God bless Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio. It has been an incredibly wild ride this past decade to watch the mad lads from RGG take their cult franchise of weird little crime adventure games to the upper echelons of gaming's most respected institutions. I remember when I first discovered these games back in college; Sega had so little faith in the series' potential outside of Japan that it took years for the games to even get subtitled, and I had to pawn a used PS3 from my roommate's girlfriend just to be able to play the digital-download exclusive Yakuza 5. Fast-forward a decade or so, and now every new entry in the newly re-re-christened Like a Dragon franchise is a multi-million units selling blockbuster hit. Older games such as Like a Dragon: Ishin! are getting spiffy remakes on current-gen platforms; the new Ichiban-focused titles have managed to shift genres entirely and bring millions of players around to old-school, turn-based RPG mechanics; and, on top of all that, we're getting plenty of classics, action-oriented spinoffs and Gaiden side-stories in between the big, main titles. It's a damned good time to be a fan of buff dudes with sick tattoos punching each other in the face for the fate of various urban cultural centers, I'll tell you what.

In between Yakuza: Like a Dragon (AKA Yakuza 7) and Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, RGG Studio saw fit to create a bite-sized midquel called (take a breath with me now, folks) Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name. That perfectly-paced slice of good, old-fashioned beat-'em-up brilliance turned out to benefit from its status as a mid-budget side-quest in the larger, sprawling Like a Dragon mythos. Now, in 2025, RGG Studio is following up the massive epic of Infinite Wealth with another Gaiden title set in and around the familiar shores of that game's Honolulu setting. This time, we're stepping back into the shoes of a fan-favorite frenemy to every would-be hero of Kamurocho, Goro Majima.

The game is called (take another breath) Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii. I cannot stress enough how much that shamelessly ludicrous title encapsulates the entire experience of playing this game, and that is one hundred percent complimentary. We've seen plenty of wacky shenanigans from the LaD games over the years, most often in the form of its various side-stories and elaborate mini-games, not to mention the occasional non-canon spinoff like Dead Souls. This Pirate Yakuza game is the first time I think that the franchise has abandoned all pretense of believability and dived headfirst into the deep wellspring of madness and chaos that is Goro Majima's life. The wildest thing of all is how much it works. Don't get me wrong, this game knows that it is making the Fast and the Furious franchise's trip to the moon like like a French neo-realist drama by comparison, but that doesn't mean it isn't just as committed to telling a damned good story as its forebears. You will laugh in disbelief, be glued to the screen as Goro slashes and shoots his way through twist after unbelievable twist, and you may even shed a tear or two.

This is a game about an amnesiac sixty-something former Yakuza who dons his best Jack Sparrow cosplay and takes a literal pirate galleon to the waters of modern-day Hawaii to do battle with an army of Evil Pirate CEOs in their neon-lit combination coliseum-fortress-hotel-casino. There are full-on musical numbers where Goro and his crew of bouncy buccaneers sing about the majesty of freedom and plunder while a tiny, asthmatic boy jumps from deck to deck with his adorable pet tiger (also named Goro, naturally). You will slaughter thousands of pirates in your quest to uncover the hidden treasures of the game's many different maps, including magically cursed instruments that may or may not have the power to summon ghostly armies of demonic sea life to help you in your battles. If you prefer your Like a Dragon games to focus on an impossibly complex web of yakuza schemers getting our heroes roped into labyrinthine real estate schemes and triple-cross betrayals…well, I won't lie, there's still some of that in Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii, but it's mostly about crazy pirate shit. And it is glorious.

A big part of what has me feeling so excited about Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii is how well its mad-dog narrative ambitions complement the gameplay, which is shockingly full to bursting with stuff to do given its status as a Gaiden game. Its main story is pretty beefy in and of itself, both in scope and in length, and when you combine it with the treasure troves of side-content, you have a “budget” Like a Dragon game that could easily last completionists dozens of hours. Keep in mind that I'm a certified, brain-poisoned Yakuza freak at this point. You could easily get your money's worth simply by focusing on whatever activities you want to mess around with in between the story missions. That approach would allow you to appreciate the very refreshing pace of the plot. For as incredible as Infinite Wealth was, we don't all want or need every LoD game to demand hundreds of hours of commitment to see the story through to the end.

Speaking of comparisons to Infinite Wealth, I have to commend the RGG team for how much new and interesting gameplay they've managed to cram into what could have easily ended up as a mere expansion of the last game. To be clear, a whole lot of this game is going to be very familiar to anyone who has experienced Infinite Wealth. It uses the same Honolulu map, and most of the minigames, like Dragon Kart Racing and Crazy Delivery, are identical to how they worked in previous titles. I don't consider this as a fault of Pirate Yakuza. In this age of bloated budgets and endless development cycles, RGG Studio should be commended for how well they can reuse assets without turning out products that feel cheap. Besides, going back to Honolulu means getting a lot of fun Easter-eggs and side-story continuations that are well worth the time of anyone making a return trip.

In any case, it will be hard to complain about some familiar faces and locations when the “Pirate” angle of the game adds so much new material into the mix. This is, for all intents and purposes, the Like a Dragon riff on Assassin's Creed: Black Flag, except this time you can put laser beams on your ship, and board enemy vessels with an army of cute girls, Japanese mafiosos, fruit-themed mascot characters, and small children. The goal here is to improve on the formula that Ubisoft itself failed to iterate on with that Skull and Bones fiasco, and Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii succeeds with flying colors.

In all seriousness, this game delivers pretty much everything you might want from the premise of “Like a Dragon, But This Time You Get a Pirate Ship.” At sea, you get to sail around doing battle with fleets of ne'er-do-wells before landing on various maps to fight even more pirates and steal their booty. The maps are all pretty basic, admittedly, and the sailing sections can sometimes feel a teensy bit overlong, but these are minor gripes that never really get in the way of the game's fun factor. Again, the fact that this is a fairly short game by franchise standards is a great benefit.

Once you're on land, you get to go crazy with the series' return to real-time action combat. I have to say, with the possible exception of Lost Judgement, this is maybe my favorite ever iteration of the Like a Dragon brawler formula. Goro only has two styles this time and that balance works well when each style is so clearly specialized and unique. The evolved Mad Dog style is what you'll bust out for big bosses and one-on-one fights, and the addition of aerial moves and juggling combos gives you a lot more variety to work with on the battlefield. When Goro whips out his cutlasses, pistol, and chain-hook for Sea Dog mode, the game practically transforms into a Dynasty Warriors, with a splash of Insomniac's Spider-Man on the side. You'll be flinging yourself around and using sweeping AoE attacks to decimate hundreds of enemies simultaneously.

I only have one real complaint with the combat at all, and that ties into my only truly major issue with Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii as a whole. Outside of some minor technical issues with the game's HDR settings that made it hard for me to find a calibration that didn't look overly bright and washed out in places, the one quibble that genuinely impacted my enjoyment of the game - especially as it approached its final acts - is its difficulty. Or, rather, its lack thereof. This is partially my fault since I am a bit of a rabid completionist when it comes to Like a Dragon, and doing all of the sub-stories and mini-games is supposed to leave you overpowered and rich beyond all belief. The added sailing mechanics and the increased depth to Goro's moveset made me wish for something just a touch more challenging. Cranking up the difficulty just increased the enemy's defense and damage buffs, so far as I could tell. What would make the combat sing is more complexity and variety of enemy design. I'm not asking Goro to suddenly become Dante from Devil May Cry or anything, but a little more friction in action-heavy titles usually makes for a more engaging experience.

In the end, I was already engaged enough by Pirate Yakuza's absurd presentation, heartfelt story, and excellent worldbuilding to get too hung up on whether I was too overpowered too soon compared to other games in the series. Is this the best title in the franchise? That feels quite the claim to make, especially considering that this game is explicitly trying to use its Gaiden status to be playful and experimental, which naturally means it won't appeal to everyone. I think I can say that this is the most fun I've ever had playing Like a Dragon, and that is saying something given the series' pedigree. To put it another way: If you have any appreciation for video games that will slap a smile on your face for twenty hours straight, I don't see how you couldn't love Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii.