This review contains spoilers
8.5 - used to be a 9
Contains Lost Judgment & Judgment spoilers
Lost Judgment is the most fun RGG game. It has the best combat, some of the best side content the series has to offer, and great music. The story bothered me on my initial replay but I didn't have the words to really outline them, it's never really left my mind though. This game meant a lot to me, it was the first RGG game I had played in a year, officially at least (My play order was weird: 0 > 1 > 2 > Kurohyou > Kenzan > Ishin > LJ > JE > 3 > 4 > 5 > Kiwami > 6 > 7 > Kiwami 2 > Kurohyou 2) so when I first played it, I thought it was the best one. I told my friend at the time it had the best everything, I then proceeded to play the rest of the series and my thoughts on that are a little bit mixed now. While it does have some of the best gameplay aspects and technical aspects of all the RGG games, the story (which I replayed for this time) brings this one down quite a bit for me.
The original Judgment's story has a human feel to it, even the conspiracy does. They're usually these big lifeless organizations but the conspiracy all originates with Shono and his want to save a loved one from Alzheimer's. Nagoshi's parents had the disease which lent him a better understanding of the topic, the original story also has more of a noir feel to it. The main problem with Lost Judgment's story is the lack of understanding of the central topics. Sexual harassment and bullying are no joke but it's a lot of weight to cover topics like them, Lost Judgment seems to understand this at first but instead of delving into why these things are the way they are, the story just uses them as crutches. Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. It's stance on bullying is very base level. Kids bully kids, that is it. What should we do? Aikido. The plot has 13 chapters to delve deeper into any of these but it focuses more on the underground crime than anything else. During the initial info dumps, Tsukumo says that the punishment of those in the wrong instills a sense of joy into those enacting justice and Yagami immediately butts in and says that joy and justice cannot be joined together. But I guess that doesn't apply for the high-school kids because you fight against them in fun, frenetic combat. That kid has connections to the yakuza, go beat him up. Those kids are picking on that other kid, beat the shit out of them, make them fear for their lives, yay. This is not me defending the bullies in the game, they're vile. I'm criticizing how little the game looks into why they feel the need to bully. It all solves itself by the end because they're all nice now. I haven't even gotten to the sexual harassment part yet. The story uses it as a tool, nothing else. It has the same plot relevance as Kuwana making a 3D printed version of Ehara's face. I wouldn't be as angry if it wasn't these topics being used. Bullying and sexual harassment should be handled with tact, not as tools for the plot to chug forward.
Getting to the plot, it is extremely similar to Judgment. Relatively smaller crimes branch off into a conspiracy involving the police and health ministry of Japan, Yagami deduces everything, there's a creepy mole, there's a scene at the end where Yagami filibusters the courtroom, changing the heart of the prosecutor and everything being ok in the end. It's much lesser here now mainly due to the way the story is told. Long uninteresting Wikipedia article info dumps about the mystery which are repeated over and over and over, it feels like either the plot is scared that you won't get it or it forgets and needs to remind itself because of the pacing. There's no dynamism in the dialogue choice ones, removing the SP gain which gamified that aspect of the plot, removing the very little involvement you already had. By the end, characters just kinda yell at the screen, going on about how grey the conflict is, how "maybe we're not in the right here", blah blah blah. There's nothing grey about the plot. Kuwana is a serial killer who uses his guilt as a crutch to murder those who've committed atrocities that he could have tackled but didn't. As Yagami says at the start of the game, the sense of joy from enacting punishment is contradictory to justice. Then, why are we having this debate? Kuwana never shows remorse for the people he kills. He says it himself, his version of justice involves that kind of punishment. He even ropes Reiko Kusumoto for more of a crutch with her comatosed son Mitsuru. It's all spelled out for you. Why does Kaito say that line? Why do any of the returning characters act so different? Kaito's a womanizing grunt, Yagami has the personality of drywall and he completely forgets Judgment's plot, Hoshino and Genda are pervs towards Saori (that whole scene can be counted as sexual harassment.) Every returning character is butchered and those who aren't are either lucky or they're barely in the story. Lost Judgment's story makes for a great Wikipedia read, but the way it tells its story is like reading the same article again and again.
I'm so happy the Kaito Files exists.
Contains Lost Judgment & Judgment spoilers
Lost Judgment is the most fun RGG game. It has the best combat, some of the best side content the series has to offer, and great music. The story bothered me on my initial replay but I didn't have the words to really outline them, it's never really left my mind though. This game meant a lot to me, it was the first RGG game I had played in a year, officially at least (My play order was weird: 0 > 1 > 2 > Kurohyou > Kenzan > Ishin > LJ > JE > 3 > 4 > 5 > Kiwami > 6 > 7 > Kiwami 2 > Kurohyou 2) so when I first played it, I thought it was the best one. I told my friend at the time it had the best everything, I then proceeded to play the rest of the series and my thoughts on that are a little bit mixed now. While it does have some of the best gameplay aspects and technical aspects of all the RGG games, the story (which I replayed for this time) brings this one down quite a bit for me.
The original Judgment's story has a human feel to it, even the conspiracy does. They're usually these big lifeless organizations but the conspiracy all originates with Shono and his want to save a loved one from Alzheimer's. Nagoshi's parents had the disease which lent him a better understanding of the topic, the original story also has more of a noir feel to it. The main problem with Lost Judgment's story is the lack of understanding of the central topics. Sexual harassment and bullying are no joke but it's a lot of weight to cover topics like them, Lost Judgment seems to understand this at first but instead of delving into why these things are the way they are, the story just uses them as crutches. Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. It's stance on bullying is very base level. Kids bully kids, that is it. What should we do? Aikido. The plot has 13 chapters to delve deeper into any of these but it focuses more on the underground crime than anything else. During the initial info dumps, Tsukumo says that the punishment of those in the wrong instills a sense of joy into those enacting justice and Yagami immediately butts in and says that joy and justice cannot be joined together. But I guess that doesn't apply for the high-school kids because you fight against them in fun, frenetic combat. That kid has connections to the yakuza, go beat him up. Those kids are picking on that other kid, beat the shit out of them, make them fear for their lives, yay. This is not me defending the bullies in the game, they're vile. I'm criticizing how little the game looks into why they feel the need to bully. It all solves itself by the end because they're all nice now. I haven't even gotten to the sexual harassment part yet. The story uses it as a tool, nothing else. It has the same plot relevance as Kuwana making a 3D printed version of Ehara's face. I wouldn't be as angry if it wasn't these topics being used. Bullying and sexual harassment should be handled with tact, not as tools for the plot to chug forward.
Getting to the plot, it is extremely similar to Judgment. Relatively smaller crimes branch off into a conspiracy involving the police and health ministry of Japan, Yagami deduces everything, there's a creepy mole, there's a scene at the end where Yagami filibusters the courtroom, changing the heart of the prosecutor and everything being ok in the end. It's much lesser here now mainly due to the way the story is told. Long uninteresting Wikipedia article info dumps about the mystery which are repeated over and over and over, it feels like either the plot is scared that you won't get it or it forgets and needs to remind itself because of the pacing. There's no dynamism in the dialogue choice ones, removing the SP gain which gamified that aspect of the plot, removing the very little involvement you already had. By the end, characters just kinda yell at the screen, going on about how grey the conflict is, how "maybe we're not in the right here", blah blah blah. There's nothing grey about the plot. Kuwana is a serial killer who uses his guilt as a crutch to murder those who've committed atrocities that he could have tackled but didn't. As Yagami says at the start of the game, the sense of joy from enacting punishment is contradictory to justice. Then, why are we having this debate? Kuwana never shows remorse for the people he kills. He says it himself, his version of justice involves that kind of punishment. He even ropes Reiko Kusumoto for more of a crutch with her comatosed son Mitsuru. It's all spelled out for you. Why does Kaito say that line? Why do any of the returning characters act so different? Kaito's a womanizing grunt, Yagami has the personality of drywall and he completely forgets Judgment's plot, Hoshino and Genda are pervs towards Saori (that whole scene can be counted as sexual harassment.) Every returning character is butchered and those who aren't are either lucky or they're barely in the story. Lost Judgment's story makes for a great Wikipedia read, but the way it tells its story is like reading the same article again and again.
I'm so happy the Kaito Files exists.