I keep going through the RGG games, hoping I will one day actually be up do date with their releases. I began in January of 2018 with 0, and even though I do get closer, it feels like I'll alway be a bit behind. Just this year we've gotten Ishiin, and in November Gaiden, with Y8 releasing next year, and I still haven't even played 7 yet!!! If that wasn't enough, Kurohyou on the PSP just got a complete English fan translation, so I'm going to have to play that one as well! I love these games, don't get me wrong, but it's pretty insane how many there are, and the sheer amount of content that's in all of them (though I can really only blame my own sick mind for going for 100% in all of them.)

Anyway, Lost judgment. I replayed Judgment last year and found myself a bit disappointed by it. Its main story is still fantastic, but there's too many mandatory side cases sprinkled throughout, the combat really doesn't feel particularly good (and the crane style is actually useless), the detective mechanics are not very interesting, and the Keihin gang is maybe the worst gameplay mechaninc this godforsaken studio have ever put in one of their games, and that's coming from me, someone who's gotten all the completion points for both cat fights in 0, and the, uh, sexy bug fights (or whatever the name of that mini-game was) in Kiwami.

Right off the bat, Lost Judgment just plays so much better than its predecessor. Yagami feels so much more fluid in his movements, and all the styles you get are actually useful and serve a purpose depending on the fight (even crane this time, which honestly borders on broken with how you can speed up Yagami's attacks simply by dodging enemies, and the effect lasts for a good while, even when switching to a different style), but they're also just so much fun that all of them can work whenever if you want to. Like, I mostly used crane and DLC style, boxing (which is almost criminally fun to use, though with an extremely short range), but I never had a bad time when switching to Tiger or the new Snake style either. They all bring something to the table and their own little gimmicks which keeps the very frequent fighting from ever getting stale, because you can just switch it up with new attacks whenever you feel like one style has run its course for a while. Honestly, it's not just an improvement over Judgment, but just plain the best and most fun battles I've had in any of the Yakuza games, even 0 and Kiwami that also had instant style switching.

The story is certainly not as well paced as the previous game's, but that's mostly because it reveals all of its cards way too early, so the final handful chapters are mostly about running in circles, taking a very slow route to the finale that is in many ways strangely similar to Judgments in a lot of ways, which does make it a bit less interesting despite a lot of very cool shit happening, and maybe the longest long fight RGG studio has ever made (though I do want to say Kiryu's in 4 is very long as well, but it's been a while since I played that.) It definitely has the most enemies to fight, at least.

Up until everything is revealed, I do really enjoy Lost Judgment's case, and it's fun to have a victim that seems to have been hated by basically everyone, so the murderer really could be any of the game's cast (though also obviously can't, since this is an RGG game, which means it's someone the player believably has to have a tough fight against), and at least from the start, new hints and details unfold at a good pace. Unlike the first game, the murderer's identity feels like it works and is very much baked into the whole plo, while the character themself is also well written and not just a complete madman. Very much an improvement over the first game where it felt more like the developers ran out of characters that could possibly be the murderer and just put names in a hat to choose who it'd be, and the chosen character is extremely bland. There're also a lot of good misdirections here, but also misdirections on top of other misdirections, really keeping me on my toes to really keep up with everything and all the different characters agendas and how they all connect (though it's not at all confusing, unlike, say, what Yakuza 5 becomes by the end).

Characters, by the way, that I really enjoyed! I mean, I usually like most of these games' characters, and they certainly do what the came to do: to have a lot of strong emotions about things, do cool shit, and occasionally be surprisingly funny. It is sort of a shame that some of the characters from Judgment are barely in this, and Mafuyu, who was one of the main characters in that game, has barely any screentime this time. The new characters are really compelling, though, and even unapologetically evil characters like Soma do have their interesting quirks that make them memorable outside of just having good fights, and the allies all get super fun interactions with Yagami (massive shout-out to Higashi). Speaking of good fights, though, some of the entire franchise's best boss fights are found within these games, thanks to not only Yagami's great moveset, but theirs as well. Their high quality is also not hurt at all by how EXTREMELY good the different boss themes are, by the way. Really impressive how varied the themes are, too, and how well they fit their characters, like K.O.G and Viper.

Though, like I said, the mystery is completely solved with maybe four, or maybe even more, chapters left of the game, and that is a pretty big knock against Lost Judgment, especially since the core mystery actually is very good until it unravels, and not in a particularly satisfying way, but more in a "wow, Yagami really guessed his way to the correct answer, and this murder feels a bit sloppy in execution", at the same time as characters act a bit out of, well, character, and seem extremely easily persuaded. The journey there was fun, but the destination leaves a whole lot to be desired.

Lucky, then, that the main side content in this game is the better story, and is absolutely massive in content as well. You see, Yagami becomes advisor to a school's mystery club, but their investigation into an online criminal calling themselves the Professor leads to him joining so many different clubs, and they don't all just have their own mini-game (most of them also surprisingly in-depth mini-games), but every club has its own littel story, and they're almost all extremely funny. Comedy in games is maybe the hardest thing to pull off, and every game, except for maybe Yakuza 1 (more on that game in the August update!), have some really good comedy writing in some side missions, but this is such a high volume of jokes throughout, and still with such a high rate of hits that I can just sit here impressed by what's been done. There are serious moments here as well, and they're good, as is the overarching Professor story, but not quite AS good as the humor. Yagami also gets a detective dog during his time as advisor, which is just great.

As for the mini-games you play in these different clubs, they're mostly fine. Of course, there's boring garbage like the motorcycling races that should just have been a reskin of Yakuza 5's taxi races instead, but also the dancing mini-game that I would not complain if it got its own spin-off, but the other ones are mostly just there, neither good nor bad. It's mostly the writing that carries the experience with them, and it usually worked really well for me, but I certainly can't guarantee that it does for others, so your mileage may vary here, since it can certainly be pretty Anime™. One man's treasure is another's man's trash, as they say.

Anyway, a fine game and I really hope we'll get a Judgment 3 one day. The detective mechanics still aren't good, by the way, though luckily pretty rare this time around.

It's a really good game, gameplay wise I liked it a lot more than the first game
A huge improvement is the tailing mission they've been reduced and are shorter
Iirc there was only one in the main case but there are some in the side cases they are less tedious so I didn't mind them in this game
They've made the crane style a lot more viable, they added two new styles, snake which is really good and boxing style which is also pretty good, all four of the fighting styles are viable, in the previous game I found the crane style to be not that good and I used tiger style for the most part but here I used all of them
This game is also a lot more generous with giving money and points for unlocking new moves
School Stories the big side case was pretty good the mini games were fun for the most part I found the bar one to be tedious

I want to give this a higher score but I can’t for reasons atypical to what I see as far as complaints go. I think it rules you beat up high schoolers for the first 5-8 hours of the game, basically a non issue that’s overblown, and I don’t mind the plot contrivances though it would be much better if every avenue was explored - it’s already a 40-50 hour romp. No the issue is the games confidence in its player, what I mean by this is how it feeds the narrative and regurgitates itself every chapter because it’s not sure how much time you’ve spent in the batting cages or chasing up school stories like Dancing, Boxing, or Robot battles. There’s a lot of fat that could be trimmed off in the games story to make it tidier especially in how it presents new facts as “gameplay” elements in the detective side of things. The worst of it is the continuous and repetitive urge to repeat plot points like your dad just walked in on a prime time tv show with catch up time after the ad break. It happens every chapter sometimes multiple times in a chapter. There’s an easy solution of course it would be something like a chapter manual or ledger in Yagami’s phone to help you recap for yourself. The kicker is it does have a kind of recap section it just happens to be almost completely useless and is more concerned with the appearance of being a detective game than being informative. Make no mistake this a detective story but it’s not a detective game even if the gameplay tries (a little) to put you in those shoes. Much like Judgement the strength is in the story, combat, and exploration and mini games. The story here is much stronger though I’d argue being probably the most grounded of the entire RGG catalogue while still managing to pull funny business where it counts in the side content and typical stuff like punching people solving everything in the end. It’s a great time and the additional Kaito files are an extra snack with a satisfying end. The school stories, side content, and the kaito files make the whole thing more appealing but the story and cast is certainly stronger and better done here than in Judgement. It’s a huge step up and considering its early days (hopefully with more to come in the future) the Judgement series is much stronger than Yakuza was on its second entry no doubt.

Really wasn't into the whole school setting or bullying as a central topic from the get-go and the opening hours are quite slow. Some chapters are very uneventful and short, chapter 6 basically nothing of note happens and chapter 7 is just fighting the same boss 6 times in a row.
It the middle section things do get more engaging especially with Yagami and the main antagonists having a really good dynamic and dichotomy going on, even if Yagami is just screaming "SAWA-SENSEI!!!" half the time.
In the final stretch the story tries to connect a random government conspiracy (because every RGG game needs one) to the bully hunter stuff and it's all just pretty convoluted and incoherent, it makes the whole thing seem unfocused and sandwiched together with the RK stuff feeling like a different game. In the Finale there's a random RK brawl which involves the school students that's just there to remind you of their existence since they haven't been seen in like 10 chapters. It really sucks the tension out of things.

As mentioned before Yagami is kind of an annoying idiot at times, instead of ever really criticizing the broader issues with vigilantism he just endlessly screams "SAWA-SENSEI!!" like a toddler. Just like Judgement, Lost Judgement has a large cast of supporting characters that are never allowed to actually help out. At numerous points Yagami turns them down for no reason and they just lounge around. It's only in the finale where Kaito & Gang actually do things.

I was already a fan of Yagami's general combat in the last game and Lost Judgement fixes the big issue of Crane Style being a complete joke. It also adds the Snake Style, a parry style (basically Tanimura from Y4) which gives Yagami a distinct, flashy, well rounded 3 style moveset. His overall abilities were cranked up to 11, he's op as shit and especially in heat mode he just flies all over the battlefield like it's bayonetta or something. The Dragon Engine physics is still the achilles heel, it's as unpredictable and janky as ever and maybe because of all the new crazy shit I had noticeably more "what was that" moments than in the predecessor. So many boss attack hitboxes are straight up broken (especially if they involve a grab) and the boss in the 2nd to last fight just kept teleporting across the floor on some attacks.

The detective gameplay is still just whatever and not something I ever look forward to. 1 noticeable change from Judgement is that there's fewer tailing missions but now there's new stealth sections which are somehow even worse. The enemies visions is just so unpredictable and stupid and if you're spotted it's an instant game over no questions asked.

"School Stories" is the main side content piece and while the clubs do offer a lot of content, unfortunately said content isn't all too good and the attached story is boring at best, they even bring back the insufferable Keihin Gang from the first game. Not all clubs were created equally either, some have their own fleshed out (admittedly not great) mini-game while others like the esports club have you play a few rounds of Virtua Fighter and the gambling "club" is just a roundabout way of unlocking the casino, it's not even relevant to the overarching story. The 2 most disappointing ones were the dance and bike club, the Haruka rhythm game stuff from Yakuza 5 was pretty fun but the dance club music just simply stinks and the bike club had me thinking it was going to be a racing mini-game, which are usually quite good in the series, but instead it's a boring gimick brawling "racer". The final race deservers special mention as the entire 7 minute long experience is decided by pixel perfect boost usage at the end since the AI cheats and will catch up no matter what.

While the dance songs suck, the rest of the OST is godlike. Easily some of the most memorable boss themes in the series with the final one being especially good.

Paradise VR had some good minor tweaks done but the most noteworthy change was the addition of rivals that turn the mode into a race to the finish line and since they removed the skill that slows down the dice, it's a heavily RNG based race. Ideally you get enough star points each round to activate the turn skip skill which essentially removes the rival from the game.

The story has it's moments but it's so unfocused that it ends up being forgettable and nowhere near as engaging as the first one. Other things do at least somewhat make up for it, alongside the usual QoL changes that come with a sequel, Yagami's moveset has been drastically improved in basically every aspect and Lost Judgement is easily the best playing Dragon Engine game so far.

Lost Judgment is the latest in RGG’s series that is supposed to be replacing Like a Dragon as RGG’s action game series. Even among potential rumors of an announcement of a third installment to the Judgement series, its potential future is up in the air. Some disagreements between RGG studios and Johnny's, the talent agency that represents Takuya Kimura, Yagimi’s voice actor and model inspiration for the character, led to a delay of the Judgment and Lost Judgement PC ports that only saw such release to PC this year. Regardless, for now, Lost Judgement is the currently last adventure of Takayuki Yagami, lawyer turned detective in the fictional city of Kamurocho. This time, Yagami is summoned to Yokohama to assist returning characters Sugira and Tsukumo with a case regarding bullying at a local high school. From there the plot goes on several twists and turns with lives at stake.

Lost Judgment’s plot is pretty great. Sure, it's basically a lot like standard Like a Dragon plots with a detective instead of a Yakuza, but this story in particular is very compelling. Lost Judgment does something that RGG has only occasionally done, but hasn't accomplished in a way that I enjoyed. RGG managed to keep the story fairly personal and low key (in comparison to other RGG plots) and I think the story succeeds greatly because of it. There is one fairly small element that I wish was kept out of the plot but I won't elaborate for the sake of spoilers.

RGG has also refined the beat em up formula to a mirror shine on this entry. With the introduction of the snake style for Yagami, Lost Judgement’s combat gets to a point where it is very similar to Yakuza 0’s combat, but has been more refined since that installment's release. Combos feel smooth and satisfying, EX attacks feel weighty and powerful.

Yokohama is basically a cut and paste from RGG’s 2019 effort Yakuza: Like a Dragon with some minor changes. This is fine, RGG is the master of reusing environmental and combat assets without it feeling too samey from game to game, so its something I am fairly willing to excuse from them. 

Overall RGG succeeds with Lost Judgement in a way that I am very excited to see how their next beat em up game is. They have refined the beat em up game to a mirror shine formula, I am excited to see what bells and whistles they create for us next time.

This review was cross posted from The Fig Tree, linked here: https://figleafgamingnetwork.wordpress.com/2023/06/02/lost-judgment-review/

Wow, just wow. What an absolutely incredible game. Lost Judgment improves on its predecessor in every single way. Early on we are introduced to a lot of this games new and improved features such tailing, stealth and parkour. This is also the only mandatory tailing mission in the main story so I’m sure a lot of people were happy about that. We also get to see a wall run feature during chases which is cool.

As for the story, this is easily the second best RGG have produced. What starts out as a high school drama quickly expands into something much, much bigger. The characters we meet along the way are brilliant and there is a huge twist around half way through the game that is one of my favourite twists in gaming history. Speaking of favourites, the combat here is the best gameplay of all time in my opinion, especially for beat em up games.

The two fighting styles from the previous game are improved and we are also introduced to a new one called snake (there’s a boxing one too but I think that’s DLC/sub story unlockable). Initially I was loving snake but as I progressed and upgraded the styles, I found crane to be the best for me. This game also might have my favourite boss battles of the franchise, with Tesso and Soma being standouts. Tesso battles are simply a blast and Soma’s are epic as fuck, as is his boss music “viper”.

And with that I’ve finally finished the franchise, other than Ishin which I need to buy. This is easily my favourite video game series of all time, with this specific game being in my top 5 along with Yakuza 0. I would highly recommend this series to anyone as both gameplay and storytelling are top tier. I’m kind of sad it’s over but now I get to go back through every game and complete the subs stories so here’s to a solid 1000 hours of more Yakuza.

Lost Judgment is better than Judgment. Maybe the story of the first game is a bit better, but the gameplay makes up for it. The combat is much better with 3 styles (4 if you got the DLC) and I really enjoyed the MRC side stuff with the school. I liked most of the minigames that you did with the school stuff.
There were barely any tailing missions (I can't even think of any other than the first one and certain ones on side cases) and the stealth sections were fun enough when they weren't frustrating. I like that there is more to do when it comes to detective work. I am also happy that they got rid of all of the annoying stuff from the first game, mainly mortal wounds.
Also, The Kaito Files DLC is amazing.

Es hat die bekannten Yakuzastärken und die bekannten Yakuzaschwächen.

Die Story und die Hauptdialoge sind super.
Die Nebenstorys zum Vergessen schlecht.
Die Minigames alle viiieeel zu langsam und unbedeutend.
Monopoly ist nachweislich das schlechteste Brettspiel der Welt. Und dennoch wurde hier eine noch schlechtere Version eingebaut. Warum?

Und dennoch bin ich froh, dass ich trotz dem mieserabelen Yakuza Like a Dragon Lost Judgment gespielt zu haben.

Die Dialoge der Mainstory haben so eine hohe Qualität, gerade in Verbindung mit dem genialen Soundtrack.
Wäre nicht alles andere (vom Kämpfen, über die Kletterpassagen bis hin zu den Verfolgungsszenen) nervig, könnte man das Spiel jedem problemlos empfehlen.

Aber die Yakuzakrankheiten bleiben, daher idealerweise auf leicht stellen und einfach ALLES ignorieren, was nicht der Mainstory dient.