5/5 ★ – asoola's review of Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii.

I genuinely had a lot of fun playing this game! The entire adventure was a joyful experience that I’ll remember forever. With every grand adventure there will be of course emotional, meaningful and sad moments that made me emotional and made the entire adventure an unforgettable experience! The story is so well written and I truly mean that, everything was foreshadowed and explained perfectly! Everything from the beginning till the end was perfect in my honest opinion! Even the antagonists were great to be honest whether it’s the Pirate King or Queen Michele. The characters new and old are fantastic, getting to see a new side of Goro Majima was a welcome surprise! We’re all well acquainted with the Mad Dog of Shimano and how he became that way but this game managed to introduce a way to explore more of Majima’s character whether it was as a captain of the pirates or as a caring father figure to the kid that saved his life. I never saw Majima talk about dreams or how the kid that lived in a distant island need to see a better world than the harsh one he’s acquainted with, Majima knew the world is harsh as he journeyed around the world in this story and yet he wanted Noah to see the world in a better light because that was his dream, to see the entire world and what he missed throughout his life. As said in the epilogue Majima also had his own dream and it is to save a dear friend’s life (Kiryu) maybe that’s why he subconsciously and despite being an amnesiac decided to make Noah’s dream a reality and it was gonna be the best adventure the kid ever had. This game if anything made me love Goro Majima more than I did before. Not saying he isn’t always that but I loved seeing Majima being mature, wise and kind in this game a side that is rare to see to the characters he’s not close to. I wanna talk a bit about Noah like I said all characters whether they’re new or old were fantastic especially Goro but Noah is a character that touched my heart, he’s such a nice kid who cares about everyone and everything around him. He wasn’t bratty or annoying he was simply a kid with dreams, throughout the game I also wanted the kid to realize his dreams because every time he saw something new the innocent joy he had made me emotional. When he cried and blamed himself I truly wanted to hug the poor kid because he deserves the world, he understood why his dad wanted to protect him but he also couldn’t help but dream about seeing the outside world and he isn’t to blame for that! I’m so glad despite the downs he managed to have lots of ups as I said he’s a character that touched my heart. (I sound like a mother talking about her kid now but oh well) He’s such an amazing character and I hope he continues to dream and achieve said dreams. I talked a lot about dreams and that’s because it’s a main theme in the game everything came full circle the moment I watched the epilogue! Majima talked about this in the scene and it made me think about life in general. Live your life to the fullest, chase the dreams you have and if your time is up and you never realize the dreams you once had you can leave them to the people you impacted and met throughout your life. That scene was so realistic, beautiful and bittersweet I think. Your dreams never die they simply are left to the next person. The theme of dreams was in Yakuza 5 but the way they dived into this theme once again in this game made me realize how beautiful and well thought out this story is. The game’s ending was fantastic it made me feel lots of emotions, first I was shocked to see Ichiban Kasuga then overjoyed, I was shocked again to learn about who took the elixir and what it actually was, then I was laughing and happy over the dance number that was in the ending then I got emotional over the meaningful conversation between Majima and Saejima and how Majima started telling Kiryu about his adventure. Kiryu may not be able to go on adventuring right now or in the future but he can live through these adventures because Majima is telling him about them it’s like reading a story and getting lost in it’s world in a way. (Also it makes me think how Kiryu’s dreams are Ichiban’s dreams now 🥹) Majima dream wasn’t realized and that’s okay because it’s not meant to be realized he came so close to his dream twice the elixir was the rocks outside the house and he complained about them next he saw the white whale and carried on with his life. At this point I’m not sure if Majima’s dream will be realized but if Kiryu does pull through then his dream will come true and if not then that’s life Kiryu’s dreams will live on. Honestly the ending was perfect just like its predecessor I can continue to write essays about why I loved it but let’s stop here shall we? Next gameplay it’s extremely fun I mean playing as Majima is always fun but the new and improved gameplay is 10/10 I loved playing as him but not just that I also enjoyed the pirate ship gameplay, it took me a while to get into it but when I learned how to do everything I was like “Yep I can do this forever it’s so fun!” Gameplay never ever disappoints in these games so it’s no surprise it’s spectacular here too. Soundtrack was also well done it really felt like I’m in a pirate adventure in Hawaii because of how well done the pirate soundtrack is! Also I know this may not be a big deal but I love everything about the UI design in this game, everything was made to fit not just Majima’s character but also the pirate atmosphere (like the mini map for example looking like it’s been rolled before it was open FANTASTIC) truly this game is spectacular! Well that’s all I wanted to say because of the “To Be Continued” and because this is a Gaiden game I’m excited for the next game whenever it comes out so until next time, Goro Majima, Goro Pirates and Like a Dragon! 💜