Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii Significantly Longer Than Kiryu's Recent Spin-Off

Goro is one of my favourite Yakuza characters, can't wait to join him on a pirate adventure full of hijinks. 🏴‍☠️

Majima is the main series. Ichiban and Kiryu are now the spin-offs. Team Mad Dog of Shimano. Woof woof

@LuXifer I want to get it, but man I just don't like the overly goofy nature of it compared to the other games.

@Nepp67 I get where you're coming from, there's such a thing as too much goofiness. But seeing as this is a "side-story" from the main series I don't mind them leaning into it. It will hopefully be very entertaining. But, as always, I'll wait for reviews and user feedback before deciding if I'll get it on release or wait for a future sale.

This is the only day one series for me. The only thing that disappoints me about the smaller games is they ease up on the trophy campaign and they don’t require such a completionist playthrough.

@LuXifer I do like that they brought back the real time combat for this game at least.

Man this is SUCH a game that the world needs right now lmao
I can't wait. Just relax and get lost in a goofy fantasy

Suits me. Bring on all the 'yakuza' you can pump out. I never tire of them

Come on, Sega! Give Europe a physical PS4 release too!!!

Going to wait for a sale on this one if I get it at all. It seems like everything I disliked about Infinite Wealth dialed up to 100.

Always crazy to me how much content RGG is able to always pack into every game, even when the game is a side-story that comes out so close to another game in the series. They really just have a good set-up to make quality titles yearly with no actual quality or content issues

@Yagami Infinite Wealth leaned way too hard into it's goofy side, even derailing the main plot at times for the sake of locking you into silly minigames that you can't avoid doing.

Dondoko island (which I hated) for example won't let you leave and get back to the main plot until you've gone through several tutorials.

I didn't like half of the writing in IW either. The only thing I thought was an overall improvement was the combat which was great. Everything else though felt like a downgrade from 7 which was my personal favourite.

Don't get me started on how shafted Ichiban was in this game too. How is Ichiban going to become the new face of Yakuza if he's constantly kept in Kiryu's shadow?

Anyway, Pirate Yakuza looks like it has great combat but everything else puts me off because like IW, it seems they're prioritising making the series more of a joke. Which is a shame because I love Majima.

@Yagami For me personally my examples mostly boil down to the forced minigames because then the minigames are no longer a side activity and are now part of the main plot that cannot be ignored and overall makes the game feel more lighthearted and goofy. I prefer when the two were kept seperate.

For an example not related to minigames, I would say the giant shark boss fits the bill. There's only so much I can believe as just being ichiban's imagination. There are probably other moments that I've forgotten but I know that this one just felt really off to me and I don't like the direction in which the series is heading.

There are certainly still serious moments but they felt far apart in IW. The beginning especially is so agonisingly slow and feels like nothing significant happens for a long time.

Otherwise I also agree with your points about the story. The writing was definitely not as strong which is a shame because it felt like they were really on a roll after Yakuza 0. Feels like I'm back to Yakuza 5 and rubber bullets.

Yeah that one too. I think it's also because in 7, it seems pretty obvious that only Ichiban can see what he sees. In IW though everyone reacts to the big shark and the kraken so it can't really be passed off as just his point of view anymore.

That's fair. The combat does look really good and I'll probably get it eventually just for that and the music always slaps. I'm just waiting to see what people think about the story as for me, that's the most important part.