Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii Review

Developed by Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio and published by Sega, Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii is the next of the Yakuza line from Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio and boy did they swing for the fences. Fan favourite Majima Goro is the star of the show and brings his eccentric malevolence to those who deserve it. But to turn his eccentric dial up to 11 they have given him the desire to be a treasure-hunting pirate. Combined with teaser trailers which showed popular wrestling star Samoa Joe appearing in the game it did a good job of whetting the appetite for Yakuza series fans.

                I originally thought the game was supposed to take place in parallel to the game Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, but it takes place just after that game and I suppose it had to *mild spoiler* for continuity considering Majima made an appearance in that game. Regardless, a 60-year-old ultra-ripped Majima is washed up on Rich Island with amnesia so he has no idea who he is or was. A boy called Noah Rich with his pet cat (tiger) finds Majima and offers him some water to recover. Then as expected a group of pirate wannabes stroll down the beach looking for a fight and instinct kicks in and Majima single-handedly sends them packing. Noah becomes infatuated with Majima as he sees him as his ticket off the island. Noah has health issues and knows of little else other than the island and is desperate for adventure. Majima always one for adventure also needs to find a way off the island and believes a pirate ship may be his ticket to recovering who he is. But if you are going to take over a pirate ship and its crew then why not just be an adventurous pirate yourself – what’s the worst that can happen…

                I know the Like a Dragon series has taken their own direction on combat in the previous games using a semi-turn-based style. However, this time out they have changed it back to real-time fighting again similar to the older Yakuza games but with the fluidity in and out of battle that feels closer to the spin-off game Lost Judgement’s combat style. Similar to Kiryu in previous Yakuza games who usually had 3 fighting styles to play with, Majima just has 2. One is his Yakuza Mad Dog style which is a fast ruthless attack style with his trademark knife. The other is his Pirate style which involves dual swords, a gun and a grappling hook. These styles automatically switch depending on if you are on land or the pirate ship but you can switch whilst fighting should you want to. Both styles have “heat actions” which are special moves captured in small cutscenes that do high damage to an enemy or enemies depending on how the move is triggered. There are also big special moves which can be triggered when the special gauge is full. This manifests as shadow clones of Majima who fight alongside him in the Mad Dog style and it allows you summon great beasts in the Pirate style when you unlock them by finding the right dark musical instruments in treasure chests.

There is also the ship combat which accounts for a large chunk of the game. They have made it as simple as possible and it is quite fun when done in small bursts. As with all combat in these games, if you do it frequently it can be repetitive, but essentially you have 4 different ways to attack other ships; your frontal machine gun which can overheat if constantly used but great at knocking of a fair share of health of enemies; side canons which you have to line up alongside another ship to get in range to attack them for large damage; a small speed boost to ram into ships to do a fair share of damage; lastly you can jump out of ship mode to 3^rd person mode to fire a rocket launcher to other nearby ships. If you get hurt you have a limited number of ship repairs to regain its health and in serious danger you can put up a smoke screen to try and escape. Your ship starts off pretty basic but by finding and buying upgrades you can turn your ship into a world beater by firing lasers or faeces out of your cannons and coconuts out of your machine gun for extra damage.

                As with all games from the Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio they jam pack a lot of content into the game to keep you occupied and mainly to distract you from the main quest. I think if you solidly focused on just the main quest you could complete the game in only a few sittings but who does that nowadays? It’s always about exploring and this studio have mastered this art although it does feel like they have cheated a bit here. By that I mean many of the activities from Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth have been copied and pasted here. You have the arcade areas where you can play games like Fighting Vipers 2, Sega Racing Classic and Virtua Fighter 3. You can play Master System games at one of your hideouts if you purchase them from pawn shops. There are also a few familiar mini games like darts, golf, pool and the batting centre although they have made that at least pirate themed.

They have also included the 2 new mini games of the food delivery Crazy Taxi-styled game and the snapping a picture of a pervert whilst riding the tram game. I know they already leaned on that game for the Hawaii map as well but copying most of the games to me feels partially like shrewdly reusing assets a little too much this time out. That’s not to say Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii doesn’t have its own unique games. It has a whole section based on being a Pirate as well as exploring other islands for treasure. Once you fully take over the Pirate ship you get to do some customising to the crew and the ship itself. You can buy designs for your ship from different merchants in Hawaii to decorate your ship how you please and there are even some downloadable content should you so choose to add some familiar designs and characters to your ship. One of the main tasks of being a Pirate captain is that you need to grow your crew. This can be done in a variety of ways of talking to the right people or by completing quests for people which inevitably leads to them wanting to join your ship. Each character you add will have some strengths and weaknesses for the ship where they may be good at firing cannons but not so good at maintaining the ship. Some character may have bonuses that can be used if they are set as a sub leader or a first mate so you have to play around with formations to get the one that works for you. But filling out the ship is important for the Ship battles you will encounter and for when it comes to exploring islands for treasure.   

                The exploration it encourages you to do is vital in gaining components and money to pay for upgrades to yourself and your ship. All health, attack and skill upgrades are gained by spending money in those areas. The same goes for improvements to your ship so you need to have money to do any kind of upgrading. But there are various ways where you can gain money and the main way is to collect bounties from wanted criminals. You are given locations of all the bounties up for collection how difficult they are and how much reward money you get from beating them into submission. The other way to gain money fast is to explore islands on your boat to search for treasure which gives you both money and pirate prestige which is needed to progress some of the story also for upgrades to your ship. A higher prestige also allows you to recruit better people for your Pirate crew.

                The overall feel of the game can only be explained as just farfetched. Why are there still pirates like that of old folktales still sailing around Hawaii? Why is the focus of much of the story around the young boy Noah having an adventure with an ex-Yakuza captain who has just accepted he wants to be a pirate? Previous Yakuza games have far more grit and gristle with clever intertwined stories weaving throughout the playthrough. They are small pockets of grit – people are being fed to sharks for example – which is quite gritty but its only down to emphasise the main villains of the game. Don’t get me wrong even the previous grittiest Yakuza games had large chunks of comedy moments in them to brighten the mood once in a while. But with this game the wackiness seems to constantly try and hit higher levels. I thought the peak would be playing dark musical instruments to summon monsters like a giant gorilla to fight enemies for you. But that paled in comparison to a specific side quest where your chef first mate Masuru embarks on a real-life dating show cutscene. By real life I mean you are taken out of the game and encouraged to watch 20 minutes of real film footage of Masaru trying to woo each of the girls with his skills and small talk. It is as amusing as it is cringeworthy which it is supposed to be, but it circles back why I feel the game is farfetched.

                But don’t get me wrong, just because the game is not as serious as the others doesn’t make it any less fun – quite the opposite. Being a fan of this series, I did miss the complex storylines and the amazing twists that come with them. The story in this game plays out like a fever dream which it might as well be considering the story is being told by Majima who is known for being erratic. But my only negative would be is that travelling on the ship to the different islands felt a bit of a chore as the ship was so slow.

Conclusion

Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii is everything I thought this game was going to be and I enjoyed the ride immensely. It’s possible purists may not like the tone of the game too much but as a fan I can always get behind Majima being the main protagonist. His attitude and antics from previous games suit the farfetched nature here and you don’t even need to have played any of the previous game to dive in and enjoy this title.

This game was tested and reviewed on Xbox Series X/S (via a Game Pass Ultimate subscription). All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version.