I spent my childhood playing gamelofts Gangstar games on phone. They were pretty much inspired by GTA I and II. So, these type of top-down open world games are nostalgic to me. Recently I played Retro city rampage which was amazing and was full of 80's and 90's references. After playing that one, Shakedown: Hawaii feels a little disappointing but it's not actually that bad. May be my expectations were high.

The positives:
[+] 16-bit aesthetics
[+] Sarcastic story-line that makes fun of modern business practices
[+] Nice soundtracks

The Negatives:
[-] Lack of depth and challenge in missions {I don't like difficult games but this game is way too easy to be enjoyable}
[-] Story is not engaging enough (Characters are not interesting)
[-] No references like Retro City Rampage
[-] Something feels off when the cops are chasing. (You must fight them and they'll suddenly stop coming. Trying to lose them is not an option with normal cars) Also cops are so easy to fight off that after playing for 10 minutes you'll start ignoring them.
[-] The money making system feels imbalanced and weird
[-] Almost everything in this feels unfinished
[-] Too Repetitive (You just drive here and there and shoot)

I had fun for about an hour and a half. But still I'm recommending this game as there's no other game like this available anymore (Other than Retro City Rampage).

The change of humor from Retro City Rampage was this game's biggest mistake...

Shakedown: Hawaii is the "sequel" or successor to Retro City Rampage, on the surface both games seem very similar, it even feels like the 16-bit upgrade of Retro City Rampage as if it was its successor from the SNES like with Super Mario Bros and Super Mario World.
Though the similarities are only the basic idea of a GTA 1/2 clone with pixelated graphics, this game uses a totally different story/mission structure compared to Retro City Rampage. Shakedown Hawaii is about a has-been company CEO who tries to keep his company afloat in modern days using the outdated gags of "Old good New bad". This game would've hit harder if it came years earlier because the whole "old good new bad" has unfortunately been done to death by so many sitcoms, cartoons, and a bunch of other types of media.
The mission's structure is nothing like Retro City Rampage, they are just small repetitive gags about what I've previously said and the gameplay consists of usually stealing a car, killing a shop owner, ... And it gets old quickly, especially with how none of the missions are rememberable and completing them doesn't really give you anything other than money which is what the game tries to focus on but without doing anything with it.
The main gimmick of the game runs around being a CEO rebuilding his brand by buying stores, houses, and many other monopoly assets to earn more and more money. Though the money actually serves nothing, you just play to buy lands, and that's it, the post-game is just waiting a virtual day to get paid and then buying more buildings over and over, there's nothing to do in this game once you've completed all of the missions.

Outside of the gameplay and story, this game is wonderful in the graphics and audio department and it's obviously its biggest highlight. Retro City Rampage looked charming but it never really was visually impressive, while Shakedown Hawaii Really shines with its 16-bit art style and soundtrack.

Shakedown Hawaii was a game I've waited for years to come out, I was a huge fan of Retro City Rampage and I couldn't wait for more, when I first played it on the Epic Game store I really enjoyed it but I didn't really think about the flaws since I was mostly just happy the game came out, but after a new objective playthrough 4 years later it really made me realise how flawed this game is, but it's still a blast to roam in the city and have some general sandbox fun.

It's a decent top-down arcade game, the visuals are such a step-up over Retro City Rampage and the core gameplay is enjoyable. The business purchasing mechanic is pretty simple but it's satisfying to slowly buy up more of the city. Missions are easily the weakest aspect of this game, since they can be very repetitive, where RTC at least had frequent unique levels that had different objectives or gimmicks. I enjoyed my time playing the game but I'd be lying if I didn't start to get bored in the later half of the game since you'll be doing the same couple of objectives in different locations.

Shakedown Hawaii is a GTA-like game in 16-bit graphics style.
It is pretty fun at first. The humor is pretty decent, beeing more or less a commentary onto subscription based business models and other consumerism stuff.

However what really was not fun is the lenght. Even if it isn't a super long game, if feels streched.
It has about 111 missions but technically all of them play more or less the same.
Go/drive there, watch dialogue, go somewhere else kill someone/demolish something etc.

After about 50 missions, I asked myself if I wanted to do it again for 50 missions, and after a a few seconds, I came to a "no, I don't."

Due to this amount of missions and cutscenes (about three to five per mission) coming with them, even the humor wore of after about an hour and besides that nothing really new happens.