Like A Dragon: Pirate Yakuza In Hawaii made me smile a lot, but I think the folks at RGG need to take a break for a few years. Watch some films. Have some cocktails. Get inspired again, y’know? Just as the high seas are the refuge of displaced Yakuza or insolvent scoundrels in this minigame-stuffed brawler-RPG, the game feels like the last port of call for a studio scraping the bottom of the grog barrel.
I smiled a lot, mind. It’s hard not to with Majima back; moisturised, flourishing, driving a six-inch tanto knife into a man’s kidneys for being mildly rude to him on the beach, and abducting monkeys for his petting zoo. He’s also the captain of a pirate ship now, having woken on a strange island with no memory of his Yakuza past, but the same sense of fair play and manic flair for theatrical shankings. Plus, he’s already got the eyepatch sorted.
Why are there actual, cannon-wielding, tricorn-headed pirates off the coast of Hawaii? Shhh. Just get on the boat. You do find the idea of a Majima being a pirate entertaining enough on its own to last you twenty five hours, don’t you? I hope so, because this shorter side entry in the series isn’t so much lean as it is thin.
There are two culprits for that. One is a story that ends brilliantly but feels ponderous, stale and lacking that gripping Yakuza melodrama for long stretches. The other is simply that sailing and ship combat aren’t very good. RGG’s thrifty and resourceful approach to development is a real balm for the silliest excesses of this very silly industry, but real-time pirate ship combat was, in hindsight, an overambitious transplant for a series with no real analogue or skeleton to build on.
There’s a sprinkle of salty heft to navigation, aided by crashing waves and cacophonous, creaking sound design. And, yes, obviously laser cannons, coconut machine guns, and Ono Michio mastheads are fun additions. But spend any amount of time upgrading the Goromaru and you’ll find all but the toughest ships melt in seconds to weapons that don’t feel all that good to use. I can see the logic behind wanting to keep each individual activity light because there’s so much to do, but I’m not here to play Crazy Delivery or the trivia quizzes again: I’m here to be a pirate. There’s a thin line between light and just plain papery, and Pirate Yakuza stumbles right where it needed to nail its fanciest footwork.
It feels like a gussied up minigame given centre stage; a woozy, flaky deckswabber hastily promoted when the previous first mate got unexpectedly headbutted off the deck by an irate parrot. There are obviously some great animations and transition boarding cutscenes because it’s Yakuza, but make no mistake: this isn’t an (eye)patch on the stern-shattering, surf-quaking pirate fantasy Black Flag pulled off 13 years ago.
And sailing is slow. Two types of boosts and Superman 64 wind tunnels to expedite your journey across the ocean and you’ll still end up listening to Kiryu sing Judgement on your playlist a hundred times just to feel some motion (I’m 100% convinced that Majima carrying a mixtape of Kiryu singing karaoke is canon). You’ll probably still put up with it like I did, because the rewards are worth having. There are pirates to sink and islands to fight through for treasure, cash, and points to spend on upgrades. There’s also dozens of stat-buffing rings to collect, arranged in a menu screen where you can slot them onto each of Majima’s fingers and watch him grin at his shimmering haul. Your exact rings show up on Goro’s model and in cutscenes too – an opulent touch that made me grin.
Except you might actually want to not wear those rings just to handicap yourself, because both Majima’s fighting styles are so brutally efficient that they rob every fight – most noticeably the bosses – of that wonderful Yakuza dramatic struggle. There’s such little variety in enemy movesets, too. Either that, or fights were over so quickly I barely noticed what enemies were capable of. Out of curiosity, I played 2023’s Gaiden for the first time, and it is shocking how much better that game handles pretty much everything I love about this series.
In the first few hours of Gaiden, I’d fought thugs with electrified stun umbrellas and caltrops – dangerous beef bastards that demanded deft maneuvering to break through their defenses. The only time Pirate Yakuza’s combat becomes challenging is when there’s multiple gunmen lurking outside camera range taking potshots at you like horrible invisible shit-slinging poltergibbons. Majima’s new hookshot is a great gap-closer, and summoning demon ghost sharks with a cursed fiddle is some lovely nonsense, but if you’ve got any experience with the Dragon Engine games, you’ll want to whack this one up to hard to give the undeniably stylish fighting any real substance.
At least Majima himself is as charming as ever, and the game is funny. Kicking off the petting zoo quest, Goro falls in love with a chicken doomed for the pot and rescues it. It can’t lay eggs, but it will inexplicably gift you eggs after you feed it. The scurvy dog of Shimano is pushing his mid sixties now, too, something the game acknowledges and plays with. My favourite was a long quest chain to set ship’s cook Masaru up with a date, rewarding you with several long live-action sequences depicting him spectacularly flubbing it.
“Yakuza is a serious crime drama” is a meme you’ll find accompanying clips of the silliest, campest moments for the series, but it’s also true. These games are special because, at their best, they’re good at everything; melodramatic, tense, heartfelt tales starring people who answer phones like this. Last year’s Infinite Wealth made some smart improvements over its predecessor, but the plot left me cold. Without the ballast of truly slimy, threatening antagonists or underworld grit, the absurdity had nothing to anchor it. It had heart, but no real teeth.
Pirate Yakuza feels even limper. The thrilling, skillful fight choreography is still here, but instead of fighting a Kuze or Goda or even a Kosei Shishido, I’m fighting a thinly-sketched pirate named Keith for the fourth time. Majima’s companion for the adventure is Noah, a likable Muppet Treasure Island Jim Hawkins type child that offers Goro the chance to play nurturing role model. There’s some real sincerity in scenes spent with them knocking back milk in Revolve bar, but the plot’s central family drama trends saccharine. Worst of all, this shit just ain’t all that swashbuckling, prefering to tread water setting up pieces for the finale. Again, it’s a great final few hours, but an uneven voyage enroute.
So, remember when I said I started Gaiden after finishing and instantly noticed how much better I liked it? It’s not just the combat. I can reluctantly forgive no longer being able to gift a cabaret club hostess a cold teriyaki burger fished out of my back pocket, but even Gaiden’s opening hours are so much more gripping than anything here. The villains are better, the combat feels weightier, it looks better. To top it off, it’s cheaper. I don’t regret spending time with Majima again but, ‘free’ NG+ or no, if I’d paid full price for this thing I’d feel well and truly hornswoggled.
This review is based on a review code provided by the publisher.