Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii Review

After seeking out infinite wealth last year, RGG Studio and SEGA’s Like a Dragon series is back – this time with fan-favorite Goro Majima taking the lead – in Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii.

Is it a pirate’s life for yakuza, or should players stick to land? Find out in our review.

Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii Review

Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza In Hawaii kicks off with Goro Majima losing his memory and washing up near Hawaii.

Despite not knowing who he is or where he is from, his muscle memory is still intact as he makes short work of some wannabe pirates. After helping the locals, Majima finds out that he is a Yakuza – and there is an island full of Yakuza nearby.

From there, players will set out to gather a crew, steal a pirate ship, and set out on the open ocean to find said Yakuza – and do some treasure hunting for good measure.

Reuniting with the Yakuza, Majima quickly realizes returning home won’t be as easy as originally thought. Making the best of the situation, Captain Majima decides to conquer the seas and claim all the treasure he can find before returning home.

His other goal is to find out what is going on with Madlantis, the pirate haven where coliseum boat battles take place.

It’s all pretty chaotic – a perfect fit for Majima.

Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii’s brawler style feels great, letting players feel each hit as they learn its many combos.

When playing Yakuza, series mainstay Kazuma Kiryu felt like a big bruiser, while Majima was more quick and nimble. This is because his two styles emphasize quick hits and combos to overwhelm enemies.

Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii’s Mad Dog style can make Majima clones that will rip up anything they see. He can also air juggle enemies in this stance, which is always fun.

Majima’s other style – the Pirate Captain style – utilizes dual cutlass blades, a pirate pistol, and a grapple hook to control the battlefield.

This was more fun, as it allowed for quicker Heat Actions, and the slicing absolutely decimated regular enemies. While the Mad Dog creates clones, Pirate Captain plays a tune on an instrument of the gods to summon ethereal sharks and other creatures to his aid.

Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii is the best kind of unhinged – and I loved every second of it.

But we can’t forget about Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii’s ship combat; after all, this is a pirate game!

Similar to its other combat systems, Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii’s ship combat is designed to be quick and impactful.

Packing two cannon sides and a machine gun up front, we were rocking laser cannons alongside ice bullets to freeze and melt enemies. We aren’t talking about Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag-levels of ship combat, but got great arcade-like elements.

Another fun part of Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii’s ship combat comes is customizing one’s ship to look how you want—just more stuff for the completionists. We just wish there was more than one ship; players you won’t be able to change the primary type of ship their have.

One’s ship is really the primary mini-game of Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii, but the Pirate Coliseum is where you use it most.

Think of this as a gladiator arena, but with water and big pirate ships. It’s do or die – and enemies love to have allies, use mines, flamethrowers, and do whatever they can do to disable your ship and sink you. If you manage to deal with all that, you then have to board the enemy flagship and have a crew battle. Crush the pirates before they defeat your entire crew – and live to tell the tale.

This is why Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii’s ship is the main mini-game.

It’s not just the customization; it’s the crew collecting, the treasure hunting, the bounty collecting…everything revolves around it.

When one eventually makes it to Hawaii, one can recruit ship allies.

It’s pretty basic: complete a side quest, give an item, beat them in a fight, and other simple stuff – but it’s still fun nonetheless. Mixing and matching ship crew will help one stay at the top of their game.

Some crewmates are great at ship combat, while others excel at boarding combat. When one does treasure islands, you can even bring a few crew members to help.

Put simply, finding the right crew will make your life way easier.

If you haven’t picked up on it yet, Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii has a metric ton of things to do.

This series has mastered the art of keeping you moving forward; every few steps, there’s an item, a chest, a side quest, a bounty, and even someone to recruit; it all feels satisfying.

My favorite mini-game from Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth returns as well: Crazy Eats. This food delivery mini-game that is similar to Crazy Taxi, tasking players with stacking up food, doing tricks, then make deliveries as quickly as possible. Put simply, Crazy Eats got its hooks into me all over again.

All of Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii’s tasks count towards earning more cash and pirate reputation – both of which are used to upgrade Majima in different ways.

Featuring a simple skill tree with HP and attack upgrades, new moves, and combos, Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii focuses on quick, quick, quick.

Other major upgrades in Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii come in the form of pirate rings, providing straight-up stat upgrades to defense and attacks alongside other benefits like fire resistance. Since rings also come from treasure hunts, you have another excuse to go after more loot – it all flows well!

However, not everything is paradise in Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii…

When doing treasure islands, players can’t heal from one’s inventory; there can be healing barrels, but it seems weird that you can’t just use your items for select missions.

In addition, since there isn’t a level (just stats), players will not get the auto-kill option on weak enemies – or at least what we saw. We’d often enter a fight, hit “Square” three times, and win. At that point, just give us the W.

Thankfully, there were no bugs or glitches during our review period, and we had zero crashes.

Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii is one of the best Like a Dragon spin-offs to date, eagerly having us looking forward to Majima’s next adventure.

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