When a series is known for being as surrealistic as the Yakuza series is, keeping it fresh over the long term is all the more challenging. After all, the oddball stops being oddball when it becomes mundane. Thankfully, to date the developers at Ryu Ga Gotoku have been able to sidestep that, and indeed have become even more experimental and oddball in recent years. They’ve taken the series out of Japan by giving players a taste of Yakuza in Hawaii, experimented with briefer and more focused stories, and even used their characters like theatre players for a period piece. Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii continues that very fine creative tradition, and yet again Ryu Ga Gotoku has not let us down at all.
The single greatest trick this game pulls is to somehow position Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii in the same tradition of Pirates of the Caribbean, with big pirate hats, wooden ships, buried treasure and the rest, while blending it naturally with the modern city setting of the series – it does take place after the events of Infinite Wealth after all. You play as beloved series psychopath, Goro Majima, who wakes up on a remote tropical island in Hawaii with amnesia. The first fight he gets into is with a thug in a pirate hat, before attacking a giant pirate ship and taking it over. He then proceeds to sail the seas in his very pirate-y costume before he needs to head out to Honolulu. There, no longer in the backwaters of the island state, he changes into regular Hawaiian clothing to explore the very modern city.
Half the time you’ll be thinking that you are in a Golden Age of Piracy, with Majima’s preferred fighting style in this chapter being a swashbuckling dual cutlasses and pistol get-up, straight from the 18th century. The boat that you sail is, likewise, traditional. But then you’ll get into a fight with an enemy ship and pick up a missile launcher to attack them. And, as you sail around, rather than listening to sea shanties as you did in those Assassin’s Creed period pieces, in Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii, you throw on some City Pop from your mobile phone playlist.
There’s an element of an unreliable narrator in this that helps you suspend disbelief, because the entire game is framed as a fourth-wall-breaking situation, with flash-forwards at key points jumping to Majima sitting in front of cameras reciting the story. We all know from the series to date that Majima is not the most trustworthy source of truth, so that framing device allows us to just roll with everything being a case of Majima being Majima. Overall I found the storytelling, setting and narrative design to be exceptional, and the pirate theme integrated into the existing Yakuza framework with surrealistic nuance and intelligence. I went in fully expecting to find the juxtaposition of two very different types of “noble villain” stories to be jarring, and perhaps the challenge that Ryu Ga Gotoku set themselves with this game was to demonstrate the similarities in storytelling and themes between them. If that was the case, well done to the team for succeeding with that.
In terms of the gameplay, Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii builds on the action gameplay of the mainline Yakuza series, rather than the turn-based combat from the Like a Dragons series. Majima has two combat stances he can swap between, but as mentioned, the swashbuckling pirate style is clearly designed to be the flashy default this time around. This combat system is as smooth, fast, slick and (at the higher difficulty levels) challenging as always. It’s joined this time around by ship battles, which are highly enjoyable. Unlike the efforts to do something serious and “authentic” that we’ve seen out of Ubisoft’s open world games, Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii allows for some fast-paced, big-action shenanigans. You’ve got guns to the front and either side of the ship, as well as various other weapons (like the aforementioned rocket launcher). Defensively you can throw up smokescreens, set your crew to repair the ship (at the expense of being able to attack for a while), and a “boost” button that can help you get out of range of an enemy quickly. There are also all kinds of upgrades that you can do to the ship and crew. For a series that has always been so focused on the “on foot” street action, the developers have done an amazing job with adding this dimension to the action.
When you’re not following the main quest breadcrumbs, there is a bevy of the traditional Yakuza mini-games to enjoy, including the all-time favourite karaoke mini-rhythm game, the “Crazy Delivery” Crazy Taxi-like we’ve seen in recent titles, a farming minigame, gambling and, of course, a “dating game” of sorts featuring beautiful women. There are also all kinds of old retro games to find and play, and you can also go treasure hunting by following the treasure maps to specific spots around the ocean. Once you’ve arrived at the location (always a small island), you then need to run through a short gauntlet of enemies to reach the treasure chest at the end. This works much like the “dungeon” system we’ve seen in previous Yakuza games (most closely, Like a Dragon: Ishin), and while it’s a bit of a grind to get all the loot given how repetitive and linear these dungeons are, the rewards are worthwhile.
The only challenge with the side quests will be to drag yourself away from the main narrative. Ryu Ga Gotoku’s writers have always had a near-preternatural ability to weave action and rich storytelling together so that the two are paced brilliantly. Meanwhile, some of the best character writing in the industry manages to straddle the line in highlighting that just about everyone you’ll meet is a dangerous criminal, while also being incredibly charismatic.
Perhaps best of all is that this is a relatively brief entry in the series too. It’s not quite the slice that Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name was, but it’s probably around half the length of Infinite Wealth. While some will always bemoan the relatively thin content, the flip side is that Majima’s story is sharp. It’s focused. It never outlives its welcome or allows you to forget about how much fun it is.
If the next evolution of the Yakuza franchise is more of these thematic crossovers, smaller, experimental titles and playful spin-offs, I’m all for it. Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii proves that the previous Like a Dragon Ishin was no fluke. Ryu Ga Gotoku is clearly comfortable bringing these iconic characters to any creative setting and location, and going forward the sky’s the limit. Perhaps literally. I wouldn’t put it past them to have Goro Majima waking up on a moon base next.
