JUDGE EYES:死神の遺言

"Judgment" could have been a new spin on the usual RGG Studio formula, but unfortunately, it's just one more "Yakuza" game disguised as a new IP. As always, we get great cutscenes and a complex, over-the-top mafia conspiracy story full of plot twists, but the gameplay is stuck in Yakuza's PS3 days. The only difference is that we are now impersonating a retired lawyer who works as a private detective. We can investigate areas, collect clues, tail suspicious people, wear disguises, lock-pick to infiltrate areas, but none of these mechanics has been fleshed out properly. Sometimes I wish they would just make a smaller game and choose quality over quantity. For example, I would prefer a dozen side quests with acted dialogues instead of 40 with walls of text to read like in old-school RPGs.

Definitely worth playing for the plot, though. Takuya Kimura notoriously sucks at acting, but he is at least better than Kiryu's voice actor in "Yakuza". Except for a couple of supporting characters like Saori or Shintani, the character models look quite realistic, and the voice acting and dialogue writing is consistently good for a videogame.

Hopefully, the sequels will expand the investigation mechanics and provide something different.