What started as a street-level beat-’em-up gangster drama 20 years with the unique Yakuza has advanced into one thing delightfully, fantastically ridiculous with Like A Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii. In a brand new have a look at Sega and Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio’s subsequent installment, we see that any shred of realism has been discarded like jetsam; pirate protagonist Goro Majima can have interaction is mass naval warfare with laser weapons, summon an enormous spirit macaw with a magical saxophone, and go to the paranormal island of Madlantis.
Like A Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii seems to be prefer it may put Ubisoft’s beloved pirate video games to disgrace with its ship fight. Captain Majima can participate in fierce boat battles, equipping his vessel with vitality cannons, poison-spewing rocket launchers, and ice-elemental weapons that freeze opponents’ ships. Majima can assemble a crew of weirdos to man his vessel, together with former yakuza, hostesses, robots, ninjas, and sheep males. Issues can get even weirder on land, as Majima’s talents embrace the facility to summon shadowy doppelgangers that struggle for him. Or he can name upon jellyfish, sharks, and an enormous monkey to do his ass-kicking bidding.
Whereas earlier Like A Dragon and Yakuza video games have had comparatively grounded fight, Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii has no such pretensions. Majima is now principally Dante from the Satan Might Cry collection, and may launch his opponents into the air, juggling them with flying punches, kicks, and flintlock pistol photographs.
Ryu Ga Gotoku Studios is principally doing what it does finest: borrowing concepts and gameplay mechanics from different recreation genres and stuffing them into a brand new Like A Dragon. If final 12 months’s Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth drew inspo from Animal Crossing, Dragon Quest, and Loopy Taxi, this 12 months’s spinoff will well swipe from Murderer’s Creed 4: Black Flag, Satan Might Cry, and each role-playing recreation the place you get up on the seashore as an amnesiac. Sega appears conscious of simply how bizarre issues have grow to be; on the finish of the video, voiceover notes “sure, this recreation is canon, and also you’re going to want loads of them.”
If for some cause you thought that Like A Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii can be a ho-hum, fast-tracked sequel in Sega’s long-running franchise, take the 13 minutes to observe Thursday’s Like A Dragon Direct. It’s jam-packed with recreation particulars that make this 12 months’s Like A Dragon one other must-play.
For Like A Dragon followers, there’s additionally an enormous piece of welcome information in right here: Not like previous titles, Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii gained’t lock new recreation plus behind a paywall. That characteristic might be added to the sport free of charge in a post-release replace, Sega confirmed.
Like A Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii is coming to PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Home windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Sequence X on Feb. 21.
