The Yagami Detective Agency travels to Yokohama to assist their acquaintances Makoto Tsukumo and Fumiya Sugiura with their first major assignment in their newly established detective agency. What began as a simple investigation of a bullying epidemic in Seiryo High School soon unravels a massive web of tragedy that exposes a nation's flawed justice system, as well as the dire consequences of youth intimidation.
It took me over 6 months to get to the end of Lost Judgment, and not because its a bad game by any means, but because Im severely burned out of the Yakuza series. I also have Yakuza 5 in state of limbo, and I have beaten (not completionist, but explored a LOT of the side content) of yakuza kiwami 1 and 2, yakuza 0, 3,4,6, 7 and judgement, all in the space of a few years. It was almost unavoidable for me to burnout since the games all feature the same setting, themes and beat em up combat as well as similar rpg progression.
The Judgment series has been a bit of a letdown for me since it presented as a big opportunity for the studio to try out a new things, but they really are afraid to come out of their comfort zone. Either that or the short development time that rellies too much on reusing assets and minigames from past titles. I did love the first entry for its gripping court melodrama, as well as introducing Yagami, a really charismatic detective that sees things in a different light to Kiryu.
Lost Judgment improves in just about everything from the first game except where it matters the most to me in these games, which is the story. The story feels like 5 hours dragged to 15 hours, and its even worst since the last third of the story feels all crummed together in the last chapter of the game. The story is not as personal to the main character so its harder to relate, and it basically asks the player to care about the fate of characters that have very little exposition. Its still a compelling melodrama, with a few interesting ethical and legal questions, but its a far cry from the first game.
What the game massively improves is everything around the story. There have been huge improvements to the quality of life of the game, the combat is much more polished with 1 extra style, the rpg system feels more letinent with less points needed for the character to become a beast. The combat is so satifying to the point where I activelly engage in street fights, which is something I never felt in the rest of the series, which I consider it to have just decent combat. The minigames are basically recycled, and the few new ones are quite janky. Didnt have much pacience to invest in these. The game offers more variety with tailing, chasing, stealth and climbing sections. These end up being too easy and simple to get through, not developed enough mechanically, but they act as a nice change of pacing from all the street fighting. You are also given a skateboard to help facilitated movement through the city. The dragon engine feels more polished, and its easy the best looking title in the series I have played so far.
Overall even considering Im a bit burned out with the series and have to push myself through to the end, I have no doubt that this is a great game. The weaker story makes me consider it weaker to the first Judgment, even if it has massive gains everywhere else.
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They took out all the elements I disliked about the first one such as reputation and constant gang warfare and added more elements of fun gameplay. The story is just as exciting as the first game and the ending was so heartbreaking. I think I’m now a yakuza fan. Can’t wait to start playing Like A Dragon!
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The good news is that Dragon Engine combat has never felt better, finally rivaling Yakuza 5[龍が如く5 夢、叶えし者] and Yakuza 0[龍が如く0 誓いの場所]. The side content is mostly good, and exactly what you'd want out of a game in the Like a Dragon[龍が如く] universe. Unfortunately, the story is simply awful. After a major character's death, all Yagami does is harp on it during every cutscene. Judgement made me like Yagami, but Lost Judgement made me sick of him and not really want a third game. The other big issue is in the overarching school stories side quest. Yagami becomes a school club councilor, and needs to solve every club's issues in order to uncover the mastermind behind a conspiracy. Some of these clubs feature fun minigames, like the dance club and the boxing gym. However, the motorcycle club and the robotics club are simply terrible. I will never know who the Professor is because I refuse to waste any more time on these garbage minigames.
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Honestly tied with yakuza 5 as my favourite RGG game and I have only finished the main story and some sidequests and haven't even started school stories yet.
though i do agree with one aspect of rakitox's review which is once sawa gets killed yagami does not shut the fuck up about it and acts like her murder is the only reason he cares about any of this anymore, even though she's some lady that he met like maybe three days prior. if she was like an old acquaintance of his and he had some actual connection to her beyond when he was constantly bothering her for information for like a week then it would be understandable, or even if he mentions the girl that got killed in the first game, but it feels like the game suddenly couldn't think of reasons for yagami to have strong feelings towards this case anymore. i do however love the moral dichotomy between yagami and kuwana, two judicial extremes beating the dogshit out of each other
One of the strongest main stories in the series
lol 0 is widely considered the best game in the series, c'mon.