Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii

Sometimes I like to wonder why there’s not a lot of pirate games out there despite the market for them being considerably bigger than most people expected. Games allow players to experience roles and fantasies unobtainable in real life, and we have plenty of games fulfilling specific roles. We have games about exploring the vastness of space, dark fantasy worlds, slay demons in the depths of hell, etc. However, there just aren’t a lot of pirate games, but maybe that’s a me thing. If we were to go to Steam and check under the genre tag  ‘Pirates’ you’d see there are more than five hundred pirate games out there. Five hundred plus games aimed toward the demographic of people who want to roleplay or play as pirates. However, not a lot of these games stand out and some of these titles despite having pirates don’t exactly capture the exactness of a pirate fantasy. Pillars of Eternity 2 has the ‘Pirates’ label but it’s a fantasy CRPG with turn-based combat, and a world full of magic and mystical creatures. The only pirating you interact with in the game is the boat used to sail around the overworld. You may also notice that a lot of the games at the top are One Piece games. They are pirate themed games, but not fully pirate games.

Now am I saying that there is a definitive definition of what a pirate game is and should be? No, because for me to do that would be to look down upon how game developers and artists convey and display their work. I am not going to say Pillars of Eternity 2 isn’t a pirate game, or that its attempt to have some pirating elements wasn’t in vain. I am not going to say Monkey Island isn’t a pirate game despite using its setting and characters to display some of the most emotional fun you’ll ever have with a game. I’m not going to say One Piece games aren’t pirate games, because then its fanbase would kill me. There is no true definition of what a good pirate game is. What we can have instead are what people consider the gold standards for pirate games. Top of the line titles people look towards when it comes to capturing this fantasy. One of the biggest of course being Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag. I already wrote a review last year exclaiming my love for the game, so I’m not gonna repeat myself again too much. Black Flag has a lot of what makes a great pirate. A beautiful sandbox to sail, challenging naval combat, islands to explore, treasure to uncover, and side activities that fit the pirate fantasy. Then you have Sea of Thieves which is all basically what I described but now you can do it with friends. These two are the gold standard of pirates, but aside from them there’s not much else you can mention.

That wasn’t until earlier this year we received Like A Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii. Latest entry in the longrunning Yakuza series. I’ve talked about my fair share of Yakuza in the past. I’m not an omega fan of the franchise, but it is a series of games I enjoy coming back to every now and then. Yakuza 0 sparked my interest in 2020, and my love blossomed with Like A Dragon. Its sequel slash eighth mainline installment in the series Infinite Wealth released last year, and while it was a game I really liked and ended up strongly recommending, I felt like Yakuza should have stopped after that point. Infinite Wealth was the most ambitious and grandest Yakuza game RGG had made up until that point. There should’ve been nowhere else to go from there. Long running protagonist Kazuma Kiryu reached the end of his storyline (probably), they refurbished the turn based combat of Like A Dragon to a brilliant shine, and the game was so big and full of content that going any bigger would’ve been detrimental. I really enjoyed Infinite Wealth, but a huge part of me felt worn out by the time the game rolled credits. It felt kinda bloated, which is something I didn’t feel with Yakuza: Like A Dragon. Part of this could be that I played Like A Dragon back in high school when I had all the free time in the world, and college life makes it difficult to try and enjoy games with long runtimes. With time I’ve seen fans express the same criticisms I have. How the story didn’t feel as neatly woven, and some of the side content in the game wasn’t necessary. A good example of how bigger isn't always better.

Infinite Wealth should’ve been the last of Yakuza in my opinion. Anything after that seems like it would further burn out developers who have to churn one of these games out every year, or Sega trying to make bank on a series running on empty fuel tanks. That’s why I was extremely worried when Pirate Yakuza was revealed during the last quarter of 2024. RGG had finished the biggest Yakuza game to date, and now you’re sending them back out to make another. Not only that but it would be a spinoff game reusing numerous aspects from Infinite Wealth, and star Goro Majima one of the series’ most loved characters as the protag. On one hand you have a cool pirate game in a genre lacking gold standard titles. On the other hand it's a pirate game with Yakuza tacked on because they knew it wouldn’t sell well if they didn’t. I was skeptical, and earlier this year I tried Like A Dragon: Ishin! I originally planned to cover this game upon beating it only to feel rather mixed with the game. Yakuza fatigue was kicking in and Pirate Yakuza wasn’t going to help it. Still I tried to game during a sale, and I’m kinda glad I did. Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii isn’t going to rock your socks off if you’ve already played a handful of these games. It also isn’t going to rock your socks if you've played a pirate game like Black Flag before, because it isn’t trying to be the deepest pirate game out there. It is a lot better than I was expecting, and proves the people at Ryu Ga Gotoku Studiosare willing to do great things even with tried and true formulas. Let’s talk about Like A Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii and why it deserves your attention.

Story

Slight spoilers for Infinite Wealth, but in the eighth game you learn of what became of the great dissolution back in Like A Dragon. Ex-yakuza members attempted to rebuild their lives after all their families disbanded, something happened, and a whole bunch of chaos emerged. There were a bunch of gangs in Hawaii, mass nuclear waste smuggling and storage on a single island, an evil cult, and they were all working together. A whole bunch of other stuff and you can kinda see why a bunch of fans retrospectively think this narrative isn’t as tightly woven as Like A Dragon. Needless to say actions have been taken to further assist ex-yakuza, and clean up all the nuclear waste slowly leaking into the ocean. Ex-yakuza members were shipped to Nele Island where the waste had accumulated to help clean it up, and one such yakuza sent to assist in these efforts was Goro Majima. Former member of the Shimano Family, then the patriarch of his own family, and eventually helping those affected by the dissolution. The game opens up with Majima waking up on a beach. With no recollection of who he is and how he got there in the first place. All he has is his knife, and at least a pair of pants and shoes. Can’t go walking around naked of course. He’s approached by a child who offers him water and walks him back to his house. 

The boy's name is Noah, and  he tells Majima that currently they are on Rich Island. All that is there is a small fishing village that occasionally trades with Hawaii residents and businesses. He tells Majima of his dream to one day explore the island. To see the world and go on a big grand adventure just like his father used to. Sadly he’s stuck on the island. His terrible asthma prevents him from breathing in slightly polluted environments, and his father is afraid he’ll die based on his condition. So they live out here where the air is clean. Majima then learns that pirates, I mean literal pirates, are terrorizing the locals. He goes to beat them up, their captain, and successfully manages to claim their ship. He’s appointed to be the new captain, and he quickly learns that the ship’s cook Masaru Fujita used to journey with Noah’s father Jason Rich. Both of them had once searched for a lost cache of treasure, The Treasure of the Esperanza. An old spanish whose crew had gathered all the silver and gold they had, and stashed it somewhere. It was also rumored the treasure heap contained an elixir of eternal life. A drink that could cure any disease and allow the person who drank it to live longer. Jason spent much of his life searching for this elixir for Noah, but failed after a catastrophe that wrecked his ship. However, he’s convinced to try again.

Together Majima and his new pack of pals plan to sail the seas. Give Noah the grandest journey he will ever have in his entire life. All the while Majima attempts to recall who he is. Why is he out in the waters of Hawaii in the first place? What his original plan was, why are there pirates in the modern day, and why is the religious group who mostly disbanded in Infinite Wealth all now suddenly back despite the leader being arrested for being a crazy. That is all for you to discover. Yoho. Yoho. To the hooks we’ll never go.

Gameplay

If you’ve played a Yakuza game before then you’ll fall right at home with the formula offered in Pirate Yakuza, but compared to most Yakuza titles enough significant changes have been made to make Pirate Yakuza one of the more unique games in the series. I think this is the biggest change up the Yakuza series has gone through since Like A Dragon back in 2020. On the Yakuza side of things you’ll be running around cities partaking in whatever pleases you. Maybe you want to go focus on the main story, but more often than not side content will drag your attention. Whether it be crazy side stories involving weird characters, minigames, extra ways of earning money, or just hanging out in the world. As you bumble around you’ll occasionally run into enemies who want to pick a fight with you because why not. Much like in Yakuza 0 you have two combat styles you can make use of to tackle baddies. You have Mad Dog and Sea Dog style. One is incredibly fast with quick side steps, dagger attacks, and midair juggling. The other is a bit slower, but can slash up multiple enemies at once as well as have access to numerous long range attacks such using a gun or boomerang sword throws. Each style also has an ultimate you can build up and unleash. For the Mad Dog it’s summoning two shadow clones to help you, and for the Mad Dog it’s using one of four instruments to summon cursed creatures to mess things up.

As you defeat enemies, complete side objectives, or manage to take down powerful foes you will accumulate cash. This cash can be spent on items, character upgrades, and ship upgrades but we will get to this shortly. Character upgrades are the most important as they allow Majima to grow in strength, have access to different attacks, and vary his combat approach. Yakuza can be seen as somewhat of a light RPG, so keeping track of character strength so later challenges aren’t all too hard is important. It’s the traditional Yakuza formula you’re familiar with, but the real kicker is that now it’s also a pirate game. I mean this is what we’ve been building the whole review for, so let’s get into it. After chapter one you gain access to the Goromaru, your pirate ship, and it’s your main method of getting around the world. You can sail around small ocean sandboxes finding points of interest as you. There might be an island containing treasure you want to plunder, or an enemy ship you want to take down. Naval combat is much similar Black Flag, but whereas the latter focused more around immersion this one is uncanny. In a pretty good way. The Goromaru is equipped with rocket boosters to help evade enemy attacks such as cannonfire or full frontal charges from other ships. You can also drift like a race car when boosting forward.

There are machine guns outfitted in the front to fire at what you’re pushing towards. More often than not cannonfire is better as it deals more damage within a few seconds as long as you line up the shot. However, cannons take time to be reloaded and during this time you want to evade till they are ready. You can repair the ship if you think it’s taken too much damage, but if you run out of repair charges you have to wait till you reach a lighthouse or point of safety to refill. If your ship gets sinked then it’s game over. You can upgrade the ship’s durability, attack, and unlock a variety of cannons to use with the money you accumulate but the upgrades are often expensive. Money is more important than ever and it’s why doing side activities to quickly rack up cash is encouraged. Another aspect to keep in mind is the crew system. The folks who help run your ship and aid you during boarding enemy ships. Having more crew members is better than having a small team, and the more they succeed in battles alongside you the more they level up. Improving their skills to manage your vessel and fight harder against more difficult foes. Aside from that there’s not much else to say. It’s the Yakuza you come to love and respect, but goddamn it’s fun. It’s both a great Yakuza and pirate game, and the most on the high seas fun you can have since Black Flag. As a wise man once said, “This ship belongs to the red barron”......

Wait no that reference doesn’t make sense.

Thoughts

My time with Pirate Yakuza was overall really great, but your enjoyment of this game is going to vary depending on what you desire from this title specifically. Pirate Yakuza is an attempt to see where the franchise can be taken. As a test it’s obviously not the biggest Yakuza game out there. The main story alone combined with a few side activities led to my playthrough being around 15 to 15 hours. I have no idea how long older entries in the series took to beat, but for me this is the shortest Yakuza game I’ve played to date. I expect the average Yakuza game runtime for a lot of folks out there will be twenty to thirty hours. Fifty or more if you decide to do a majority of the side content. Even accounting for all the side content in Pirate Yakuza my estimate is you are looking around thirty to forty hours to reach one hundred percent completion. It’s why I found it really odd that Pirate Yakuza contains the highest platinum trophy rate compared to every other game in the franchise. Point being that Pirate Yakuza is not a very long game, and seeing how the base price is fifty dollars that may not seem worth it for a lot of people, even hardcore fans of the franchise. I do think this game is worth checking, but wait until a discount kicks in.

Despite rambling about the size and pricing of the game I never let that detract too much on how good the game is in general. Trust me, the game is really good. It has been awhile since Majima served as the lead role, and the devs wanted to give him as much room to shine as possible. One such way they did this was through massive adjustments they made to the beat ‘em up combat this series is known for. Majima plays a lot faster than Kiryu. He transitions between animations quickly, can dodge more easily, chain combos more easily as well, and unlike previous entries is now capable of juggling enemies in midair. It feels like they crossed Yakuza with Devil May Cry and honestly it’s pretty great. This is the most fun and flexible combat the team have made, and to balance out how fast Majima is now they throw bigger groups of enemies to deal with. So now the real challenge is tackling multiple foes at once and giving yourself enough space so you don’t become too overwhelmed. However, despite how fun the combat is and the numerous changes they made, my biggest criticism is that the game is a bit too easy. Before you ask, the difficulty I played this game on was normal mode, but even then I found the game a bit easy.

Of course late game enemies are stronger than earlier game enemies, but as long as you level up core stats accordingly they aren’t all that hard. Enemies stun lock easily, you deal huge amounts of damage in a short period of time, and there are moments the game gives you allies which then transform group fights into even less than a challenge. The game is easy, but in some ways this adds to the power fantasy. You are playing as one of the most feared and strongest characters in Yakuza history. Seeing the crazy sh*t he can whip out and do feels awesome. That’s why despite being a criticism I never really cared about the difficulty. It was fun, and that’s what this game as well as the rest of the Yakuza franchise is trying to do. The pirate fantasy has been captured oh so excellently, and I wouldn’t say it reached the god tier levels Black Flag is at it is close to being there. Naval combat is fun and while not immersive as Black Flag does throw in good mechanics to toy around with. Such as a boost meter you have to carefully consider when to use, or that you actually have to pay attention to your crew members if they get downed. The crew system is nice as it encourages you to pay attention to characters in the world. Side quests have neat rewards aside from more cash, because you never know what crazy member with unique traits is willing to help. Money is more important than ever. As much as I love Yakuza: Like A Dragon and its sequel, a major problem that came during the endgame was its economy.

You have so much money by the end of Like A Dragon and nothing to spend it on. You can argue there’s gear to buy, but then you should have the greatest equipment in the game. Pirate Yakuza much like Black Flag with the rest of the Assassin’s Creed series fixes this by giving you more than just character upgrades to purchase. Ship upgrades so that sailing around the ocean becomes more manageable by the end, and late game ship battles don’t become overwhelmingly hard. The upgrades are costly, which allows the huge sums of money you earn to be directed towards good well worth purchases. Just like the crew system there’s actual benefit in pursuing as many side activities as possible. You never know if a random island containing treasure or a criminal you need to arrest is what is required to purchase the next major upgrade. It’s a great pirate game. It does take a bit for the pirate fantasy to get rolling though. It’s not until you’re halfway through chapter two that you can really start roaming around the world and doing activities freely. While I think this is a great pirate game, again, it doesn’t reach the high notes of Black Flag. The world isn’t this big open sandbox and is instead several small sections you need to warp between. This kinda kills the immersion because you know you can’t sail forever because you’ll hit an invisible wall and need to teleport somewhere else via a lighthouse. It feels cheap.

Which sucks because Yakuza is a pretty big franchise. It’s not like the developers ran out of cash midway through development. There’s an argument to be made on how the game was made in a year, but I feel like they could’ve at least tried to develop a freely open ocean sandbox. Yet again, Yakuza is a franchise well known for reusing assets and cutting corners. I love the new areas they made like Rich Island and Madlantis, but why did we have to reuse the entirety of Honolulu? I get this is a standalone expansion to Infinite Wealth and it takes place shortly after it, but this just feels off. It made sense for previous games to take place in Kamurocho a lot, because it’s where the characters live and a majority of the crime organizations operate. I don’t think there is a good narrative reason for them to be back in Honolulu aside from there being narrative excuses to go reuse these assets. Even when they do it’s not very good narrative reasons. There’s also the same argument I had with Infinite Wealth in that despite this being another one of the most vibrant and colorful Yakuza games to date the lighting and shading quality is all over the place. Some scenes look really good and other times it looks downright terrible. I hate repeating myself, but while I understand this game was made in a year some effort could’ve been spent refining.

The last thing I want to talk about is the story. For a lot of people this is going to be nothing plot for them. It doesn’t contribute all that much to the main storyline, and what it’s about is simple. It is about a man granting the wishes of a young child whose health conditions prevent him from ever accomplishing his dreams. The whole game is about dreams and obtaining them even if they may seem silly. Better to live up to them rather than spend the rest of your life thinking. It’s just a happy simple story, but I’m into this kind of stuff. Yakuza has always told tales about life, all the struggles that come with it, and learning to overcome the largest of grievances. It’s nice to see a franchise like Yakuza attempt to tell more light hearted stories even as shallow as they are. Just like the game, it’s fun! It’s entertaining, keeps you engaged with what thrills arise next, and they know exactly when to build up hype. It’s Yakuza, a series that has been a master at this for more than a decade. Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii despite not being the best game nor story in the series is getting a strong recommendation out of me. I wouldn’t recommend it for fifty dollars, but it’s a good sign that RGG continues to strive even in direction far from their usual path. I certainly had a better time with it than I did with Like A Dragon: Ishin! Heck, maybe I’ll check out another Yakuza game after this now that my Yakuza loving mood is back up and running. In the end I am going to give Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii a 9/10 for excellence at best.

9/10, Excellence