Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii is an action adventure game from developers Ryu Ga Gotoku studio. You take the role of Goro Majima, a member of the Yakuza who has washed up on Rich Island with no memory of who he is. In search of other Yakuza and his lost memories, Majima quickly sets off on an adventure, becoming the captain of an old pirate ship, gathering a crew of his own and making a name for himself.
The game begins by waking up on a beach and meeting a young boy called Noah, at the same time a group of local pirates led by a man called Keith notices you and decides to cause trouble. These pirates threaten Noah and soon after find out that the one thing Majima hasn’t forgotten is how to fight. In this way you are introduced to the games beat em up style combat system, and the first of Majima’s two fighting styles, The Mad Dog. With this style Majima fights with a short blade, fists and feet. He has a madness gauge that, once full, can be used to trigger the doppleganger ability, which creates two shadowy copies of himself who then attack his enemies independently. This is a brilliant ability to use when you have taken out the lesser enemies and have only the boss left (if there is one) as these always have multiple health bars.
Once you are done with them, Noah introduces you to his father Jason and sister Moana in the bar his family run. Jason isn’t overly friendly towards you at first, especially after the pirates you recently beat come looking for you there, but you find out from him about the Yakuza on nearby Nele island and set out to find a way of getting there. As you explore the island and later locations there will be many more battles with small pirate and thug groups to be had, these can be avoided if you wish but they are not difficult and reward you with xp and often a small amount of money and cooking items. Eventually Majima comes to the conclusion that the only ship off the island is the pirate ship that all your punching bags come from, and you confront the captain, Captain Jack the Collector.
After a big boss fight, you take the ship and rename it the Goromaru, becoming the captain of the remaining crew, the Goro pirates. This along with a few companions you pick up, leaves you with enough people to crew the cannons and machines guns (yes, machine guns on an old pirate ship).
You can and will recruit others on your journey, your companions and crew have their own set of skills that improve the running of the ship in combat, such as fixing the ship or improving the power of the cannons, so a little bit of crew management is in order. You also get to choose your first mate from among the crew.
Now you are Captain you are introduced to Majima’s second fighting style, the Sea Dog. Here he wields two cutlas’s and eventually a flintlock pistol, though the pistol needs to be found first by exploring small islands along your journey. Sea dog is my preferred style, there is nothing like throwing a pair of twirling cutlas’s through a group of enemies, and I take it personally when an enemy has the audacity to shoot me so I make sure to shoot them back.
Controlling the Goromaru is not complicated, the triggers control each cannon and the RB button fires the machine guns from the front (bow) of the ship. You can trigger repairs with the X button, though you will be unable to fire your weapons for the short time repairs are taking place. Turning and accelerating are controlled by the left stick and Y activates the boost ability, the boost is the only thing you need to refill yourself. The boost is more for when you go off treasure hunting away from the main story, the route for the main mission is always clearly marked by blue boost rings and items such as fuel floating within each. There are many treasures to find when you become Captain as you gain Jack the Collector’s treasure maps, but during the course of the game you will encounter other characters with maps that will add more locations to plunder. Beware though, each treasure is guarded by pirates and a boss battle at the end, and once you start an island you can’t return to your ship for supplies without quitting and having to restart the encounter.
Just as on land, when sailing you will frequently find enemies in your path. Groups of several ships wait to send you to the bottom of the sea. While they are fun, I did find these ship battles too easy and very quick, they are still worth doing for the rewards though.
During battle your crew can become injured, and so your ships performance will suffer. You can leave the helm and walk around on deck to help your crew mate recover, though doing this will leave you vulnerable so I wouldn’t advise stopping to take in the view. You can however do this when you are not in battle also, which gives you the opportunity to walk around and talk to your crew and improve morale. Morale has five levels ranging from awesome to terrible and will give a boost or penalty to an individual crew mate’s stats.
There are four main locations to explore, Rich Island, Madlantis, Nele Island and Honolulu. Fast travel is available if you don’t wish to sail between locations, but for me sailing is half the fun of a pirate game.
Shops are open in each location, but until you get to Honolulu the items you can buy are fairly limited, mostly consisting of food and seeds, which you can find while exploring or as rewards for winning battles. Once you do visit Honolulu there are many shops that sell clothing and music as well as a greater variety of foods. To change your clothes you have to unlock the option through the story, the same is true for customising your ship. The music tracks available can be played while on land or on your ship, but I thought they were a little out of place and didn’t suit the game, so I rarely used that feature.
Throughout the game there is a wide range of different mini-games you can play, activities like pool, darts and poker, and actual arcade games like Virtua Fighter. The first one you are introduced to is cooking. Food is used to recover your health, and the better the quality of the dish you cook, the more health it will recover. To improve the quality you have to hit the buttons in the correct sequence as fast as you can within the time limit. As I have mentioned you can get food ingredients in multiple ways, one such way is growing the ingredients yourself. Around the islands you can find plant pots that you can use, and if you have a little fertiliser you can increase the amount that the plants produce. As well as buying food and clothes, your money is used to upgrade your abilities. These are split into four categories, your general stats like health and attack power, shared abilities between your fighting styles, and then moves that can only be performed in either the mad dog or sea dog styles. Rather than increasing an overall character level, the xp you earn acts as a second currency for upgrading some of your abilities as well as cash.
A review code for Xbox Series X was provided by Sega.
