Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii

The game was provided by SEGA for review. Thank you!

Usually, when developers work on the next entries to their flagship series, there are years between releases. This could be due to many reasons, like creating new assets from the ground up or taking time to flesh the story out in meaningful and epic ways. Yet here is RGG Studio, releasing a new Like a Dragon/Yakuza game a year after their last mainline release, Infinite Wealth. It doesn’t always reach the heights of Infinite Wealth, but Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii is a worthy entry in the franchise that has so much to do, and there will be a lot of fun while doing it.

Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii occurs after Infinite Wealth, with Goro Majima running the show instead of the usual showrunners Kazuma Kiryu and Ichiban Kasuga. Majima finds himself on the verge of death on some random island, not being able to remember anything about who he is. Then, a boy named Noah finds him and brings him food and water. Indebted to him for saving his life, Majima decides to make Noah's wishes of leaving the island and seeing the world come true, and to do that, he decides to take over a ship and become a pirate.

It starts off in a somewhat heartwarming way, with Majima just wanting to make Noah's dreams come true as repayment for saving his life, but it quickly spirals out of control as Majima takes on finding a legendary hidden treasure. This hunt leads the crew to different islands across the gorgeous Honolulu and the neon-lit pirate fortress Madlantis.

The main story is one I had some ups and downs with, but I ultimately enjoyed it. There are five chapters in the game with a similar length to Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name. It makes sense since Pirate Yakuza and Gaiden are spin-offs instead of mainline entries, but that doesn't stop it from pulling punches. It's an interesting tale with its fair share of high-stakes and comedic moments that keep it moving. However, it feels just a little short, and everything happens too fast. I would have loved more time with Noah, his father Jason, and Masaru and see them take more time to find the treasure.

Luckily, RGG Studio had enough time to flesh out the characters to make them stand out and resonate with them. In most games, with a little kid following you and commenting on what's going on, I would be a bit annoyed, but I ended up enjoying having Noah's company. He is not only a great source of comedy, like when he keeps calling his pet Tiger a cat, but he keeps Majima grounded and stops him from going too crazy. This also extends to Jason and Masaru, and there were a couple of twists and turns I didn't see coming. Bonds also make a return, so you can have little side conversations with the crew as you go through the game to learn more about them and their personalities.

I did enjoy the ending, though, and while there weren't that many dramatic scenes like previous entries, the ending did make me tear up a bit. I would say there is enough context and flashbacks to explain what's happening if you didn't play Infinite Wealth or the previous games, but there will be many references to them that may be missed if you haven't.

Like other games in the series, Pirate Yakuza has its fair share of side stories that tell some intriguing stories. Some of my favorites were the more comedic ones like Majima being tricked into trying a device to communicate with Noah's Tiger and setting Masaru up on a date with five beautiful women to try to woo them. Watching Masaru on his date with the women was downright hilarious, and I highly recommend going through that side story for a nice surprise.

Gameplay-wise, Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii takes after the old Yakuza real-time combat, feeling similar to Kiwami 2 and Like a Dragon Gaiden. In fist-fights, you can choose from two different fighting styles, "Mad Dog" and "Sea Dog," to take down the enemies coming at you. It's a basic system, but with the combination of changing styles on a whim, dodging, cinematic heat attacks, and abilities, playing around in fights is very enjoyable. I also love that bodies will ragdoll when the enemies are thrown around or lose their health. It's something small but hilarious watching their arms and legs contort as they hit the ground.

I was a little worried about naval combat since I have played more games with obnoxious naval combat than good ones. However, I enjoyed Pirate Yakuza's naval combat. There are four main ways you can attack other ships: machine guns on the bow, cannons on port and starboard, ramming, and giving up the wheel to shoot a rocket launcher at them. Giving up the wheel while in the middle of combat to take out a rocket launcher to shoot at enemies is awesome, and I like that I have that option.

I also appreciate the ship's abilities and how easy it is to heal up and maneuver. Though you have limited kits, you can repair your ship, cannons, and machine guns. As for moving around the ocean, you have a boost on your ship, which can be especially helpful for ramming and can also drift for quick turns. Drifting this way is my favorite since I can not only line up cannon shots that would have been harder to hit or take more time to line up, but I can dodge incoming cannon balls.

As you play, you can upgrade Majima's fighting and your ship with money earned from fighting and reputation points. For fist fighting, you can upgrade things like Majima's health and attack power and unlock new moves. You will also be able to find rings to augment your attack and defense, with some giving special abilities.

As for the ship, you can increase its durability, your boarding crew size, how many cannons you have, how many times you can boost, and how many smoke screens you carry. For most of the initial upgrades, getting the required money and points happened quickly, and I could grab almost all of them by Chapter 3 with minimal grinding. Some of the bigger upgrades, like continuing to upgrade Attack and Health, require a bit more and will take completing some optional objectives and side stories.

There will also be components and materials you can pick up to craft new cannons, machine guns, and rocket launchers you can equip. I didn't feel myself using this as much and I wish there was a way to further upgrade the weapons you have on board. There are different types of weapons, which is interesting, but once I found one I liked, I found little reason to go back and try out any others.

I felt similarly about customizing your ship's crew formation. You can choose who you want to have as your first mate, who mans the weapons, and who will come with you to fight against other pirates on Deck Battles. There are multiple ways to get new crew members, and you can find them through side stories or across Honolulu and Matlantis. The crew members you get can level up, though some can go higher than others, making them more powerful in the end. Finding the crew is interesting, but other than changing them out now and then, I didn't find much reason to dive deeper into it.

You must keep the crew motivated, which you can do by giving them gifts or throwing parties on your ship. Morale affects their stats, so it's a good idea to keep them in a good mood to be as helpful as possible when you need them.

There is a ton to do outside of the main story. I mentioned side stories earlier, which is part of it, but there is a bigger side story involving fighting the Devil Flags and taking down their entire operation. You can also go on treasure hunts across different islands, look for Golden Balls, and hunt bounties across Honolulu and Madlantis. These are easy ways to earn money and reputation points, and the Devil Flags side story is a solid extra story to enjoy.

And, of course, we have the return of mini-games like golf, kart racing, Aloha Links, Alo-Happy Tours Photo Rally, cooking, batting cages, Darts, an arcade with older SEGA fighting games, and the Pirates Coliseum to challenge other pirates in naval combat and deck battles. These mini-games can get you points to redeem for items and even a treasure, so it's worthwhile to take time to participate. It felt like there was always something to do, but it never overwhelmed me.

If there was one thing I would have liked to improve, it would be navigating the high seas. Pirate Yakuza's system is solid, but it would sometimes feel a bit boring. You can boost to move a bit faster, and there are rings that not only speed you up but can point you towards the next ring to take you to your destination, but there were too many times I just wanted to get to the next island. I was stopped by enemy ships often enough that I was just a bit tired of it and wanted to go treasure hunting instead.

And yes, you can customize Majima's clothing and the ship's look. There are many options for each, and you can unlock more at shops across Honolulu, which is awesome. I also appreciate that you can have different saved loadouts so I can customize how I want them to look and save the outfits for later if I want to change them up.

Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii - Steam Deck Performance

RGG Studio and SEGA have been on the ball with Steam Deck support for their titles, especially with the Like a Dragon/Yakuza series. Just like Infinite Wealth, Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii was also Verified before its release, and just like the last game, it definitely deserves the green checkmark. However, while a bulk of the game can run at higher framerates, like 40 or 45 FPS, there are a couple of trouble spots to be wary about.

While running around islands and ship battles was okay, deck battles, running around Madlantis and Honolulu, and some of the larger fights with tons of people pushed the Deck much more. On default settings, with FSR 2 at Quality, the framerate could drop. Luckily, the game is optimized and versatile, giving us a chance to make some adjustments for a better experience.

Before I go into my recommendations, Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii does have upscaling support for FSR 1, 2, 3.1.2, and XeSS. After much testing, I ended up preferring FSR 2 over FSR 3 or XeSS. XeSS had a more washed-out and blurrier image. Between FSR 2 and 3, it was fairly close. They both have similar ghosting and flickering in the distance, but there are some key differences, like FSR 3 being better with close-up shadows and FSR 2 being better with foliage further away. However, one very small difference that made me choose FSR 2 is the character's hair. With FSR 2, the hair didn't have any flickering, while it did with FSR 3.

I would say the changes are negligible enough to allow you to choose FSR 2 or 3 based on your preference. They both drain around the same battery life as well, so it's pretty interchangeable. For my tastes and the slight edge it has, I would recommend FSR 2.

There are going to be some minor issues here and there, like one or two scenes where the ocean water flickers a lot, but these don't happen often. The ocean water normally looks okay, but there are one or two cutscenes that can change the flickering.

Recommended Settings

I feel like the fluidity of combat is one of the best parts about Like a Dragon games, especially the ones with real-time combat, so my recommendations are geared towards a higher framerate. In this case, I was able to get to 45 FPS mostly locked down with FSR 2 at Balanced and turning down a couple of other settings like SSAO and Real-Time Reflections.

There are still some drops here and there, but these generally only happen when running around very crowded areas like Madlantis and Honolulu. It's near impossible to play the game at higher framerates than 30 in these areas because of everything loading in when running around quickly, but with these settings, ship battles and fights with large amounts of enemies largely held 45 FPS, so I am happy.

Thanks to how well the game is optimized, even these sacrifices can't make the game look that bad. It still looks great, feels fluid, and has been my favorite way to play:

Quality Settings

For the quality settings, I tried every combination possible to try turning upscaling off and play at 100% render scale, but even at the lowest graphics settings, running around Madlantis and Honolulu couldn't stay above 30 FPS. Even some fights in Madlantis couldn't keep up with a 90% render scale. For comparison, we can put the quality settings at their highest with FSR 2 on Quality and it will get significantly higher framerates, even hitting 45 FPS (albeit with a lot of drops in fights).

So, if you want the best quality possible, I recommend setting the game to the highest quality settings with FSR 2 on Quality. I know we are still using upscaling, which isn't the greatest, but it is the best the game can look while holding a stable framerate. I also recommend a 30 FPS cap with no TDP limit so the larger fights you have will stay as stable as possible. You could try to push to 40 if you want, and there are many areas that will hit it, but be prepared for drops in fights.

I did also play around with the settings to see if I could save on battery life at all, but the sacrifices are a bit too great for minimal returns. Even at the lowest settings with FSR 2 at Quality, which doesn't look great, the game will still drain upwards of 16W - 17W when standing idle. It is possible to increase battery life with more compromises, but for a game like this, it feels like too much and can hurt the experience.

Accessibility

There are a ton of different settings you can change to customize your Pirate Yakuza experience. There's a bunch of options like changing difficulty settings, making quick time events automatic, turning off wave movement, changing blood level, customizing subtitles and their size, changing UI elements, turning up and down audio settings, and more.

The game does support 16:10 resolutions, cloud saves, controllers, and it detects the HDR screen of the OLED Steam Deck. The menus in game are at a 16:9 resolution, so there will be black bars, but general gameplay won't have them.

There are also some small spots with small text, like the text at the top of the screen when near a lighthouse, but none of it impacts playability.

Conclusion

Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii is a fantastic entry in the series, and while it doesn't reach the heights of Infinite Wealth, it's still a joy to play. The story is filled with great moments and a cast of memorable characters, along with solid gameplay mechanics and a ton of activities to partake in. The progression systems were okay, with ship navigation and crew formation feeling a little underwhelming, but the choices you have and activities to do make up for it. For a spin-off entry in this franchise, RGG Studio succeeded in creating an engaging, gripping experience that paid off in the end.

And while there are some compromises needed, Pirate Yakuza is a fantastic time on the Steam Deck. It is optimized enough to be very versatile, whether you want a high framerate for smooth gameplay or the highest quality settings with upscaling, all while retaining its visuals. I am so glad it runs as well as it does, and I can happily recommend it to anyone who would mainly play this on the go.

Our review is based on the PC version of this game.

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