Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio
Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii, an unforgettable pirate adventure
Explore Hawaii, rule the seas and discover the secrets of Goro Majima in this new installment of the Yakuza saga.
The ‘Like a Dragon’ franchise never ceases to surprise us, releasing titles that enrich its world. After the excellent ‘Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth’ at the beginning of last year, this year we have a spin-off title, ‘Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii’, which surprised us with all it has to offer. Developed by Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio and published by SEGA, this installment will be released on February 21st for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and PC, and tells the story of former Yakuza Goro Majima, “The Mad Dog of Shimano”.
A pirate story
The story takes place months after the events of Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth and focuses on the character of Majima, who appears on a small Pacific island with amnesia. Much of the story revolves around the former yakuza’s quest to regain his memory. Along the way, he meets little Noah, a local boy with asthma who wants to leave his island. With this plot, they weave various relationships and especially characters that will lead us to be a captain of a pirate ship traveling between Rich Island, Madlantis, a secret island full of criminals and pirates, Nele Island, which is the base of the religious group Palekana, and Honolulu.
The gameplay continues with what we saw in Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, only that Majima has access to different fighting styles, one focused on speed and short punches (more Yakuza style), as well as one where we can use swords, guns and other tools. The game integrates a kind of special moves like shadows that help us to distract or hit the opponents, or a kind of quick time events with powerful moves that do a lot of damage.
One of the great additions is the combat with the pirate ships, which is simple but extremely fun because it allows us to interact directly with the crew, so it is important that they are happy. Therefore, we will have to monitor their lives and moods constantly. It is important to keep in mind that the battles between the ships take place in real-time and are basically composed of frontal shots and side cannons, so the timing of the use of acceleration and skid movement will be key to avoiding enemy fire.
The character progression system allows us to unlock different moves and powers, as well as evolve the crew and even the ship itself. On the aesthetic side, we can customize our character with different outfits, including little Goro (the pet tiger that accompanies us). It should be noted that with this pet, as well as with other animals that we will find, the key is to keep them happy and well-fed, because if we do, they will bring us objects that they find when we least expect it.
Something else that stands out is the ability to prepare our own food, depending on how much we do, we will unlock new recipes. In this section, it is important to note that we can grow or fish our own ingredients, although we can also buy them, either from shops or from ships when we are sailing.
Another component that is appreciated is the alternate missions and world of possibilities that Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii. As in previous titles in the series, we will be able to perform a series of activities such as bounty hunting, karting, poker, explosive baseball and even karaoke. Of course, these are just a few of the activities we will find, because as usual, retro video games will also be available from the beginning. For example, in the first episode, there will be a SEGA Master System console with the Alex Kidd title in one of the places where we rest.
Visual Tests
As for the visuals, we tested this title in two configurations, the first was a PC with the following characteristics
- CPU: Intel Core i9-14900K
- GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090
- RAM: 32 GB Kingston Fury DDR5 @ 5600 MHz
- Motherboard: Z790 AORUS Elite AX
- Cooling System: Aorus Waterforce X240
- SSD: Kingston Fury Renegade PCIe 4.0 NVMe M
With this hardware we were able to play over 120 FPS in 4K resolution, managing to enjoy this installment at its maximum visual expression.
Meanwhile, on the Asus Rog Ally X with the default graphics quality on medium, with a resolution of 1280 x 720, operating mode on 13W (silent), AMD FSR 2 active in quality mode kept us an average above 40 FPS. Switching the mode to 17W turbo with the same values reaches an average of 60 FPS, which speaks of the excellent work done by Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio to make the portability of this title possible.
As for languages and localization, the audio has 3 tracks, Japanese, English and Chinese. The subtitles and text language are available in English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese, Japanese and Korean. The English dubbing was the one we used most of the time, we found it worked well, although the Japanese has a slightly more comical and related sense to what the characters are expressing. It is important to note that most of the dialogue is text only, only the most important sequences are dubbed.
Without a doubt, Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii is undoubtedly one of the great titles of the beginning of the year, as it is fun and offers endless activities, sub-missions and surprises that will keep us playing for hours. However, the story has those elements of irony, black humor and twists that make the latest games in the series so distinctive. A game not to be missed by fans and non-Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio fans alike.
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