You’ve been gathering some crew in Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii, but you’re not sure where to place those crew members. While you can generally just slot in people wherever, you will want to try to put characters in more relevant slots. You definitely don’t want to put someone like the Bartender on a cannon, since he has better stats as a fighter. This page will give an overview of the best crew members in the game, as well as what slots to put them.

Crew Member Stats¶

Before diving in, whenever you recruit a new member, you will notice that they have four stats: Cannon Power, Ship Upkeep, Attack and Defense. The first two apply to ship battles, while the other two stats will matter more to battles on decks and when visiting treasure islands. The Cannon Power affects those weapons’ damage, as well as their reload time. For Ship Upkeep, this will affect the damage done whenever you ram another ship, the speed at which your boost recovers, and the speed of repairing your ship.

Best Support Squad Members¶

The Support Squad is synonymous with your Boarding Squads, but they don’t participate in battles directly. Instead, a voltage meter fills up over time during crew battles and once it’s full, you can initiate the support squad’s special effects for a limited duration. Because the effect is only for a limited time, you want to make sure that you have the best support crew in there. For the most part, this is pretty set in stone, as there aren’t exactly a lot of different options. Noah is one of the best, simply because his effect heals everyone and also reduces damage, plus he gets a fourth tier once you do all of his Drink Links.

Osakana-chan is another relatively easy crew member to recruit and a great defensive option, since her ability also reduces damage taken while active. As for the third one, without using DLC, you are probably going to want an offensive option, so that boils it down to either Goro or Barkley. Goro is available from the beginning, so you have more time to build him up, while you have to recruit Barkley later on once he becomes available. Should you have the DLC for the game, then you can replace either of those with Nancy-chan, as she has the same ability, but stronger.

Best First Mate Member¶

The First Mate is a single character you can use that will make your ship much stronger during those battles. Additionally, certain characters have skills that are only usable in this role. So, you’re looking at someone who has good stats in both Cannon Power and Ship Upkeep, as well as potentially having a useful skill. There are only four types of skills, which affect the three abilities you can use as a ship, as well as the damage you can do to enemy sterns (back of the ship).

At first, you can probably put whomever you want in that slot, but as you gain more crew members, you can start to be a little more picky. At some point during the story, you will recruit both Minami and Nishida. Both are excellent choices, as their first two stats are superior to their fighting ones. Plus, they both have excellent First Mate skills. Note that Minami has a little more Cannon Power, while Nishida will have a bit more Ship Upkeep. Once you maxed out their bonds, then their max levels will increase to 50, so their stats can be even higher.

Best Ship Crew Members¶

For rounding out the crew that will be manning your cannons and machine gun, you’re going to want members that have better Cannon Power/Ship Upkeep stats. Once fully upgraded, there are four character slots per cannon, then two more for the machine gun, so that’s a total of 10.

• Crystal Papillon
• Clark
• Daisaku Minami
• Nishida
• Seiko
• Toru Higashi
• Misaki
• Robo Michio Mach
• Ena
• Kei
• Ran
• Daigo Dojima (DLC)

If you fully level everyone up to their maximum and all of the ship’s stats are S-ranks, then you should be more than good to go.

Best Squad Leader Crew Members¶

That wraps up the crew members manning the ship, so you can move onto the Boarding Squads now. First and foremost, each squad will have a Squad Leader, who can be quite important. All of the leaders should excel at having great Attack and Defense, as well as having a great Squad Leader Trait. Naturally, three great leaders to have are Jason Rich, Masaru, and once you get him, Taiga Saejima. All three of them can have a max level of 50 after maxing their bonds, plus they have excellent traits. For the fourth slot, you can put someone like Toru Higashi into it, as his trait can prove useful. If you have the DLC, then you can put substitute either Kiryu or Kasuga for the final slot.

Best Boarding Squad Crew Members¶

As for the other crew members that make up the rest of the Boarding Squads, it doesn’t really matter in the long run. Just pick whomever you want, as long as they have great Attack and Defense values. Naturally, characters that have a max level of 40 will be better, since their stats will be higher. It’s best to recruit as many people as possible, so you can fill these out.