Like A Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii Is The Dumb Pirate Game We’ve Desperately Needed

And then, of course, there are the actual naval battles, seaborne slugfests where you maneuver around cannon fire while trying to get the drop on enemy captains. While these encounters aren’t outstandingly mechanically deep or anything, they are a hull-crunching good time. Armed with machine guns and rows of cannons on your port (the left-hand side) and starboard (the right-hand side), you have to manage the cooldowns on your weapons, evade enemy fire, and keep your vulnerable stern (the back of the ship) out of harm’s way. Oh, and because this is a Like a Dragon game and needs at least a few goofy details, your vessel also comes with nitrous-style jet boosters that can be activated in times of need, allowing you to drift around incoming ordinance and get the angle on weak points.

While I’m sure some would prefer a more “realistic” sim-style experience, the fun, light approach here works quite well. For example, the deeply unserious touch of having rockets strapped to your hull makes your ship quite mobile, setting up for lots of nuances when it comes to drifting in and out of range of attacks. And although encounters may be a breeze at first, things heat up in the later fights, forcing you to take advantage of every trick available, like using smokescreen bombs to hide your crew so you can frantically repair your vessel, making use of elemental effects to debilitate your foes (thank you freeze gun), and carefully positioning yourself to hide your weak spots while taking advantage of your adversary’s.

However, that isn’t all because once you’ve beaten down an enemy’s ship on the open seas, you’ll have to take a boarding crew to finish the job. After an over-the-top sequence where your team of little freaks leaps into action before freeze framing, your pirates will enter a massive brawl, usually outnumbered, as you lead the charge. While these sequences usually involve some degree of button-mashing, there’s just enough complexity in the combos you can perform to keep things engaging, as the scale of these scrums tips towards Dynasty Warrior territory. It is always very satisfying to fight beside your hand-picked dudes, like a scientist who is trying to find a way to talk to animals or a rockstar who thinks he’s channeling a wind god, as they unleash punches and kicks that send enemy sumo wrestlers—or whatever equally bizarre aesthetic your opponents have going on—rag dolling across the screen.

And of course, these battles are fought to claim what every pirate is after: booty. As you sail from island to island, you’ll track down loot marked on a treasure map. These rewards aren’t minor either; they’ll net you large sums of reputation, which gates all sorts of opportunities, as well as cash, which is used to do the obvious like buy upgrades for your ship, as well as unlock new abilities for Goro. When you hit your first big haul, it genuinely feels like you’ve struck it rich, as upgrades that seemed impossible to afford finally became within reach. Add in the maximalist animation that triggers every time you open a chest—Majima looks just as incredulous the first time he does this as the hundredth—and it’s a rush every time you discover something new and cross it off your “Treasury of Treasures” index. In short, this game hits just about every bullet point on a buccaneer’s wishlist: naval battles, sword fights, and plundering, all presented with flair.

Admittedly, though, I won’t pretend that this voyage is all smooth sailing, and there are certainly times when it becomes clear this experience is repurposed from a series that has nothing to do with piracy. First off, the opening hours are too slow as it takes its time establishing a complicated Like A Dragon-style mystery. This section comes across like an extended tutorial and takes too long to introduce the elements that make it fun to be Captain, like partaking in Madlantis’ colosseum battles or foiling the Death Flags. While most installments in this series pull you into an engrossing central mystery while simultaneously peppering in lots of entertaining detours, here it feels like the “detours,” as in all the cool pirate stuff, are by far the most interesting part of the experience. Basically, the game is a little too tied to the series’ standard crime drama formula, and it has a hard time connecting the central narrative to its pirate antics.

But perhaps the biggest problem is that while the naval battles are engaging and the progression systems are rewarding, the actual process of sailing and exploring is way too linear. Unlike traversing the interconnected ocean of Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag, in Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii, you stake out smaller island chains. Worse yet, you’re basically always directed where to go courtesy of the in-game map, as glowing blue speed boost rings very literally funnel you down set paths. While there are random battles and resources to be found on the high seas, getting from point A to point B is usually a bit dull and a lowlight.

But even with these downsides, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio’s latest scratches an itch, something that more than covers for its mistakes. Here, you exchange cannon fire, weaving between enemy fleets as you tear through defenses like a scourge of the surf. In a pinch, your vessel becomes a projectile missile, ripping open enemy hulls as you send your foes to the bottom of the sea. And like basically every entry in this series, this spin-off’s best quality is its endless charm, whether it’s the hilarious banter, do-gooder protagonist, or your ridiculous crew and their even more ridiculous victory dance. You get to wear a tricorne hat. You can play a baseball mini-game while dressed up as a swashbuckler, and it’s a really good baseball mini-game for some inexplicable reason.

Considering the decade of development that went into Skull and Bones, only for it to become a fiscal black hole for Ubisoft, maybe it makes sense that there aren’t more pirate games out there. I imagine many studios think their take on this space would have to be an incredibly involved open-world title full of hand-crafted islands, complex water physics, and realistic hull damage simulations. But if Like A Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii shows us anything, it’s that pirate games don’t need to be “AAAA” blow-outs to be worthwhile. A little heart and a galleon with jet boosters can go a long way, and this game has plenty of both.

Elijah Gonzalez is an assistant Games and TV Editor for Paste Magazine. In addition to playing and watching the latest on the small screen, he also loves film, creating large lists of media he’ll probably never actually get to, and dreaming of the day he finally gets through all the Like a Dragon games. You can follow him on Bluesky @elijahgonzalez.bsky.social.