I've been thinking a lot about whether a corporate product can tell a meaningful story about society. With the release of Star Wars Andor and Kamen Rider Black Sun, I've seen some extraordinarily leftist media that are nonetheless being made by a corporate body. I've got about eight pages of notes detailing my conflicted feelings on a Persona 5 review written in my docs. And then you get where the Yakuza/Lost Judgment series has been going for the past few years. The series often has often tried to take on a general route of acceptance. The treatment of homeless civilians and struggling immigrants is a recurring theme throughout the series. Yakuza 7 took a big risk by directly taking on right-wing movements and how they weaponize bigotry against the oppressed. At the same time, there's a weird tension between that game's support of sex workers and its limited understanding of the topic. The games are also known for their weirdly hostile tone towards non-Japanese gangsters. Its got peaks and valleys. Even compared to those previous risks, Lost Judgment is perhaps the most direct and blatant in its messaging in the franchise thus far.
I'll get back to that later. This game's premise takes the franchise to high school, a location I'd barely believe existed in the universe before now. And by placing its story within a school environment, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio can embark onto storytelling beats they've never attempted before.
This shift is most notable in the School Stories. While sidequests are a natural feature of RGG games, the ones centered on school have a certain freshness to them I struggle to describe. Its the same gimmick that makes Spy X Family work. Everything already feels like life or death when you're a kid. Putting those school situations into the context of the Yakuza universe instantly blends together to a perfect mix. Losing a robot competition, taking photos for the newspaper club, managing group tension among dancing schoolgirls... by amping up the stakes of these little events, it really helps capture that ridiculous period of a person's life.
At the same time, playing through those events through the eyes of Yagami also makes you feel like a real mentor to these kids. So much of anime or jrpgs are riddled with high school environments, but approaching those stories through an adult viewpoint character keeps this switch to high school fresh. You aren't a dumb teen caught up in antics, you're a school counselor helping out kids in need. When nearly every substory has that context of helping a kid through such a weird period of life, it adds a certain kind of heartfelt magic. It just works!
And it certainly helps that the gameplay just feels amazing. I alternated between playing this and Yakuza 2 Kiwami for a while and there will times I just had to start modding Y2 so I could play that in Crane Style. The flow of battle feels electric, although Yagami's defense and harsh limit on health items does put a damper on that normal RGG feeling of strength. The feeling isn't that diminished though. Do a back-flip and kill five dudes. Stellar work.
But back to the plot itself. The name of the game is bullying and the game won't let you forget it. Statistics of student suicides are listed out. The methods in which witnesses and even teachers are pressured by institutions to ignore bullying are displayed in elaborate detail. The failure of the justice system in these incidents are hammered home over and over. Its honestly stunning.
What helps flesh out the story even beyond the school setting is how the game ties bullying into the lives of adults. Grown-up "bullies" are rampant, with adult institutions protecting those bullies for their own ends. While the series has often ignored how the Yakuza have aided right-wing governments, its a centerpiece behind a lot of competing factions here.
By the game's end though, the game does dangerously approach a both sides angle. One faction is specifically interesting in killing bullies to send a message to bullies across the world. And they make a compelling argument. The bullies are so overconfident, so happy to reap benefits from the system, they're clearly going to keep running through life scot-free. The game's central argument against murdering bullies doesn't really do something straight-forward as "killing is bad" or "people can change" or what have you. Its main argument is instead "someone innocent could get killed in the crossfire." And that, I would actually say, is a hell of a strong argument. Its just that the way the plot weaves around to that point doesn't necessarily do that argument justice. The innocent party is only tangentially related to mastermind's scheme and their death doesn't come from a mistake by the mastermind, but because a different bully decided to kill the innocent while hunting down the mastermind. Its not not the mastermind's fault, but it felt like RGG's tangled web/conspiracy-style writing board kind of fell flat in this instance. Its a particularly weird plot point when Yagami's insistence on harassing witnesses, despite knowing his very presence puts them in danger, goes uncommented on as potentially just as culpable in the deaths of innocents.
Even so... the strength of the writing can't be denied. Its possible this sort of plotline was just destined to hit home for me. I experienced some severe bullying as an elementary school student and I've spent the last few weeks completing my observation hours as a student teacher. I observe students for 65 hours this semester, before I upgrade to the next level and actually act as an occasional teacher for 14 weeks. I've been the helpless kid and now I've been the awkward instructor. Even after I've had a hands-on experience running a classroom, I don't know what to tell you I would do in numerous of the situations this game. Would I be able to enforce a classroom and discourage this level of abuse? Would I be able to notice the signs? And if I failed and a student was hurt, what would be the right course of action after that? Is it ever possible to atone for that level of mistake? Especially knowing how the system would protect someone from that harm in the end?
Its hard to say. Lost Judgment is willing to at least try to approach those questions, even if it doesn't have all the answers. Its bold. Its refreshing. Its a good fucking video game. Maybe one of the best stories RGG has ever accomplished. It doesn't provide set answers, but its a sincere demand for something to be done. And that's just such a warm sentiment to sit in for sixty hours.
I'll get back to that later. This game's premise takes the franchise to high school, a location I'd barely believe existed in the universe before now. And by placing its story within a school environment, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio can embark onto storytelling beats they've never attempted before.
This shift is most notable in the School Stories. While sidequests are a natural feature of RGG games, the ones centered on school have a certain freshness to them I struggle to describe. Its the same gimmick that makes Spy X Family work. Everything already feels like life or death when you're a kid. Putting those school situations into the context of the Yakuza universe instantly blends together to a perfect mix. Losing a robot competition, taking photos for the newspaper club, managing group tension among dancing schoolgirls... by amping up the stakes of these little events, it really helps capture that ridiculous period of a person's life.
At the same time, playing through those events through the eyes of Yagami also makes you feel like a real mentor to these kids. So much of anime or jrpgs are riddled with high school environments, but approaching those stories through an adult viewpoint character keeps this switch to high school fresh. You aren't a dumb teen caught up in antics, you're a school counselor helping out kids in need. When nearly every substory has that context of helping a kid through such a weird period of life, it adds a certain kind of heartfelt magic. It just works!
And it certainly helps that the gameplay just feels amazing. I alternated between playing this and Yakuza 2 Kiwami for a while and there will times I just had to start modding Y2 so I could play that in Crane Style. The flow of battle feels electric, although Yagami's defense and harsh limit on health items does put a damper on that normal RGG feeling of strength. The feeling isn't that diminished though. Do a back-flip and kill five dudes. Stellar work.
But back to the plot itself. The name of the game is bullying and the game won't let you forget it. Statistics of student suicides are listed out. The methods in which witnesses and even teachers are pressured by institutions to ignore bullying are displayed in elaborate detail. The failure of the justice system in these incidents are hammered home over and over. Its honestly stunning.
What helps flesh out the story even beyond the school setting is how the game ties bullying into the lives of adults. Grown-up "bullies" are rampant, with adult institutions protecting those bullies for their own ends. While the series has often ignored how the Yakuza have aided right-wing governments, its a centerpiece behind a lot of competing factions here.
By the game's end though, the game does dangerously approach a both sides angle. One faction is specifically interesting in killing bullies to send a message to bullies across the world. And they make a compelling argument. The bullies are so overconfident, so happy to reap benefits from the system, they're clearly going to keep running through life scot-free. The game's central argument against murdering bullies doesn't really do something straight-forward as "killing is bad" or "people can change" or what have you. Its main argument is instead "someone innocent could get killed in the crossfire." And that, I would actually say, is a hell of a strong argument. Its just that the way the plot weaves around to that point doesn't necessarily do that argument justice. The innocent party is only tangentially related to mastermind's scheme and their death doesn't come from a mistake by the mastermind, but because a different bully decided to kill the innocent while hunting down the mastermind. Its not not the mastermind's fault, but it felt like RGG's tangled web/conspiracy-style writing board kind of fell flat in this instance. Its a particularly weird plot point when Yagami's insistence on harassing witnesses, despite knowing his very presence puts them in danger, goes uncommented on as potentially just as culpable in the deaths of innocents.
Even so... the strength of the writing can't be denied. Its possible this sort of plotline was just destined to hit home for me. I experienced some severe bullying as an elementary school student and I've spent the last few weeks completing my observation hours as a student teacher. I observe students for 65 hours this semester, before I upgrade to the next level and actually act as an occasional teacher for 14 weeks. I've been the helpless kid and now I've been the awkward instructor. Even after I've had a hands-on experience running a classroom, I don't know what to tell you I would do in numerous of the situations this game. Would I be able to enforce a classroom and discourage this level of abuse? Would I be able to notice the signs? And if I failed and a student was hurt, what would be the right course of action after that? Is it ever possible to atone for that level of mistake? Especially knowing how the system would protect someone from that harm in the end?
Its hard to say. Lost Judgment is willing to at least try to approach those questions, even if it doesn't have all the answers. Its bold. Its refreshing. Its a good fucking video game. Maybe one of the best stories RGG has ever accomplished. It doesn't provide set answers, but its a sincere demand for something to be done. And that's just such a warm sentiment to sit in for sixty hours.