Like a Dragon’s next title surprised us all at the RGG Summit a few days ago, just as the studio itself predicted a few months ago when it predicted that the next game in the series would be “unexpected”. Well, I’m sure no one saw a live-action spin-off with Goro Majima dressed as a classic pirate coming, did they?
It actually makes a certain amount of sense that Shinano’s Mad Dog would get his own game, if you’re familiar with the series. Majima has been a recurring character, if not a main character, since the days of the first Yakuza. He’s been both ally and foe to Kiryu Kazuma (though he’ll always be your biggest fan, right, Kiryu-chan?) and has also found his place as a retired veteran in Like a Dragon’s JPRGs with Ichiban Kasuga. And in all these years he has always remained a fan favourite, due to his wild and histrionic personality. Goro has always been the most cartoonish of the Yakuza/Like a Dragon regulars, so he was the perfect embodiment for this lysergic trip of neon and period costumes that Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii seems to be.
In a brief extended presentation with about 25 minutes of gameplay, I got a sense of what to expect from this spin-off, and I have some mixed feelings. For starters, for now we have no idea, neither we nor Majima himself, how he ended up stranded on a Hawaiian beach with memory loss and shortly after the events of Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth (in which he was nowhere near the Pacific archipelago). Be that as it may, here we are, starting this demo by disembarking in Honolulu from the Goromaru, our pirate ship. The crew consists of a little boy and his father, a tiger cub and a waiter who wants to change his life (who appeared in a side mission, I think, in the previous game). It’s an absurd premise, of course. But as is the trademark of the series, the whole Like a Dragon is half dramatic soap opera, half absurd and funny surrealism.
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For one, the main difference from the current main series is the return of real-time action. Majima has a very different fighting style to Kiryu in The Man Who Erased His Name, and fights using his inseparable knife. In addition to the usual combos and special attacks, we’ve also seen him enter a fighting mode where he dons a pirate costume, pulls out two sabres in the style of Errol Flynn movies, and starts slicing through everything in reach.
Of course, and as you’d expect from any game, the mini-games are back. Not all of them have been revealed in this demo, but we do know that the usual ones are back, as well as some recent additions from Infinite Wealth, such as Crazy Delivery (Uber Eats’ version of Crazy Taxi). It’s always fun to spend some time trying to beat your personal best in Dragon Kart, but time was short, and we had to visit a new location, a sort of large “pirate” casino in a ship graveyard known as Madlantis.
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There we see Majima encounter another “pirate”, whom he confronts (are they playing a role or is it a fever dream of the protagonist?) before exploring the area. In Madlantis we find a playful hub from which to go to the combat arenas, the West cards and hanafuda casino, or the boutique where we change our appearance and waste half an afternoon choosing a new eye patch.
Up to this point, everything remains as fun as in previous games. But, also with a certain weariness, I repeat that everything is the same as in previous games. From what little I’ve been able to see, it seems that the main attraction for Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii is just controlling the crazy character and using a new fighting style and a pirate skin. There’s always the possibility of being wrong, of course. The demo is so short and its parts start so ‘in medias res’ that it’s hard to tell if the story will offer anything interesting, or if this is just some sort of DLC for the beloved character to keep fans happy.
For now the only thing that’s clear to me about Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii is that everything you loved about the classic Yakuza games will be here with traditional combat, but I don’t know if in these waters Goro Majima will find the treasure he seems to be looking for.
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Publish date : 2024-09-25 20:51:00
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