Recently, GamesHub was invited to Los Angeles for some hands-on time with the hotly anticipated Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii. The event was held at a delightfully absurd pirate-themed dinner theatre venue, which fortunately happened to be situated on the opposite side of town from the devastating fires which had broken out only a day earlier.
Play time was split up into two sessions totalling 70 minutes apiece, with short presentations from franchise producer Hiroyuki Sakamoto and other members of the RGG Studio team interspersed between. The afternoon closed out with the guests competing to see who could get the quickest time in a 3-lap race in the returning Dragon Kart minigame – which has a battle mode now – followed by a group Q&A session with Mr. Sakamoto.
For those who haven’t been following, Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii takes place six months after last year’s Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth. Goro Majima, the franchise’s most beloved chaos gremlin, has washed up on a tropical island beach with no memory of who he is. He quickly befriends a young boy named Noah as well as a domesticated tiger cub, and before he knows it, has become the captain of an old-timey wooden pirate galleon. Sakomoto chuckled at the start of the event saying, “it’s Majima-san, don’t think too hard on any of the logic.”
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Getting hands-on with Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii
Our first session of Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii began on the new location of Rich Island, somewhere in the second of the game’s five chapters. Sakomoto informed us that Yakuza: The Man who Erased His Name was the model in terms of scale going into Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii’s development, which may come as a relief to the folks I know who are still working their way through the enormity of Infinite Wealth. Majima has established himself as a captain by this point, and gained some experience sailing around to other islands.
My time spent running around Rich Island was mostly typical series fare – exploration and conversation in a small but richly dense environment, punctuated by fights against roaming gangs. I dabbled with the cooking minigame that’s been brought over from Like a Dragon: Ishin! and was pleased to have noticed that the photography hunt had also returned.
The combat system in Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii is of the free-form beat ‘em up Yakuza variety, not the turn-based RPG mechanics of Like a Dragon. Sakomoto explained to us that the slow and deliberate nature of the latter just didn’t fit Majima as a character in the team’s eyes.
Majima can freely switch up on the fly between two quite different combat styles: Sea Dog and Mad Dog. As one might expect, Sea Dog is centred around Majima’s new pirate vocation, and sees him dual-wield cutlasses, fire pistols, and dart around with a grappling hook. When Majima’s ‘madness gauge’ fills up in this form, he can bust out one of four different musical instruments and jam out a quick power solo to summon a ‘dark god’ animal, (shark, bird, monkey, or jellyfish) to wreak havoc among his foes. Again, don’t think too hard on the logic.
Mad Dog meanwhile portrays a more conventional Majima style. In this form he’s much more nimble and tricksy but with a big focus on aerial juggling. His madness attack here spawns several powerful shadow clones of himself who join the fight on your side. Both combat forms feel fantastic, and are deeply silly in an utterly sublime way.
After a short while faffing about, I stumbled upon the shack that Majima has taken residence in. One of the first things I noticed inside was an old TV with a Master System plugged in and – this being a Yakuza/LAD game – a bunch of old games are playable on it. Instead of going for the nostalgia hit, I opted to delve into Majima’s wardrobe.
I took tremendous glee in customising my boy to look like a campy hipster heartthrob, akin to if he was the ‘bad boy’ in a steamy, bodice-ripping, romance novel-themed K-pop group. There are around fifty different clothing and hair options to unlock in Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii, with an equal mix of gleefully silly and slickly stylish bits and pieces to combine as you wish. It’s extremely good.
Cackling with delight at Majima’s new look, I felt it was time to check out his ship, the Goromaru. Naturally I went straight to the captain’s cabin first and customized the Hell out of it too though, fully redecorating the mighty vessel with a hot pink paint job, purple love-heart sails, a BIG unicorn prow ornament, and pizza trimming. Perfect.
I then excitedly embarked upon a voyage to the pirate island of Madlantis. That’s where the high of the Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii session thus far eased down a little bit though.
Sailing is… fine
I think I’d assumed that the sailing in Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii would feel as weighty as it does in Assassin’s Creed and Sea of Thieves, where the ship is a heaving beast and the rhythms of the ocean can be constantly felt beneath it. It doesn’t. Instead it has a much more arcade-like sensibility to it, which stands to reason given that the game is ultimately a SEGA joint. I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t find myself instantly loving it either.
I expect that given more time and re-configured expectations I’ll end up digging it more though. Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii’s island-dotted seas and major quest hubs don’t exist in a single seamless world like those games either, but again, that makes sense given the nature of the franchise.
Gameplay while out sailing is broadly much as it is on land: roaming around collecting loot, discovering things, navigating obstacles, and getting into spontaneous battles.
Sea battles are where Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii does feel a bit more akin to AC/SoT, however. The array of cannons on each side of the ship can be fired separately, and each can be given different elemental customisations. Individual deck guns can also be controlled by the player should they wish to leave the wheel, and Majima can also casually fire a bazooka at other ships at his leisure. The ship’s bow is fitted with twin machine guns, and ramming enemy vessels at high speed while hosing them with bullets is a perfectly valid strategy.
Enemy ships can be boarded too, throwing you into a kind of team vs. team melee arena. Boarding battles feature their own unique madness gauge-like suite of powers, which are tied to crew chiefs that join you in the battle. The enemy team operates on the same system, however, and the key to victory lies in defeating their chiefs before they can charge and deploy their powers, while protecting and utilising yours.
Recruiting new crew members, allocating them roles that they’re good at, and improving their abilities by giving gifts and hosting feasts is a significant part of Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii’s, well, yakuza-pirating structure. It’s the key way in which you make yourself more formidable in combat both on the high seas and within the game’s revamped Coliseum mode, which is at the centre point of Madlantis’s pirate community.
As befits the setting, it centres mostly around ship skirmishes, but also features crew vs. crew battles on land that utilise the same mechanics as boarding actions. Some of the latter feature such sizeable numbers of combatants that the scale borders on that of a Musou game. It rocks.
The second hands-on session of Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii loaded us back up at Madlantis with everything fully unlocked and max-levelled, but with none of the Substories completed. I decided to immediately climb aboard the ship and quick-travel to Infinite Wealth’s Hawaii to see how things had changed there and engage in some sidequest nonsense. From what I could glean, the Hawaii map is largely unchanged from its debut in last year’s entry. This won’t really be surprising to series fans, but there you go.
Arriving at the docks on the western side of the map, I made a beeline for the first Substory marker I could spot. Here, I met a well-dressed man who was publicly showing off a polar bear in a frozen cage. Of course, the bear escaped and I had to usher it back into captivity by politely beating it up. I was then dropped back into the open world, and decided to talk to the man again. This time he was exhibiting a massive white tiger, which also escaped and required a beating to put back into captivity. Hilariously, the polar bear’s name happened to be Stephanie and the tiger’s Edmundo.
[Editor’s Note: I can’t speak for Ed, but personally speaking, I can definitely vibe with a polar bear comparison – Steph]
As the Substory closed out, I pushed back from the Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii demo station with the most massive grin imaginable. It then grew even larger as I spotted the life-sized cutout of Samoa Joe’s character from the game in the corner of the room. Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii could not possibly be more tailor-made for me if it tried.
Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii is set to launch on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on February 21st 2025.
SEGA provided flights & accommodation to GamesHub in order to play Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii and hear from developers. SEGA did not have oversight of this article.
