A company’s AAAA game lost to this one goofy game. Hard.

Ahem.

(Note: Review ini juga terdapat dalam Bahasa Indonesia, yang dapat kalian lihat disini.[rearchivu.com])
After so long, we finally got a new pirate game— This time from RGG Studios! This is quite surprising for Like a Dragon fans, especially with Majima stepping up as the main character in their latest release. Not only that, but Like a Dragon is now coming at us with a brand new theme— pirates, a concept RGG Studios has never explored, at least not until now.

Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii is a side story that continues the events of Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, Like previous entries, this one leans into its usual absurdity, but for the first time, that absurdity directly ties into the main narrative— well, if you don’t count Ichiban’s hallucinations during battle sequences.

Pirate Yakuza follows Majima as the protagonist, who wakes up with amnesia after an incident near, or at least somewhere around this vast sea. From there, Majima tries to piece his memory back together. No worries, no spoiler ahead.

Let's get this straight. Majima comes with two styles: Mad Dog and Sea Dog. Mad Dog combines his iconic moveset with Thug style from Yakuza 0. It focuses more on its technicality as it was, with a mix of damage-dealing attacks, great for single targets or handling small groups. Sea Dog, on the other hand, is built for crowd control.

In general, combat feels snappier and more responsive compared to previous titles. But there’s one major addition that sets this game apart—you can jump, allowing for mid-air combos or dodges. This makes the fights feel more dynamic, much like how Judgment introduced wall jumps to the game. And yes, this is the first time where you can actually jump in the whole series!

Both Mad Dog and Sea Dog have their own special skills, which are borderline broken. Majima can summon a doppelganger or use the Dark Instrument to deal massive damage. These skills can make otherwise tough encounters feel trivial.

The game features two types of exploration: ground exploration and naval exploration. On land, things are mostly familiar if you’ve played previous games, but now you can reach hidden areas containing treasure chests. These areas can be hidden in plain sight, but there are others that are so obvious. Besides, Noah will call it out when there’s a place you can climb onto.

But the biggest addition is naval exploration. You’ll sail around, making the game world feel much wider in comparison to other games. There will be some islands which contains treasure chests, where you'll fight a major amount of enemies in this sequence.

Then there’s naval combat. you’ll fight against other enemy ships which might remind you of Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag. You can fire machine guns at enemies in front, cannons on your sides, or even launch rockets. And if that’s not enough... you can ram enemy ships with your own for extra damage, You can upgrade your ship through direct upgrades, or recruiting crew members.

The moment you reach Chapter 3, you’ll have access to most, if not all of the content, including a decent amount of minigames returning from past titles. Many of them have extra content added, or remixed its content, making it feel fresh.

Coliseum returns in this game, with mechanics similar to Like a Dragon Gaiden, where you’ll bring your crew to a group battle. But now, this includes naval combat too.

My only gripe with the gameplay? The ship moves a bit too slow in the exploration side of the game, which makes naval exploration feel sluggish at times.

Just like in Like a Dragon Gaiden, you can customize Majima’s appearance, with new outfits unlocked by visiting shops in Hawaii or by completing minigames and buying it with their specified points. Hell, one of them is Goromi’s outfit from Yakuza Kiwami, which you’ll get in a container. Absolute fanservice.

And it’s not just Majima— you can also customize his ship, the Goromaru. Surprisingly, this game allows you for a quite decent ship customization, especially for a spinoff game.

Without giving away spoilers, Pirate Yakuza tells a lighthearted story, compared to Infinite Wealth or previous Yakuza/Like a Dragon games. It’s more lighthearted, but that doesn’t mean the writing takes a toll in terms of quality. If anything, this made the whole story feel refreshing. This gave Pirate Yakuza its own charm. This also applies into the substory, where it can be a bit... freaky at times. Especially Minato Girls substory.

However, for a few characters, their backstory felt a bit unnatural at times. One of the antagonist’s redemption, Shigaki in particular, feels a bit rushed.

My main issue with the story is the pacing, especially in Chapters 2 and 3. There are some interesting parts that felt… odd when it terms to pacing, thanks to its enormous sidetracking.

The graphics are impressive, with a good balance between realism and uniqueness thanks to the glorious Dragon Engine, which we all know and love. Locations like Rich Island look amazing, with accurate lighting. Although, there are some parts where it felt a bit too oversaturated, or too dark at times, especially at evening.

There are minor performance issues in Madlantis and during deck battles due to all the objects and particles being rendered at once. Aside from that, no major issues.

Besides the gameplay, the music is one of the reasons I love Pirate Yakuza. Especially the opening track— it feels like a musical drama that makes a great first impression. I love the way it complements both the pirate theme and the usual Yakuza/Like a Dragon feel, but still sets apart on its older entries.

There are plenty of memorable tracks, including four new karaoke songs, one of which is the opening theme I mentioned earlier.

Generally, it runs quite well. Obviously, this game will have its FPS lowered quite greatly on specific parts of Hawaii, where it can go from 70 FPS to 30-40 on High Geometry, Medium Reflections, with the other settings off. I use DLSS Quality, as well since I like to play at even higher frame rates. This frame drop also shows on Madlantis since it obviously had lots of particles and many other objects. As for my specs, I’m using RTX 3050 Ti Laptop GPU as my GPU, and Ryzen 7 6800H as my CPU.

I also played on Steam Deck. It runs quite similarly— around 50 FPS in lighter areas and 25-30 FPS on the exact same settings. You can hit a steady 60 FPS with frame generation enabled, though. I’ve logged around 10 hours on Steam Deck, and for what it is, it runs quite well!
Check out the Steam Deck performance logs by clicking here.[flightlesssomething.ambrosia.one]

Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii is well worth playing, especially if you’re into Yakuza/Like a Dragon series. The gameplay shines, especially in combat, although naval exploration can be a bit too sluggish and filler-heavy sections mess with the pacing in the middle section of the game. But for me, this is absolutely one of those games you need to play. And of course, this means you should, too.

Score: 8/10

This review is made for our Steam Curator group, ReArchivu.
For more details, please check our Steam Group and Steam Curator page.