I have to admit, this game being 50 bucks with a campaign this short with the side stories not being as varied as they have been for past games stings a little bit. I really like the new agent style and the side actives were fun, I just wish the side stories were more substantial overall. I liked the idea of the coliseum and its clear that a lot of effort went into it, even going so far as letting you play as anyone you have recruited (which is a nice gimmick, but overall you should play as Kiryu, the agent gadgets are straight busted against cannon fodder enemies). Pick this up on sale and itll feel more worth the money. Just overall feels a bit shallow for a 50 dollar release when LAD7 is huge and IW is going to be massively huge for just a little more of an MSRP.

I really enjoyed this game a lot. Really fixed a lot of the problems the original and its ports have with controls being a major pain. Not without flaws, the dialouge can get cringy sometimes and it really feels like sometimes you get hit for large chunks of damage out of nowhere. I really started to miss traditional level ups, the food mechanics are a really hard metric to use. Its almost impossible to figure out if you are under or overleveled cause of it. It just feels like its trying to be different for its own sake. Too bad this game was marketed like shit so we may never see another. Id love to see them port the original game to match this gameplay structure.

A bit rough in places but it was pretty good. Set your expectations right and this is a nice snacky little action RPG. Game really could do with some more definition of its social aspects, I really felt like my social stats leveled up randomly and I didnt really get how each choice would effect my stats at all. I eventually got locked out of finishing two characters questlines cause of it, I have no idea how you are supposed to do everything in one run. Have a guide up and you might have a better experience with this then i did.

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/

You kinda get whats on the tin on this one. Its DDLC with a little bit more lore thrown around. The extra episodes were cute and it was nice to get some slice of life time with these characters and see them fleshed out a bit more. I have to comment about how silly hard it was to get all the achievements due to the instructions for unlocking everything to get to 100% completion on the journal being unclear at best, which lead to HOURS of digging around to try to figure out what I was missing. Just be warned if you are looking to experience everything.