With Like A Dragon: Pirate Yakuza In Hawaii we’ve received another massive RPG that has a million moving pieces. Not only is it loaded with mechanics, minigames, and side-quests, but it is a sprawling adventure set across multiple locations.
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This guide will help you identify everything you should focus on, how to position yourself to cover as much ground as humanly possible and tips for what order you should tackle events. This guide will give you everything you need to know at a glance so that you don’t waste your time running up the wrong coconut tree.
There are some very minor spoilers in this guide. These are simply things like abilities you will unlock and locations you will visit. So, these are extraordinarily minor spoilers, but I’m giving you a warning anyway, just in case you are particularly sensitive to spoilers.
Save The Side Content Until After You Complete Chapter 2
The Like A Dragon Games are super fun to complete in their entirety, and I understand the impulse to hang around and complete each area systematically. But here is the issue, a number of gameplay elements don’t unlock until you progress past a certain point in the game. The first two chapters exist to ferry you from one section of the world to the next while introducing those mechanics.
Despite seeing them fly around all over the place, and them being necessary ingredients for a number of recipes, you won’t even be able to catch bugs until you hit Honolulu – which is the fourth location you’ll encounter in Pirate Yakuza! So, instead of scouring each location as you encounter them, you’ll be better served by mainlining the first two chapters and then working your way through all the content.
Grinding Isn’t An Efficient Way To Strengthen Majima
While Pirate Yakuza isn’t quite as centrally focused on money as Yakuza 0, it is still intrinsically linked to almost everything in the game. You’ll use money for the usual stuff, like buying restorative items, ingredients, and equipment, but it also acts as your experience points. One of the biggest impacts this has on how you play the game is how you will want to grind.
It is worth noting that as you progress, upgrades will cost money and reputation.
Like all RPGs, you can grind to become more powerful in the Like A Dragon games by repeatedly fighting regular enemies. However, when money acts as your experience points, and there are multiple ways to obtain money, you’ll find that enemy encounters aren’t a particularly efficient method of increasing your strength. Instead of stalking the streets looking for another combat encounter, you’ll be better off seeking high-paying bounties and preparing meals. Think of this as an encouragement to explore the rest of the game and all it has to offer! As the famous pirate Floyd Mayweather once said, “If it doesn’t make money, then it doesn’t make sense.”
You’ll Be Rewarded For Doing Literally Everything
The Like A Dragon games tend to do this thing where they will reward you for experiencing the most amount of the game possible, and Pirate Yakuza is not an exception to this rule. So, don’t eat the same food at a restaurant. Instead, try the different meals. You’ll be rewarded handsomely for doing so. Collect lots of bugs, pick up random junk on the side of the road, cook meals, play arcade games… you get the idea, right? Doing any of these things will yield those oh-so-valuable reputation points.
This is a great reason to experience all the game has to offer. If you see a new minigame or mechanic, interact with it, and you’ll be rewarded for doing so. This extends to combat as well. You’ll be rewarded for landing head actions, counters, air combos and tons of other stuff. Always keep this aspect in mind, because it is the reason to not fall into habits and to vary your actions throughout your adventure.
Reputation Is Almost As Important As Your Wealth
As we already mentioned, money is your sole focus in the first couple of hours of the game, and it stays important throughout your journey, but your reputation is a close second. Once you have acquired your crew, and you are looking to hire more members, reputation will play a major factor in hiring them. Additionally, past a certain point in the game, reputation points are required to unlock new skills.
You will still need money to unlock skills, but you’ll also need a certain number of reputation points as well. As we already mentioned in the “you’ll be rewarded for doing literally everything” section, there are a metric ton of ways to gain reputation points. However, the best way to get a ton of points quickly is by finding treasures, which you won’t be able to do until you hit a certain point in Chapter 2.
To illustrate how massive the point yield of a treasure can be, you will gain 50 reputation points for establishing an Aloha Link. You’ll gain another 500 reputation points for maxing out your bond. However, the smallest amount of reputation points you’ll acquire for a treasure in Honolulu is 1,780. The largest is 25,400.
How To Earn Cash Quickly
Since money is so incredibly important, you’ll naturally want to know the best way to get it. In the early game, it is all about cooking. When you are still on Rich Island, most fights will only get you five to ten bucks. A two-star meal, on the other hand, will sell for $30, and you can cook three of them at a time. 30 minutes of scooping up fish from the beach, and cooking them on the grill, will yield the same amount as hours of grinding combat encounters would.
Cooking never becomes a bad source of income, but it does fall off as you progress. While there are a limited number of them, bounty hunting is a great way to collect a very healthy chunk of cash once you hit Honolulu. Zip around the city using taxis, and target the specific bounties positioned around the map, and you can quickly acquire hundreds of thousands of dollars. This will carry you nicely through the mid-section of the game.
Healing On A Budget
You don’t automatically recover from damage after a battle. However, that doesn’t mean you should waste all your Staminan Xs. There are a number of places to heal for free. For starters, every hideout has a recovery point. Take advantage of those!
As for healing items, you can make the most of the cooking minigame, as the meals you can prepare there are pretty potent and budget-friendly. If you need to spend money on food, aim to eat at restaurants and select meals you haven’t eaten already, at least your money will go toward building your reputation.
Horde Items For Quests
It is a bit of a stereotype that RPG players horde all their items and never use them, saving for a rainy day that’ll never come, but there is a very legitimate reason to do just that in Pirate Yakuza. There are many quests that you’ll encounter where an NPC needs a specific item. If you have that item in your pocket already, then you will be able to complete those requirements instantaneously – deftly avoiding any wild goose chases. I cannot stress how much easier this will make your life.
So, whenever you see a new item, purchase it, and resist using it unless you have multiples of that item. This isn’t just for consumable items, either. Try to acquire different clothing pieces as well, as some objectives will require that you wear a specific item of clothing. Obviously, your budget won’t always allow for you to buy out an entire store, but the more you have on you, the less likely you are to have to chase it down later.
Rings Should Be A Key Focus
Shockingly, Pirate Yakuza never really goes into much detail about rings. I say this is shocking as rings are the be-all and end-all of your equipment. These will provide you with massive stat boosts, and can enhance different combat abilities. They are your weapons, your armor, and your accessories. So, they’re kind of a big deal. You’ll acquire rings primarily at clothing shops and by clearing side quests. So, when you enter into a new area, make sure you visit every apparel store and check for rings.
It is worth noting that not all rings will work on all fingers: rings for your ring fingers, pointer fingers, and middle fingers are typically interchangable, while thumb and pinkie rings are almost always exclusive to those fingers. It is also worth noting that you can wear multiples of the same ring. Some rings should also be used in tandem with other rings, so always read the description and make sure to pair rings with their partners.
Know When To Explore And When To Quick Travel
There are basically two modes of exploring Honolulu: once you have the ability to acquire crew members, take bounties, and acquire booty, you’ll want to systematically sweep the streets, section by section, looking to clear those objectives. It is important that you do this without quick traveling, as you’ll want to greet as many people as possible for the Honolulu Links. On the other hand, there will be moments where you’ll just want to push forward in the story. Not only because you want to see what happens next, but also because of what we already mentioned: certain things only open up once you have completed certain parts of the story.
Honolulu is massive, and while you can use your street surfer to zip around, the better way forward is to quick travel using taxis. Ten bucks for a taxi is absolutely worth it when it will save you five minutes of puttering around on a scooter. By the time you are in Honolulu, you will already be raking in the dough pretty aggressively, so don’t be afraid to utilize those taxis. You won’t be able to unlock the taxi stops until you have physically visited a location. So, even if your current focus isn’t clearing side-content, you should at least do one lap around Honolulu on your Street Surfer.
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