I bloody love the Yakuza/Like a Dragon games. Ever since I first played Yakuza 3 15-odd years ago I’ve been hooked. Back then, I was amazed at just how much playing the game felt like being in Japan and how well the team had nailed the look and feel of the country.
Granted, I had just come home from a trip to Japan (and was somewhat obsessed) but the mix of beat ’em up, RPG, soap opera dramatics and Bad Men doing Bad Things™ drew me in like nothing else.
Flash forward to 2025, and we’re still seeing Yakuza/Like a Dragon games. With each subsequent entry, they’re growing weirder, more insane, and wildly over the top. And they’re still some of the most fun you can have playing video games.
Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii Review
As part of the spin-off series from the mainline games, Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii, like Like A Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name before it, embraces a ridiculous premise to heighten the experience beyond even the most bizarre and hilarious stuff that has come before, where Kiryu was cast in the role of secret agent super spy in The Man Who Erased His Name in Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii the clue is in the title.
Our hero, Goro Majima, wakes up on a beach with a case of explosive amnesia, no idea where he is, who he is or how he got there. In true Yakuza fashion, he is immediately accosted by a gang of baddies, except instead of the designer suits of the Yakuza from Kamurocho, these enemies are cosplaying as the Pirates of the Caribbean. After making short work of them, Majima learns that he’s on a tiny island near Hawaii and that pirates roam the waters.
Of course Majima ends up dealing with pirates where Kiryu gets to be James Bond. It just fits their characters perfectly. Majima is chaos incarnate where Kiryu is quiet, stoic and so so cool. Not that pirates aren’t cool, but there’s no way this game could have existed with any other character in the leading role. Majima is the Pirate Yakuza.
After giving the gang of pirates an absolute rinsing, Majima starts to get his bearings. A local boy, Noah, gives Majima the lay of the land and in doing so, inadvertently gets our Pirate Yakuza on the bad side of a local pirate gang. Feeling responsible for what happens to Noah and his family, Majima sets out to make things right and inevitably ends up becoming captain of his ship; it’s not called Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii for nothing.
So, with a ship and crew at his disposal, Majima sets out to locate a lost treasure and along the way causes all manner of ruckuses, gets into plenty of scrapes and has to deal with a colourful and insane cast of characters. Par for the course with Yakuza/Like a Dragon. In addition to the usual Yakuza thugs and the pirate crew, Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii also features a subplot about nuclear waste cleanup involving a religious sect and their charismatic leader. Oh and there’s an entire secret pirate lair hidden inside a ship graveyard inside of a hollow mountain.
Classic.
I liken the Yakuza/Like a Dragon series to The Fast and The Furious. While the early entries were generally grounded in reality, the longer each series went on, the more bonkers things got. That’s not to say there’s anything wrong with Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii, in fact it’s a real joy to play a game that embraces its weirdness and just goes balls to the wall. If you’re a veteran of these games, you pretty much know what to expect, but even then, Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii pushes things even further than usual and in such stupid and hilarious ways that you can’t help but be entertained.
When it comes to gameplay, Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii will scratch your itch for sure. Harkening back to the old-school gameplay of the series before it became a turn-based affair, Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii is a glorious combination of beat ’em up and RPG. Majima has access to two unique fighting styles; Mad Dog and Sea Dog. Mag Dog is Majima’s signature combat style and is fast paced with a focus on aerial combos and classic Yakuza moves. Sea Dog is a new combat style for this game and focuses on swords, pistols and other pirate-themed weapons.
By levelling up, earning experience and completing objectives, you’re able to improve Majima’s abilities and learn new skills. Over time you’ll turn him into an absolute beast, though to be honest, Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii doesn’t go out of its way to be too much of a challenge. If you turn the difficulty up, sure, but I find I get the most enjoyment out of absolutely pasting every enemy who comes my way.
Outside of the usual beat ’em up combat is the brand-new ship-to-ship combat and exploration. I honestly wasn’t expecting as much depth as was on offer from the ship based sections of the game, but there’s so much here that SEGA could conceivably create an entire naval spin-off series. While captaining your ship, when you get in range of an enemy you’ll enter a combat phase. From here you can fire your cannons and machine guns as well as activate boosts to sail around like a maniac. You’re also able to switch to controlling Majima directly so you can fire a rocket launcher at your enemies or provide assistance to your crew if they’re in danger. It’s a balancing act because once you stop steering the ship, you leave yourself open to attack, but, if you’re crew is downed, you lose access to their abilities. So, if you lose your cannoneers, you won’t be able to fire until you rescue them.
You are, of course, also able to board enemy ships and take the fight directly to them, which transitions you back into beat ’em up mode. Your pirate crew is made up of characters recruited throughout the game, and again, there’s a surprising amount of depth built into this whole system. You could spend dozens of hours just playing with and improving your ship and pirate crew. That’s something that Yakuza/Like a Dragon has always excelled at and Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii is no exception.
That is that there’s never any shortage of things to do, games to play, distractions, side quests, mini games and more. To get the most out of Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii you don’t need to engage with everything on offer, but it’s such a sumptuous buffet that you’re going to be tempted to have a taste of every dish. Don’t be surprised when you check the time and find you’ve been batting cannon balls at barrels for 6 hours…
Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii is a continuation of a winning streak for the series that shows no signs of abatement. Majima is, as always, a lovable scoundrel and the pirate theme, while totally ridiculous, actually works fantastically with the existing tone and gameplay of the franchise. Yakuza fans will love every second and newbies, well, just enjoy the ride, because there’s not really any way not to.
Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii was reviewed on PS5 using digital code provided by SEGA.
