For those who’ve been holding their breath since 2013, Ryu Ga Gotoku’s Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii plays like a spiritual successor to the beloved Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag. But the game, historical accuracy and reality be damned, is also the most delightfully bonkers pirate simulator that you’re likely to ever play. It’s so successful on that front that the traditional Like a Dragon storytelling weaving in and out of the pirate material almost feels intrusive. But it’s a necessary evil—if one even wants to call it that, given that the traditional Like a Dragon elements here are as delightfully chaotic, weird, and overly earnest as ever.
After an amnesiac Goro Majima wakes up on a secluded Hawaiian island with nothing except a pair of pants to his name, a young boy named Noah, accompanied by the pet tiger he insists on calling a cat, rescues him and introduces him to the pirate culture that seems to be commonplace in the waters surrounding Hawaii. Majima, naturally, takes to the pirate’s life rather well. From the moment he gets his own pirate ship—set to a Disney-style musical number about taking to the high seas of the Pacific that straight up embarrasses every song in Moana 2 trying for the same effect—our favorite grinning lunatic is all in on becoming a legend.
All of Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii’s wild and varied minigames and combat mechanics feed into the idea of Majima collecting a ragtag menagerie of wanderlust-stricken weirdos willing to follow him on the path to fortune and glory, and Majima being willing to take a bullet for any one of them to help them achieve their goals in return. That involves protecting his ship, protecting each other, and, more often than not, taking up arms against anybody standing in their way. Sometimes that involves manning the cannons on Majima’s ship, and sometimes that means getting into massive, Dynasty Warriors-inspired brawls against rival crews wreaking havoc on remote islands, or when boarding a sinking ship to steal their loot.
Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii seemingly never stops teaching you some new mechanic. But it’s a testament to just how many ways it allows you to amass power that the game never feels overwhelming, or like you’re stuck micromanaging menus in order to make numbers go up when you could be fighting or blowing ships out of the water. Even in the scarce moments where you do have to spend some time tweaking your current crew—leveling them up, swapping out boarding party members and the like—sit back and enjoy the chance to yet again hear the hilariously over-the-top dad-rock anthem that Majima sings in that menu about the pirate life.
Getting the Mad Dog of Shimano’s memory back is the ultimate goal, but it wouldn’t be a Like a Dragon game if the road getting there didn’t do wild loop de loops the whole time. Those include the dead-serious continuation of the Palekana cult plot from 2024’s Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth; Noah’s surly father reconciling with his estranged wife and daughter, both of whom are under the thrall of a criminal pirate queen who runs a Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome-esque crime haven called Madlantis; and the four cursed musical instruments that allow you to summon the dark eldritch gods of the ocean to do your bidding.
That’s not even getting into the dozens of tangential stories—abundant in twists, turns, and moments of poignancy—that you’ll stumble across when Majima and his crew wind up back in Infinite Wealth’s Honolulu. If there’s a any knock against the too-muchness of it all, it’s that the Honolulu stuff is all a version of Yakuza/Like a Dragon that we’ve played several times before—and, quite often, having things to do in Honolulu means putting the pirate antics on hold.
At the same time, consider the distance the game places between you and Majima’s wild adventures at sea as a purposeful breather. You may end up missing the ocean while making your way around Honolulu, but Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii still gives you enough to engage with there that you’ll never feel bored. After all, every single task in the game carries on the series tradition of having patently ridiculous scenarios play out with absolute sincerity. Indeed, just about the only thing the game doesn’t make room for is cynicism.
This game was reviewed with a code provided by fortyseven communications.
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