Like A Dragon: Pirate Yakuza: Best Abilities, Ranked

The opening hours of any RGG Studios game can feel like a slog, especially when you need to upgrade the protagonists and their abilities for more options in battle.

Similarly, the recent Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza requires you to invest in Majima’s abilities so he can get stronger in combat, whether it’s skills for his two styles or general stat abilities like HP and attack increases.

With the list I’ve prepared, I’ll discuss the best abilities for Majima so you can easily decide what benefits him the most against the hordes of enemies or bosses.

Not every ability will be available early on. Some need you to have at least bought the previous upgrade level or achieve a specific Pirate Rank to unlock it.

10 More Majima

Mo Clones, Mo Fun

One of the newest additions to the combat in this game was Majima’s Madness gauge, which allows him to summon either doppelgangers in Mad Dog or Dark Instrument creatures in Sea Dog style.

More Majima allows you to increase the number of summoned doppelgangers to a total of 4 with the last upgrade.

I’ve put it at the bottom here just so you get it for last, because although having more of Majima’s temporary clones is nice, there are definitely better abilities to invest in to increase Majima’s brawler potency.

9 Quickstep Boost

Your Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free Card

If you’ve played almost any Yakuza game, then you already know or have an idea how invaluable quickstepping is, especially if you want to make the combat feel more fluid.

Quickstep Boost allows you to quickstep three times in a row in the Mad Dog style and two times in the Sea Dog style.

It becomes especially useful in large-scale brawls like ship deck battles or island skirmishes where you can get ganked by hordes of pirates and thugs with your only way out being the quickstep or the Mad Dog’s jumping maneuver.

The only real problem is how this ability unlocks way later in the game once your Pirate Rank 3, so you might have to wait a bit to invest in it. But it is worth it, especially in the end-chapter fights where you must constantly dodge attacks.

8 Quickstep Strike

An Early Essential

You’ll get access to Quickstep Strike right from the beginning chapters, and it is easily one of the best early-game abilities to pick up at that stage.

Evading and countering the enemy with your strikes is essential, especially against the latter one-on-one boss battles, where quick evasion attacks are key to opening up damage opportunities.

Here’s a neat trick for you: I like to combo cancel between my attacks and retaliate with a quickstep strike via the Mad Dog Style. You can then follow it up with any attack string for some damage.

7 Sea-Dog Skill: Cutlass Heave-Ho

Let ‘er Rip

The Cutclass Boomerang is one of my favorite abilities to use in the Sea Dog Style, as it allows you to launch Majima’s cutlasses like a Boomerang, cutting up anyone in their path.

Cutlass Heave-Ho increases the range of this tool, providing a slightly extended travel distance for the cutlasses.

And if you’ve got Cutlass Madness, this ability becomes one of the best ways to charge up your Madness gauge in the Sea Dog Style, especially during ship deck bouts in the Madlantis Coliseum.

6 Mad Dog Trick: Serpent

The Launcher For All Your Combo Needs

Serpent is easily one of the most vital abilities of the Mad Dog style since it allows you to set up enemies for aerial combos.

The first upgrade level is available immediately, but fully upgrading this ability makes the uppercut launcher more powerful, which I strongly recommend for the grand scheme in combat.

If you’re farming money in Pirate Yakuza, you’re bound to farm the Wanted target enemies, some of which are challenging boss fights.

And if you’re looking to earn some stylish points while battling them, setting them up for air combos using Serpent is necessary here, so it’s pretty much a no-brainer to pick this up.

5 Sea Dog Skill: Charge ‘n’ Shoot

Like Mowing Down Bowling Pins

Believe it or not, I consider the charge-up attack from the Sea Dog’s sidearm to be one of the strongest things in the game, mostly because of how you can effortlessly mow down enemies.

Fully investing and upgrading this attack via Charge ‘n’ Shoot allows you to charge the pistol all the way to a third level, maximizing its damage potential.

It becomes so powerful that you can erase trash fodder enemies in seconds, making it extremely beneficial in island skirmishes where you battle tons of grouped-up enemies.

Pair this ability with the Pistol Madness, and you’ve got another easy ticket to charge up that Madness Gauge for some deadly creature summons.

4 Essence Of Piracy: Rain Of Blood

Bullseye Buccaneer

I know I just mentioned the staggering display of the charged pistol, but for that reason alone, the heat action ability Rain of Blood had to be included here.

It was one of my most used abilities in the game. It allows you to perform a heat action, in which Majima launches a barrage of pistol shots at five enemies.

And the fun part: With Charge ‘n’ Shoot, you can hit a group of enemies AND get this heat action off, an ability combo I often used to streamline large-scale battles.

You’ll be battling multiple enemies a lot in this game, almost like in a Dynasty Warriors title, so having this ability makes clearing those enemies a breeze.

3 Sea Dog Skill: Triple Finisher

Knock ’em Up & Shoot ’em Down

Prerequisite: To unlock the ability, you’ll need to purchase Cutlass Heave-Ho, Charge ‘n’ Shoot and Chain Reaction abilities.

The Sea Dog style feels sluggish initially, but once you invest enough abilities in it and get used to utilizing it against hordes of enemies, it feels right at home with Majima’s Mad Dog style.

And to help make the Sea Dog shine even further, the triple finisher is a must-have ability. It adds a third finishing blow over your normal combo strings, one of which is where Majima can shoot an enemy out of a midair combo.

Depending on your combo input, that third finishing blow will be slightly different, but make no mistake, it’s an essential ability, especially for late-game events or even when you’re trying to maximize the Sea Dog’s combat capabilities.

2 Mad Dog Mastery: Perfect Quickstep

Float Like a Butterfly

If you’re familiar with Lost Judgment and Yagami’s Crane style’s Hidden Arts skill, you’ll already understand the importance of this ability in Pirate Yakuza.

Majima’s Mad Dog style always felt so swift to use in Yakuza 0, and with Pirate Yakuza, you can turn up its revamped potency even further with Perfect Quickstep.

Quickstepping at the last second (or, in layman’s terms, perfectly evading an attack) will grant you a temporary attack speed boost, allowing you to fire away your combos quicker.

The only downside is that this doesn’t carry over to the Sea Dog style, but regardless, this is easily one of the best abilities in the game and is worth the slightly pricey investment to make combat feel even more sublime.

1 Mad Dog Trick: Savage

…Sting Like a Bee!

The savage ability is perhaps the most broken in the game, at least for me, since it allows you to dish out an unrelenting attack string that can melt away the HP of boss fights.

The most surprising thing is…it’s available to pick up and use right out of the gate without any requirements!

You can perform a series of lightning-fast slashes at the end of your unarmed attack strings. And that’s where you’ll notice the aforementioned busted damage.

This is especially great for quickly neutralizing Wanted bosses to reap rewards or even against Taiyo Amon in his secret boss fight with his numerous health bars.

Despite playing on the Professional difficulty, it killed a few bosses quicker than I expected. But again, it’s best to reserve this ability when you just want to chop up your target or transition a boss fight to the next phase.