How to unlock and play Dragon Kart in Yakuza: Like a Dragon

You won’t only be occupied by the main story of Yakuza: Like a Dragon. There are several mini-games and side quests for you to play as you explore the city. One of the side activities you can unlock is called Dragon Kart, and it’s a fun, more brutal twist on Nintendo’s Mario Kart game. The rules are a little different, and you have to keep track of your vehicle’s health during the race.

How to unlock Dragon Kart

You won’t have access to Dragon Kart for quite some time. You’ll be able to unlock it once you have access to the northeast portion of Yokohama. When this area opens up for you, explore it, and you should see the Dragon Kart building right next to Hamakita park. Speak to the owner there to start the side quest of Dragon Kart, called Welcome to Dragon Kart, and you’ll enter your first race. After you complete the race, the side quest is over, and you participate in Dragon Karts as often as you’d like.

How to play Dragon Kart

It’s you driving against seven other riders. The goal is for you to reach first place and be the first driver to reach the end of the course. There are three laps every driver has to complete. You can only win by being the first driver to make it across the finish line in the third lap. 

There are Dragon Kart boxes you can drive across to gain an item to use during the race. The item can give you a speed boost or use it as a weapon against other drivers to blow them up. If you, or the other drivers, have their vehicle’s durability drop to zero, they blow up and lose the race. Your vehicle’s durability is at the bottom of the screen. Crashing your kart into other drivers or obstacles lowers your health.

The golden Dragon Kart wheels scattered all over the track increase your vehicle’s speed. You want to run over these as much as possible to increase your kart’s speed. The speed boost provided by the golden wheels doesn’t last forever. 

The Dragon Kart races are broken up into various Prix’s, and there are three races in each Prix to win that Prix. The Prix’s are broken up into various Circuits that has a top driver. If you win these Prix’s and the Circuits, you gain more points, advance to the next Circuit, and gain more points to unlock items at the Dragon Kart shop.

Before a race starts, you can visit your kart to modify it and give it new items to change its stats. The kart you begin racing is a basic build with no modifications.