(End Of The Journey) Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza Late Stage

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It finally comes down to this, the Hail Mary of this epoch of Majima's pirate journey. Death is no threat to the madness he brings to the stage play. I had to make it all worth it in the end for the final showdown. A mano o mano against Samoa Joe himself.

Yeah, I finished the game. The last hours were crazy, true to the wacky nature of every Yakuza games but dialed up to 11. I hated it took too long to get here, but nothing says overpowered Yakuza like a beat-em up with swashbuckling. I fought the Devil Flags and those guys were no slouch to defeat. Lost my ship to their sheer brutality and might of their force multiple times. But treasures be plenty, mania be compelling us to fight like real sea dogs, and riveting adventure plenty awaits.

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Now, the biggest treasure we've been looking for has multiple leads and one of them is from the multi-millionaire, Spade Tucker. Leading us to a boat chase to a fight in a warehouse to his giant robot mech to a pulp. You read that one right.

Now the reason he's doing this is the same reason everyone else is, they have pieces of information and are being cautious of one another. Majima is the only leader of the group that puts butting heads together to make sure everyone gets their share. Then again, some people always wants more of the take. Including certain insidious parties.

Some of the most intense dramatic moments is what Yakuza games do best. Some involving questioning friendships, trust, walking the road of vengeance, and facing your fears. So many great characters, you get to see them taking it out on the baddest of the bad in the sea.

I'll be real, part of me will miss this game. I never got around to play the side content much as I wanted to. This website said it takes 40hrs to complete everything. But it didn't count the freaking cutscenes, which are almost 20hrs long. I managed to hire 80% of the total pirate crews, with the majority of them being ranked bronze. 15% of them being silver and gold. And that sucks considering how tough coliseum battles can be much later.

Also, those ship battles later on? Yeah, Devil Flag pirates are absolutely brutal. I had to spend over 100s of grand worth of guns, upgrades, and such to make the ship effective. We have lasers on the right, flamethrowers on the left, and a front dual slotted coconut shooting machine (this thing even shoots funny). Avoiding thunderstorms, lightnings, cyclones, and whirlpools. With a combination of close contact damage, tokyo drifting, and ship healing to sustain, and continue fighting.

Interesting tidbit, you know how Sega came to be as a company? Their origins come from Honolulu itself. So it's no surprising that the recent Yakuza games are joyfully embracing its culture as well as the overabundance of arcade games. You even get to play the 80s arcade classics.

I talked about taking snapshots of perverts, now you can bike flip while delivering food and raking up points with silly stunts. Remember Crazy Taxi anyone? Actually seeing it, my bike parkouring needed more practice. Go-kart racing, golfing in the coliseum. I missed out playing a lot of these, they're so well designed, it feels off-putting not getting around them. Main stuff still plenty fun tho.

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Never worship idols to such degree that you're willing to spend top dollar on a winning trip to Hawaii while they feed you crappy food, and jerk you around shopping malls before eventually realizing it was all a scam to get money off you. Which was really sad to see. But hey, everything always works out when Majima gets involved. I kicked the crap out the manager later on.

I can also admit that I finally have obtained all four dark instruments. Finally battling the last of the Devil Flag leaders. This fight was supposed to be epic, fearsome, yet right after summoning with the saxophone, the vortex whipped almost everyone out in five seconds. I never laughed so hard.

He gets seriously OP in the last part of the game, damn, this whole time he's been holding back against Kiryu? Like, holy crap. Even the price of admissions for his upgrades are stupendously expensive. I'm talking 10s of million dollars to spend on extreme health and damage boosts. The in-game economy isn't that good Sega, STAAHHPP.

With the last few hours left before my friend snatched his PS5 copy of the game, I did everything to speed through the last chapter. I finally found the treasure, but then got attacked by the queen of Madlantis herself, who wants the entire thing.

And then later on, Samoa Joe comes and stabs her in the back and us. Like, kidnaps Noah's sister and drives everyone to the edge. Majima sacrifices himself in a hail mary, before being rescued and finally pulling an entire siege against the fortress itself. The last battle had Samoa's 7 levels of health, but no one's stopping the might of Majima now. Not even a WWE pro wrestler.

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This game is missing something, and that is a Jerry Bruckheimer producer. The sheer wackyness, absurd scenarios, it's a B-movie flick with amazing throwaway stuff to chew on. Add the Bruckheimer, and the insanity would have peaked higher.

I could have asked for a much bigger game, but suffice it say, what I got isn't really bad. If you can pull through the early hours, slow and boring as they can be, it's rewarding you with a bazillion different things to do. I don't like the story, and with the sequel hinting, I hope the next one hits real harder. Even the pirate game is better than anything we got from Skull & Bones.

Also, I missed Majima Karaoke, got around to one song and never found time to go for another. I wanted to interact with KSON's character more often. She can be recruited, so can the tour guys asking you to take photos everywhere. Think I'm going to ask for the game copy again later on.

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