Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii: Koi-koi

Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii: Koi-koi All right, this is the other card game in the Honolulu Gambling Hall. If you already picked up the rewards while doing Oicho-kabu, you don't need to buy them again. Koi-koi has its own earnings challenges, though, so there's still something to finish here. Where to go Take the Revolve taxi in Little Japan. Head into the back streets north of Waikiki Street, using the small passage beside the plaza. The Gambling Hall entrance is on the right inside that alley. Once inside, speak to the attendant on the left for Koi-koi. Buy wooden tags at the entrance for $1 each in game money. The stakes and settings • Beginner: hold at least 300 tags; choose 10 or 30 tags per point. • Intermediate: 600 required; choose 40 or 60. • Advanced: 900 required; choose 70 or 90. • Expert: 2,000 required; choose 100 or 200. The entry requirement and the per-point stake are different numbers. Expert doesn't mean every hand simply costs 2,000. Before starting, turn on the hand guide. It helps identify captures and combinations. You can choose 3, 6, 9, or 12 rounds, enable Flower Viewing and Moon Viewing, allow the sake cup to count toward Junk, enable the current-month combination, and double scores of seven or more. I'd use three rounds while learning. Longer matches give you more hands to play, but they also take longer to finish. Save before raising the stakes. How to actually play The deck has 48 cards, divided into twelve months with four cards per month. Matching is by month, represented by the plant on the cards. Two pictures looking different doesn't necessarily mean they cannot be paired. On your turn, choose a card from your hand. If its month matches a card on the table, capture the matching cards. Without a match, your card stays on the table. Then turn over a card from the deck and resolve that card's match in the same way. The cards you've captured build scoring combinations. Cards still in your hand aren't your completed score. When you complete a combination, you can end the round and take its points or call Koi-koi to continue trying for more. Continuing gives the opponent time to finish something too, so a small win is sometimes the better decision. Recognizing the combinations These are the base scores, before optional doubling: • Five Brights: all five bright cards, 10 points. • Four Brights: four excluding the rainman, 8. • Rainy Four Brights: rainman and three other brights, 7. • Three Brights: three excluding rainman, 6. • Flower Viewing: cherry curtain and sake cup, 5. • Moon Viewing: moon and sake cup, 5. • Boar–Deer–Butterfly: all three animals, 5. • Red Poetry Ribbons: pine, plum, and cherry written ribbons, 5. • Blue Ribbons: peony, chrysanthemum, and maple ribbons, 5. • Ribbons: five ribbon cards, 1; each additional ribbon adds 1. • Animals: five animal-category cards, 1; each additional card adds 1. • Junk: ten plain cards, 1; each additional card adds 1. • Month Set: all four cards of the current round's month, 4, if enabled. Two opening-hand specials end that round immediately for six points: four cards from one month, or four pairs from four different months. The five brights are the crane, cherry curtain, moon, rainman, and phoenix. The rainman is the figure with an umbrella. That distinction matters because three brights including him don't qualify for ordinary Three Brights. Don't mistake the traditional card-category values for the number of points you'll receive. The completed combination determines the score. A practical approach Start by looking for the sake cup, cherry curtain, and moon. The cup pairs with either of the other two for a five-point combination. Those are much quicker targets than trying to collect all five brights every time. Then look at what you've already captured and what your opponent has. If the opponent has four ribbons, taking an available ribbon can deny their fifth. If they have the cup, leaving an easy moon or curtain capture available can hand them a win. Call Koi-koi when you have a realistic next improvement and the opponent isn't close. Late in a round, I'd take a small completed hand rather than keep chasing a beautiful one that never arrives. An opponent's captured cards are useful information. Keep checking them instead of looking only at your own side. With seven-point doubling enabled, seven becomes fourteen. At 200 tags per point, a fourteen-point winning margin would be worth 2,800 tags. That's an example of the calculation, not a guaranteed payout from every seven-point hand: the match's final point difference matters. The Lucky Hanafuda Card Kamulop sells this for five Fortune Points at the shrine east of Revolve on Fuji Street, after his Chapter 2 introduction. His initial stock is limited. Use the minigame's item option before the hand. It improves your matching opportunities for one hand, rather than permanently changing your luck. Keep following the available captures and finish the hand sensibly. I'd save it for Expert once the rules make sense, instead of spending it to learn the controls at the cheapest table. It doesn't remove the remaining rounds of the match. Completion and rewards Koi-koi's earnings milestones are 1,500, 3,000, and 7,500 tags. The Reputation rewards are 1,000, 3,000, and 5,000, totaling 9,000. Check the Koi-koi challenge counter afterward. Buying tags isn't the same as earning them through this game. If you haven't already cleared the shared exchange, its unique items are: • Chicken Man: 1,000 tags. • Matayoshi: 500. • Tattered Shirt: 200. • Bandanna (Wide): 150. • Scar: 150. • Lucky Cat Figurehead: 750. • Phantasy Star Online 2 soundtrack CDs 1 and 2: 25 each. All eight cost 2,800. The two recruits plus the figurehead cost 2,250. These are the same purchases covered with Oicho-kabu, not a second set unlocked by playing Koi-koi. If you already own them, work on the earnings targets and leave the duplicate shopping list alone. That would be my stopping point here: all three earnings milestones, then any unique Gambling Hall rewards you still need. You don't need to turn every single hand into a massive score to get there.