wouldve been funnier if yagami and kuwana kissed each other




I LOVE TSUKUMO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The combat is one of the greatest in the series. But firstly, as someone who was subject to bullying in the past, I find the way the story handles the concept of bullying abysmal and naive. On the other hand, side activies are basically the same as the previous while the amount of side stories are much lower. Given that it also uses the same maps as Yakuza Like A Dragon, it is clear that there is not too much effort put in development. Therefore, I don't see the point of this game costing 60€ while its predecessor costs 40 and offers more content.

Overall, I felt like I played Yakuza 4 with much better combat and better graphics all over again given many similarities such as the snake style, constant blocking by enemies and the final chapter where a million guys are spawned at the same time and bosses are demi gods.

This game is fucking awesome.

"She can't say her peace without a voice. So if I don't raise mine for her, what justice prevails!?"

Lost Judgment is a game that is fixated on the injustices of the world, mainly their roots and how society responds to them. It's a game that refuses to answer its moral dilemma that pits vigilantism against the law, instead opting to leave you intriguing questions about morality and what true justice really means. When left unchecked, the evils in the world can fester to terrifying proportions, and what happens when its already too late? How does the law maintain a balance between enacting justice and upholding order? While, RGG has been known for making tight and engaging narratives, this is the type of story you didn't know they had in them.
On a more technical point of view, the narrative definitely has its flaws. The game sacrifices alot of the personal stakes on Yagami from the first game in favor for a more thematically strong tale and the second half definitely loses itself a little in its grand government conspiracy, which makes Yagami's argument feel less fluid than it should be towards the end of the game, with the biggest example being the taxi ride scene. However, the sheer thematic might of Lost Judgment's narrative has solidified this spin-off series' capability to stand on its own two legs and tackle subjects that the Yakuza series rarely explores such as bullying, suicide and vigilantism along with their ramifications towards society, all culminating in one of the best finales the series has ever seen.

Without spoiling their identity, the main antagonist of the game is easily the greatest antagonist RGG has ever made. Each time they interact with Yagami is a sight to behold along with their characterization and parallels to him in the context of what they represent, all culminating in one of the most satisfying conclusion RGG has given to an antagonist in their rogues gallery of already incredible antagonists. Hell, other antagonists in this game like Soma and Akutsu are incredible too, along with the side cast with new and old characters alike (bar the Genda Law Office gang, they really fumbled with them for this game). Shoutouts go to Kuwana, Tesso, Ehara, and my boys Sugiura and Tsukumo.

Comparing the combat in this game to Judgment feels like day and night. Yagami's attacks flow faster from the start and juggling feels way more satisfying and smooth to pull off. Each fighting style has their own unique flow to them: Snake helps for disarming and taking enemies out of the fight quickly, Tiger now feels more balanced compared to the first game and its moveset has increased tremendously, Boxer helps with juggling and punishing enemies for blocking, and Crane...feels better than sex now. The way each style interweaves with each other as you upgrade Yagami with unique boosts that carry to every style provides a sense of diversity to your "build" of Yagami. Its RGG combat at its finest and most polished, to put it simply.

The open world feels incredible to explore too! Ijincho's gargantuan size is accommodated for with the fast travel system and the new skateboard mechanic, which also makes Lost Judgment the true successor to Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. The school setting is such a breath of fresh air and tones down the scale of the story in a manner akin to Yakuza 3's orphanage setting, introducing fun characters like Amasawa and several intriguing 'school stories', a top contender for my favorite piece of side content in the series. Highlights are definitely the Boxing club and the Robotics Club, both having engaging plots and actual depth to their minigames, almost reminding me of something like the Taxi minigame from Yakuza 5. The open world has its blemishes though, as always. Substories are poorly distributed and paced in this game, with the bulk of them being found around the first half of the game and then becoming non existent in the second half for some reason. The Biker gang school story fucking stinks too, its way too punishing and literally unwinnable.

I'll definitely check out the Kaito Files in the near future but in the end, Lost Judgment is a beautiful gestalt that crushes its slight flaws by marrying its unique premise and thematic complexity to the emotional weight of the mainline series, culminating in an exhilarating and thought-provoking entry that I can gladly say is the best game in the franchise. Only time will tell if Infinite Wealth will dethrone it but as of now, I am very comfortable declaring this stance.

TLDR Unwavering Belief>Kendrick's entire discography

Lost Judgment has its flaws but those flaws are also completely upended by the ludicrous amount of content it has, This game manages to have almost the same amount of content as Yakuza 5 and that is saying something since Yakuza 5 feels like its bloated with content with some of it not justifying its inclusion, This is never the case with the content in LJ it manages to keep each and every aspect of content excess justified and fun to boot.

My main criticism regarding the game is its story not having a really strong basis to drive its messaging in which in turn makes the game feel like a social commentary piece that never really earns the audience's belief in the message that it tries so hard to sell, Which usually is never the case with the Like a Dragon franchise which usually handles societal critique in a mature and much more delicate manner.

The Kaito Files is RGG's first attempt at story expansion through a DLC and honestly they nail their first attempt with the DLC managing to not only flesh out existing characters like Kaito but also providing a newer fresher gameplay experience in a game that is already chock full of content.

There is so much here to enjoy that LJ really feels like a steal even at 70$ with the series' best feeling combat, amazing music and a flawed but meaningful story.

“She Can't Say Her Piece Without A Voice. So If I Don't Raise Mine For Her, What Justice Prevails!?”

A gigantic improvement to Judgment in terms of combat. A few steps back in terms of story. It has some really great moments but when the plot goes into its grand narrative, it becomes insufferable.

The way RGG tries to comment on morality and politics is so unbelievably childish that it rivals Persona 5's representation of politics, which is basically just dumb teenagers saying "adults bad, adults lie, teenagers good". Infinite Wealth's antagonists suffer the same problem as Lost Judgment's, and it's partly because of how they tried to take a lot of themes and ideas from this game for their central plot.

Yagami has practically no character development in this game because his biggest emotional hurdles have already been overcome. He's dull and boring in this game and the way the game tries to make him not be this way is to force the player into pretending like a certain character was a central part of his life when he's barely even seen this person. He also has an equally childish response to the antagonist's childish political views which makes the scenes where they try to preach morality to each other extra excruciating.

But when the plot is just about the mystery which slowly unravels, it's almost as good as the first Judgment.

The combat is so good that it cancels out all all the shortcomings of the story. This is the 3rd best combat for me right behind #1: Y5 and #2: K1. Three styles with an extra boxer style with DLC was so fun to play around with. Crane was buffed really hard this time. It's still not as good as tiger, but the game rewards you really hard for constantly switching styles. You can get some insanely cool air juggles with boxer style.

The side content was insane. School stories were mostly really good. I wish they weren't as long though. There are definitely some that should've just been removed like the gambling club. My favourite was the robotics club once I figured out all I had to do was make a beeline to the enemy base.

Great OST. Unwavering Belief, Final Destination, K.O.G., Blue Stompin', Green Vibes, In The Groove, Mutual Justice to name some of my favourites.

Don't play this game before Y7 if you don't wanna get a big plot point spoiled like I did.

I'm just gonna sum my points up for this game because there is A LOT of content in this game you could talk about.

Exploration is pretty fun with the addition of the skateboard. I never found out what the points did though, its probably part of some side quest. I wish the skateboard could be used on sidewalks, had more trick or more thing to interact with in the environment. Its also pretty weird that what you get here is only most of ijincho, some of it is cut off for some reason. I think that if RGG wants these bigger maps, they need to expand the rpg mechanics a bit to give the player more incentive to explore and do things. Its one of the reasons I think ijincho was best in Like a Dragon, its systems made you go around and do things.

Combat is cool, but its not my favorite RGG combat system. Tiger is still the best, it just has the best of all three worlds. Sure, crane's quicksteps is better and snakes parry is better than the standard block but tiger makes both of them good. Cranes attacks get blocked too often, enemies break out of snakes grabs too often. Snake has no quick getup option, cranes jump ability is sadly underwhelming. All that being said, I did use snake mostly because it was better than crane and I didnt want to use tiger the whole game again like I did in the first judgment. I think the reason people like lost judgments combat the most is because its the most polished of the stance switching combat games and it has the most tools to play around with. I much prefer gaidens more focused combat on the 2 stances than lost judgments 3/4 stances that mostly get relegated or I forced myself to use. Another issue I have with this games combat is that you don't really get many opportunities to "express" the combat. What I mean by that is theres surprisingly not many of the traditional levels you go through with combat and most enemies die very fast, on top of no coliseum (which in context of the game makes sense, but still). Playing this game, I was on hard mode and didnt upgrade my attack at all until chapter 11, and I wouldnt upgrade it at all if I were to play again. In fact, I had the training band on which reduced my attack by 15%. After maxing out my attack, I shit stomped every enemy so fast, it was bewildering. I also wish the upgrades were more meaningful, most upgrade suck ass or are just very specific. Like snake stance has a counter that only work if you arent in ex mode and have less than one bar of heat. WHEN THE FUCK AM I EVER USING THAT? Some heats moves too are like, while in ex heat, run towards a wall with 3 enemies and at low health. A bit of an exaggeration but I think it makes my point.

Without getting into spoilers, the story is not reaching the highs the first one did. Given, its kinda hard to do so when yagami was so personally involved in the first one. This game is better paced because you arent forced to do any shitty tailing missions and side quests but its not as dramatic as the first. Sometimes, its even seems like your pals dont even really care about the situation your in. I think its good, dont get me wrong but if the first game was better paced, it would have the better story.

My biggest issue however is how hand holdy the game is. I'm not a big fan of the ps1 millenials that hate quest markers and being told where to go, I hate getting lost in games. But this game is constantly guiding you like it has no faith in its player. This game has climbing and stealth segments but they arent very fun because really any mechanics to them, and they never let you just play the portion. The stealth for example is just a glorified tailing mission where you walk, then sometimes throw a coin, then walk again. I like stealth game, I love all the MGS game but the best part of those games gameplay was that they just let you figure it out on your own. You were free to express yourself through your own gameplay. The stealth in this is constantly telling you where to go and what to do, youre basically on rails. Maybe the comparisons to MGS is too much but if your gonna do these segments, make them interesting or just cut them out the game. Don't add these half baked gameplay segments into the game. The climbing segments also constantly tell you where to go and is pretty stale too. Theres a feature where you have to run on a wall and its used like 3 times in the whole game and its the most fun part of the climbing segments. Both the climbing and the stealth segments are cheap ways to inflate the game length. The game has so many little minigames and segments it forget to use some. Remember those tailing missions I was hating on? Theyre here but in the main game there is only 1, and its in the beginning. Thank god, right? But why even have it here in the first place? Lockpicking also makes a return and is used like twice. Sure, I dont mind some things being used to spice up gameplay, but its strange that you can get skills for these things and barely see them. The hand holding goes so far that I even got a tutorial message on wall running in THE FINAL ZONE. For a detective game, I think its should use its medium well and actually have the player do the thinking instead of just watching the characters figure it out in conversation. The investigation mode sucks so bad, you just look all over the rooms youre in till the game say you can leave. The player never has to piece anything together or really even understand whats happening. I just wish I had to actually figure something out, and not just watch yagami do it himself.

I do believe this game is still really good though, its probably in my top 5 RGG games. The combat is flashy and simple, it looks great, and skateboarding around town will never not be a vibe.