Like a Black Flag.

The game feels bloated with story and the sailing sections are terrible even though the actual ship combat is really fun. The updated brawling feels great but the coliseum is sorely missing as almost every one-on-one battle is a story boss. On top of that, it just would not stop crashing for me making the finale a repetitive slog of combat encounters and cutscenes with no autosaves between them.

After 10 years since Yakuza 0 and countless fans wanting a game with Majima as the protagonist, Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii seeks to fulfill these wishes, but not without throwing some very odd decisions at you. I mean, the whole title already sounds weird, so how is it?


When you're not being captain of your own ship, Pirate Yakuza lets you explore, as you'd expect, Hawaii.
Honolulu has been pretty much reused from Infinite Wealth with minor changes, and it's still one of my favorite cities. It's massive, and yet they still somehow managed to put enough content in here to not make it feel empty, but instead a worthwhile place where you go to have fun when you're not exploring the sea or Madlantis.
Speaking of Madlantis, this is Pirate Yakuza's new place to explore. A ship graveyard run for and by pirates. It isn't huge, but it reminds me a lot of the Purgatory from the older Yakuza games, just bigger and better. It serves as a great contrast to the always sunny and welcoming Hawaii.
Both maps also feature a new tool to help with exploration, the hookshot. It's basically the more stylish version of climbing a ladder to get to high places and find treasure. And while this looked cool in the trailers, it adds very little, because the areas you reach are like 2m². I was expecting more like Yakuza 4's vertical exploration, but nope.

The combat, on the other hand, does much more to distinguish itself from previous titles.
You can switch between two styles. Mad Dog is Majima's old style that has gotten a bit of a rework since then. For the default attacks, it's more like the thug style where he quickly punches and kicks his enemies to either launch them or get ready to pull out his knife like he usually does in the mad dog style.
Sea Dog is a completely new style and is much more pirate themed with two sabers, his hookshot and a gun. Compared to Mad Dog, this is a bit slower and serves more as crowd control in big battles with plenty of enemies. It isn't my favorite style, but it serves its purpose really well.
The big new addition, however, is jumping. Yeah, you heard that right, you can finally jump during combat. This adds a new layer to the fights where you not only try to finish off your enemy, but you do it in the most stylish way possible, trying to juggle them and keep them in the air as long as possible with a finisher or two, and it's so satisfying.
Although, what isn't satisfying is how much heat actions take a backseat in this game. There are barely any new or old heat actions to do, and you can't even charge multiple heat bars, meaning it's either juggle, or hold onto your heat action finisher for 5 minutes only to accidentally do the attack on a two hit enemy.
And I'm not even kidding about "two hits." Your damage output is genuinely insane. In the older Yakuza games, an opponent with 4 health bars shows they mean business, but here? They're basically canon fodder, especially 1v1 bosses seem like a joke as a result of it.


Then there's the ship gameplay, which is fine. You get to explore multiple semi-big maps where you sail around on your boat and fight other pirate ships, but also board them or sail to islands to explore and find treasure. It isn't the greatest gameplay in the world, but it's one of the few pirate games I thoroughly enjoyed thanks to the content there is, but just like any other pirate game, the big issue is the amount of dead air there is when you're not plundering. It'd be better if there was a feature to tell your first mate to steer the ship while you cook up a mean meal or just do some karaoke instead; even the ship sailing when you're not on the wheel would be a good addition.

What I can't complain about is the ship combat. Of course, it once again isn't ultra deep. When you're assigning your crew members roles, you're just matching numbers; some are good on the deck, others are good for boarding, and some are so good that they have different effects on the ship or the boarding party. What really adds to the ship's combat is boosting and drifting; this makes the ship much more maneuverable and stops you from having to constantly line up the canons. It's so silly, but simultaneously so much fun to outmaneuver others, along with using different types of weapons with different effects to do damage or just ram into them.


Just like every good Yakuza game, there are plenty of minigames and side stories to keep you occupied.
When it comes to the minigames, most of it is stuff you've already seen, but with new content.
Dragon Kart is finally back, which is basically just Mario Kart with a bunch of deranged lunatics, and this time all the new tracks are set in Hawaii, and it's still genuinely the best mode in the series. Then there's Sicko Snap, Crazy Delivery and the school, and each one of them got a new course to do. Baseball also got a complete rework, and instead of just hitting a ball as hard as you can, you instead aim the ball at barrels and try to line them up and cause an explosive chain reaction. It's so much better than just regular baseball. Other than that, you of course got your karaoke, gambling and arcades. The only minigame I thought was kinda lazy is the Animal Kingdom, where you just go to the tutorial island and feed your animals. That's literally it; I'm not going to the tutorial island to do that boring stuff.
The side stories got some recurring characters from Infinite Wealth, and while they don't reach the heights of that game, they still hit the spot, they're still charming and often really hilarious. I recommend doing the Masaru side quest, just because of the reward.
Speaking of reward, this is probably the most rewarding Yakuza game ever, just because for every side activity you either get a crew member or stuff to customize your ship with, and it's sort of addicting to just try to get these characters and see them in your crew.

Despite that, RGG, please stop making side quests part of the main story. I know this often happens in Yakuza games, but it's never been this egregious. The game sends you on so many detours and keeps padding the story, because of how lacking it is in Pirate Yakuza.
The story is basically just the kid, Noah, that saved Majima wanting to go somewhere, and Majima plays along. Noah is the justification and reason for literally anything they do, he lives to drive the plot forward, but there isn't really one besides looking for a big treasure. Even the characters just feel so flat in comparison. I only liked Jason and Rodriguez, but other than that, none of them were really compelling or even presented in an interesting way. The villains are equally forgettable. I just don't understand this weird curse of RGG either having an amazing story, or amazing gameplay, and not both.
Majima in this game especially feels like a waste. Amnesia doesn't lend itself well for established characters, and since Yakuza Kiwami 2's Majima prologue, there has been so much stuff happening in his life, but we don't get to see in his head. We don't get a Majima that reflects on his life, that was reunited with his brother, that felt miserable throughout Yakuza 3. It's still Majima, but him having to keep reminding every character that he has amnesia and doesn't remember just makes some conversations so boring and removes so much of what makes him special. This especially stings, because the post credit scene shows that they're capable of that, but just didn't do it.

One final complaint, my lord, these graphics. On the sea, the game looks like it got sent two console generations backwards.
And the contrast is awful, it's either too dark or so bright you might as well ascend to heaven.

Overall, Pirate Yakuza is a lot of fun, but if you need a story to keep you motivated, you won't find it here, not even as a Majima fan. 8/10.