any item you have in your inventory, actual souvenirs can be made by a boy called Subaru who joins the island the same time you have your first guests on the island. You can find him sitting by a hut to the south of the island at Dondoko Beach. Speak to him to develop and produce souvenirs.

Souvenirs cost Dokobucks to develop before they can be produced, which then require specialty materials found on the island. Some souvenirs are food items, which you might not want to give away as Kasuga can use them to recover health when fighting enemies. Note, however, that while you can pay to develop food souvenirs early, the materials needed to produce them won't be available until you’ve unlocked Dondoko Farm.

You will also be able to request more features from Subaru as the island improves. When it becomes a three-star resort, you can ask him to buy commercial time slots to advertise the island, boosting the island's popularity as well as adding new potential guests. You can buy an ad for a local TV station for 100,000 Dokobucks or an online broadcast for 200,000 Dokobucks. After the island becomes a four-star resort, you can request a campfire for 100,000 Dokobucks, which ends that day with a campfire singalong on the beach with your guests, which will greatly raise their satisfaction level. You will, however, need at least four guests on the island to do this.

You don't have to spend ad money to find more affluent guests, as at the end of each stay, your reputation also goes up, unlocking more guests. If you've completed sidestories, some of those characters can also be invited to be a guest as well, which will be indicated by a speech bubble with a palm tree above their head. If you're playing as Kiryu, some characters will automatically be eligible guests after completing their Life Links quest.

Dondoko Farm in Like A Dragon Infinite Wealth explained

Another important feature on Dondoko Island is Dondoko Farm, which is actually a separate location from the island, being a way to generate both income and resources. It's also closely linked with the Sujimon training mini game, as you'll need Sujimon to get the most out of it.

Dondoko Farm can be accessed via a raft located at Mukku Beach on the west side of the island. You should actually see this raft early on but you won’t have the option to interact with it until the island has become a two-star resort.

Besides a fishing spot and even more resources to gather from, Dondoko Farm has some incredibly useful facilities that your Sujimon can be put to productive use. Each task takes a set amount of time to complete, the longest being 60 in-game minutes, which can take up to three island days, though the longer the task, the more you get at the end. Each facility requires at least one leader Sujimon, although you can assign a maximum of three, and if they are in the corresponding element as the task type then you have a higher chance of yielding a higher output.

Workshop is a great way to earn Dokobucks by simply putting Sujimon to work. It's not actually clear what they craft, but that doesn't really matter compared to the profits you receive at the end. The best task is Mastercrafting, which takes 60 in-game minutes to complete but will give you at least 300,000 Dokobucks, and even more if you assign three light-based Sujimon to the task.

Crop Patches are essential for farming vegetables, which you'll need to produce the food-based souvenirs. You can select up to three crops you want harvested and the amount of time it will take to cultivate, with a higher yield the longer it takes. Each crop is also associated with a specific element, so ideally you want to match that with a Sujimon of the same elemental base to yield bonus gains.

Recycling Centre is another way to farm more resources for crafting, and you can select specific types that will focus on yielding specific resources such as natural goods like wood and stone, or also just a large yield of everything. Each task also comes under its own elemental theme, which you’ll also want to find the right Sujimon for.

Finally, there's the training spot, where you can assign Sujimon to level up, though this will also cost you Dokobucks. It's a good way to level up Sujimon quickly if you're invested in the Sujimon training mini game, otherwise you can leave this as your Sujimon level won’t matter so much when they're working on the farm.

After you've become a three-star resort, harmful pests may sometimes appear on Dondoko Farm, which will prevent Sujimon from being productive. When this happens, you'll be alerted and it's in your interest to get rid of the pests as soon as possible. The pests will always appear on the west side of the farm and, once you approach them, you will fight them via a Sujimon battle.

How to make money fast on Dondoko Island in Like A Dragon Infinite Wealth

Transforming Dondoko Island into the dream resort requires a lot of money, that is the island's unique currency of Dokobucks. There's many ways to earn Dokobucks just from your day-to-day activities. These include:

Complete Dondoko dailies

You're given five random tasks to do each day, from crafting a set number of DIY furnishings to chopping down trees, to catching a set number of bugs or fish, and so on. Completing each of these tasks nets you some Dokobucks in return, usually around 10,000 Dokobucks if you complete all five. It’s also a good way to structure each day.

Defeat Washbuckler enemies

You'll need to defeat enemies if they're hanging around when you're trying to clear an area of garbage or if they suddenly appear anywhere else on the island, which can be an issue when guests are also on site. But defeating them will also net you some Dokobucks for your trouble.

Sell items

Most specialties you collect can be sold to Matayoshi at the general store for Dokobucks. Fish are probably the best thing to sell, so it helps to fish in all the fishing spots available to you each day. A fish's sell price also increases the more times you catch it, further incentivising this activity.

You can also craft furnishings and then sell them back to Matayoshi; since you can make multiple copies of any furnishing, this can be very quick and easy money. But since you will need the same resources to craft furnishings you want to populate the island, be careful that you don’t find yourself short of resources.

Fulfil requests in suggestion box

This is a more long-term activity, but, much like the dailies, you'll receive Dokobucks for completing specific tasks that you can find in the Suggestion Box tab in the menu. These include tasks like destroying a high number of trees or rocks, or also a set number of furnishings you can place in a given area, or how many furnishings of a theme you have crafted.

Build facilities for guests to spend money on

You'll make the most money by making guests happy on the island, but one way to get more from them is having them spend money on facilities. These need to be placed by a path so that a guest can access them. When placing one of these furnishings down, a message will also appear on the screen, indicating that this is 'available for guest leisure' followed by 'Dokobucks UP' beneath.

As much as building your own dream island resort is an escape for the main gameplay, the big incentive for working on Dondoko Island is, like past mini games in the series, earning money. Doing this however takes a bit more time.

When you wish to head back to Honolulu, you'll notice that Dolphine gives you the option to convert Dokobucks back into dollars, 1000 Dokobucks the equivalent of 10 dollars, or 1,000 yen. We, however, wouldn’t recommend converting money early on, because you’ll need the Dokobucks if you actually want to progress in Dondoko Island's mini game.

Instead, working to improve the island's star rating is more effective as each time the rating improves, you're also given a nice cash bonus as well as bonus Dokobucks. The cash reward goes up as you get more stars, and completing the Dondoko Island story and becoming a five-star resort gives you a $300,000 reward.

Alongside that, the best way to earn dollars is to build more lodgings to invite more guests with big budgets to stay on the island, and then ensure they get a 100% satisfaction rating to get a big bonus. While the numbers aren’t exact, the profits you yield based on the income generated from a guest tour is roughly close to the conversion rate of Dokobucks to dollars. For instance, in our first guest tour, the checkout fee for three guests totalled at 58,919 Dokobucks while we were rewarded with $530.27. With more guests staying at more lodgings with higher budgets, you can imagine how the money starts pouring in after you've put in the investment.

Hope you enjoy creating the resort of your dreams in Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth’s Dondoko Island!