Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii had a really great debut becoming the second biggest entry of the saga with 22,327 CCU (51,63% less than IW with 46,1K but 38,47% higher than erased his name with 13,7k)
Alejandro LL. (@morwull.bsky.social)
For someone who doesn't really play these, but might like to, it feels like a new Yakuza game comes out every few months, which is just too much.
This one & LaD Gaiden (The man who erased his name) are more story DLC's for Yakuza 7 & 8, respectively. Just, they are big enough to merit standalone releases in RGG's opinion. LaD Gaiden was essentially an experiment in releasing this way, and it went well. But the new game isn't Yakuza 9, if that makes sense.
That’s fair enough, because they’re coming out too fast for me (a person who caught the series a little later but now plays all of these when they come out). I’d say take your time and either start at Yakuza 0 (if you want an action/arcade game) or Yakuza: Like a Dragon (if you want a turn-based RPG), and you can go forward/back from there, if interested. I’d say Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii is probably a game for people who are already fans, it’s just gonna be confusing and weird without a little prior context.
I loved 0, but every time I started Kiwami my eyes just glazed over. I played a few hours of Like a Dragon, but didn't get far. Maybe some day I'll give it another shot.
I had like a year break between LAD sessions, the first chapter was interesting but didn’t grip me, but when I went back to it I basically played it for 120 hours straight. I also played it in English the 2nd time (sacrilege I know, I tend to play in Japanese now), but it was helpful to just get into it (and the long cutscenes I could pay better attention to early on).
Edit: But also if you loved 0 then maybe you’d ‘get’ this one since there seems to be a lot of Majima-wackiness
But zero was Majima at his least wacky. He spends most of it just being a regular Yakuza.