‘Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii’ Is a Swashbuckling Crime Game That’s Audaciously Dumb
To be a Like a Dragon fan is to be a gamer spoiled for choice. Since 2005, the franchise (formerly known as Yakuza), has seen nine mainline entries and 14 spin-offs, making it Sega’s long-running action roleplaying game series. With near-annual releases, it’s almost inescapable at this point, with older titles taking up swaths of digital real estate from virtual bargain-bin sales and Netflix-like gaming subscription services. Beyond gaming, there’s not one, but two, live-action adaptations that diverge in their interpretations, representing the series at both its wackiest and most dramatic.
Thanks to this steady drip of releases, Like a Dragon fans have been virtually gorging themselves on a wealth of content for years. For newcomers, it can be almost overwhelming; for the faithful, it’s a comfort. There’s always more Like a Dragon just around the corner.
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The key to all of this is developer Ryu Ga Gotoko Studio’s chameleon-like ability to continue its sprawling, soap opera-like story while riffing off on gameplay mechanics from other studios’ biggest games. Rather than spending years of R&D perpetually reinventing themselves, its creators take what’s worked in their own games, incorporate the best bits of others, and remix the brew over and over.
Variety is central to the series, which initially followed the story of Kazuma Kiryu, a mild-mannered former gangster tasked with cleaning up his clan’s messes while juggling being the adoptive father of a school of orphans. Throughout the many games that followed, Like a Dragon let players take control of Kiryu and a short list of other protagonists before passing the baton to its new flagship hero, Ichiban Kasuga, in Like a Dragon (2020).
Sometimes a open-world gangland drama, others a more traditional turn-based RPG, it’s a franchise predicated on being just about anything it wants to be at any given time, filled to the brim with mini-games and side quests that are as engrossing as they are ludicrous.
It’s that ludicrousness that’s on display in the newest game, Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii (out Feb. 21). Following the exploits of fan-favorite supporting character, Goro Majima, it’s a swashbuckling adventure that may not live up to the best the series has to offer, but proves that Ryu Ga Gotoko Studio’s maximalist approach to genre mish mash will always be surprising, even when the result is off-kilter comfort food.
The art of mimicry
Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii was surprise-announced just eight months after its more-is-more RPG predecessor, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth (2024). “Surprise” is the operative word, because although RGG generally releases new games annually — a feat virtually unheard of for RPGs — an immediate follow-up to an already massive game sounded impossible. Considering the follow-up in question had an entirely different story, protagonist, and crazy new gameplay systems, it frankly should’ve been. It wasn’t exactly just more of the same.
Except in some ways, it was — at least in a technical sense. Speaking with The Washington Post, studio head Masayoshi Yokoyama revealed that their design philosophy boils down to a work smarter, not harder approach to game development, wherein they reuse assets and gameplay environments from their Dragon Engine like a movie or television set would as opposed to starting from scratch with every new game like its contemporaries. This method not only allowed them to develop Infinite Wealth concurrently and Pirate Yakuza concurrently with the same team, but produce a whopping six RPGs in five years.
While other playable characters would reappear intermittently in the series, Pirate Yakuza is the second instance where Goro Majima, whose popularity nearly eclipses Kiryu’s, serves as its main playable character. Coupled with being a Majima-centric game, Pirate Yakuza also continues RGG’s growing reputation for mimicking mechanics from other big game franchises in ways that go beyond dingy gimmicks, pulling inspiration from its peers to create fully integrated game modes with their own well-known eccentric flair.
Such mimicry can be seen all across their recent output. Spin-off series Judgment (2018) featured a more detective-like, investigative bend with a gameplay style that felt like Ace Attorney-meets-LA Noire. Like a Dragon (2020) introduced legally distinct Pokémon-esque arena battles, and Infinite Wealth (2024) even aped Animal Crossing: New Horizons (2020) with its Dondoko Island game mode, allowing players to construct and manage an entire resort island down to resource gathering and social interactions.
Fans quickly pointed out that Pirate Yakuza sees RGG appearing to emulate seafaring games like Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Black Flag (2013) and Skull and Bones (2024) in a similar vein, although its over-the-top nautical antics blow them out of the water. While Pirate Yakuza is far from RGG’s strongest narrative game with a vapid and contrived story whose emotional beats awkwardly bumble out in its final hours, it succeeds in being a fun (albeit repetitive) and deeply unserious pirate game where fanservice is king.
Picking up months after the conclusion of Infinite Wealth, Pirate Yakuza sees Majima wash up on the shores of a remote island near Hawaii without his memories. With the help of a youngster named Noah, Majima pumps the brakes on his gangster life to fix his amnesia, and ultimately embark on an adventure to become a legendary pirate and uncover a massive payload of treasure. Along their journey, Majima and his crew come into the crosshairs of the criminal pirate underworld of Madlantis, setting the stage for a level of cartoonishness that would be considered kind of ridiculous, even for this franchise’s standards.
Despite being known as Ryu ga Gotoku 8 Gaiden in Japanese, a name denoting the game as a solemn epilogue, similar to the ones fans experienced with Kiryu in Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name (2023), Pirate Yakuza wastes no time tempering expectations. In its opening moments, a future version of Majima flat out tells the players they shouldn’t think too hard about the game or its story. Pirate Yakuza proverbial monkey’s paw furls on providing a thrilling pirate life and crime simulator at the expense of a more coherent or emotional story.
A pirate’s life for me
After a slow onboarding process that re-familiarizing players with its Honolulu map (or introducing newcomers who haven’t played Infinite Wealth) and catching people up on the broad strokes of the series thus far, the game opens up as a zany pirate adventure. With it comes the return of the series’ old-school free-flow action combat that was the standard before the more RPG-like modern entries. Instead of following previous games’ “live command RPG battle system” (which is a fancy phrase for turn-based combat where you can move around the battlefield, counter incoming attacks, and use quick time event prompts to dish out extra damage), Pirate Yakuza has Majima return to his character action roots as a beat ‘em up protagonist.
This time, Majima has a swashbuckling pirate fighting style added to his toolkit that allows him to fight with dual blades, a revolver, and a Mortal Kombat-esque hook and chain. Pirate Yakuza also sees RGG implement new mechanics, from its real-time strategy tower defense mini-game content through its congested musou-like deckside and island-bound pirate battles that force players to take on waves of enemies, juggling their bodies mid-air for extensive combos. The added cherry on top of Pirate Yakuza’s already dense helping of action is that its gameplay may also provide a sneak peek at the possibilities of the Dragon Engine for the developers’ recently announced Virtua Fighter game.
During his island hopping, Majima also uncovers four powerful cursed instruments that can invoke powerful Final Fantasy-like summons, cranking its already chaotic battles up a just another notch. In typical madcap Like a Dragon fashion, these cursed weapons manifest as a colossal chimpanzee, a swarm of jellyfish, a shiver of sharks descending from the heavens, and a powerful gust of wind from the wings of a giant parrot assisting Majima in the battles on land and sea.
Speaking of sea battles, the coup de grace of Pirate Yakuza is the inclusion of full-on naval battles. While sailing the high seas, Majima can chart a course to uncover hidden treasure on enemy pirate-controlled islands and engage in multi-layered nautical battles while ducking hazardous whirlpools and lightning.
Alongside letting fans treat Majima like a Ken doll by fashioning his outfits, hairstyles, makeup, and jewelry, the game allows players to customize and gussy up his sea vessel. Like a nautical version of Pimp My Ride, Pirate Yakuza extends its freedom of expression to the cosmetics and armaments of his pirate ship. Moreover, Pirate Yakuza’s naval gameplay goes beyond simply reheating Ubisoft’s nachos. It transforms sea combat into a gourmet meal where you can drift to enemy ships and blast them into oblivion with cannons that shoot coconuts, lasers, flamethrowers, ice beams, and more.
The good, the bad, and the middling
While Pirate Yakuza succeeds in iterating off game mechanics from other series and recycling its own franchise’s past ideas, it’s severely lacking in the story department. Despite Pirate Yakuza being the perfect opportunity for the series to further evolve its party dynamic from the previous game (itself inspired by pirate anime One Piece) and crafting a more epic, sprawling adventure, it winds up serving as a vehicle for momentary combat rather than being enthralling on its merit. Because of this, party members who aren’t Majima and Noah struggle to endear themselves beyond existing as cardboard cutouts of basic character archetypes.
Although Pirate Yakuza tries to give its supporting cast more texture by borrowing Infinite Wealth’s party chat mechanic, which has them shoot the shit when you sail by a lighthouse, it’s not enough to make them feel less like sandbags on an otherwise thrilling adventure. This shortcoming extends to its assortment of villains who, despite including celebrity appearances like AEW wrestler Samoa Joe, fail to leave a memorable impression beyond being yet another obstacle on the way to the end credits. Pirate Yakuza becomes a slog to play if you’re not whipping a ship around the seas or hitting the streets of Honolulu looking for side quests and mini-games.
Pirate Yakuza is easily the weakest title of the last five games Ryu Ga Gotoko has released due entirely to its anemic narrative. Its premise story does little to advance the series as a whole and although its ludicrous premise is novel, it doesn’t deliver anything weighty enough to give it life beyond its assuredly silly elevator pitch (“Yakuza’s eye patch guy? Well, now he’s a pirate”).
Even though the game tries to pluck at heartstrings in the late stages of its 40-hour campaign, its efforts to give Majima his big emotionally charged moment (like Kiryu gets in Gaiden) ring hollow in comparison. Vapid story aside, Pirate Yakuza will be remembered more as the pirate game Ryu Ga Gotoko didn’t have to make, but took a swing at just for fun.
And it is fun, just in spite of its thin story and the weight of towering expectations blowing caustically against its sails.
Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii launches on PlayStation 4 & 5, Xbox One & Series X|S, and WIndows PC on Feb. 21.
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