Lost Judgment is one of those rare games we only get every few years; a game so passionately made, so effortlessly executed, so engaging from beginning to end. It's a step up in nearly every way over the original Judge Eyes, which was already a pretty great game itself. The combat has been refined to the point I feel tempted to put this up in a pedestal next to some of the action game greats. The tweaks to crane style and the addition of snake increase the depth of the combat a lot, throw in the already fun tiger style and you have one of the best combat systems we've seen from an action game in the past 10 years. Switching from style to style to match the situation, or to straight up be stylish in front of your foes, never stops being exciting, and the ways these three styles can interact with each other make every counter feel unique. I do have to admit that it would've been nice if each style had been mapped to individual buttons on the dpad, DMC style, instead of cycling through them with one button. There's so much to do too! This is one of those rare cases where there's quantity AND quality. The side cases are tons of fun for the most part, side activities are plentiful, and the introduction of school stories add a lot of flavor to the game. Between the two cities it feels like you can never run out of things to do.
The stealth and parkour segments stick out like a sore thumb, they're by far the worst parts of the game. The parkour is plain boring and so is the stealth, with the added bonus of sometimes being frustrating. Not because it's difficult, not at all, but it's very arbitrary in what you can and can't do which leads to some unfair game overs.
Lost Judgment, much like its predecessor, starts out really good, gets a bit slow in the middle, and towards the back half becomes genuinely legendary. The last five or so chapters of Lost Judgment are some of the most engaging pieces of writing I've had the pleasure of experiencing since maybe Umineko Chiru. It's not as good a mystery as Umineko, not even close, but the drama and character writing are so on point that some moments brought me close to tears. Lost Judgment's antagonist is, in my opinion, one of the best this medium has to offer. Yagami is no slouch either, he is definitely one of my favorite protagonists now, and his interactions with said antagonist are the best scenes in the game. The themes of truth and justice the game tackles are very heavy, sometimes to the point of being almost exhausting. This isn't something I hold against the game, but it might be something that puts some people off. The game does an overall great job of balancing light heartedness with some really heavy topics like bullying, suicide, murder, political corruption, and more. It's a true detective story through and through, and never pulls any punches. The ending is particularly impactful and left me speechless.
Lost Judgment deserves to be called a modern classic, 100%. It's a bit of a shame that this series lives in the shadow of its big brother Yakuza (or Like a Dragon, whatever Sega feels like calling it here in the west), but I'd highly recommend it to anyone looking for something to play. In a medium currently plagued by mediocrity and lame attempts at mimicking the Hollywood machine in the AAA space, it's nice to see a game that marches to the beat of its own drum; one that takes risks by tackling sensitive topics while also being proud of being a video game. Raidou Kuzunoha may be no more, but I'm glad to see his spirit live on through Yagami and the Judge Eyes series. Just don't take this one away from me, Sega. Not this one.
UNWAVERING BELIEF.
The stealth and parkour segments stick out like a sore thumb, they're by far the worst parts of the game. The parkour is plain boring and so is the stealth, with the added bonus of sometimes being frustrating. Not because it's difficult, not at all, but it's very arbitrary in what you can and can't do which leads to some unfair game overs.
Lost Judgment, much like its predecessor, starts out really good, gets a bit slow in the middle, and towards the back half becomes genuinely legendary. The last five or so chapters of Lost Judgment are some of the most engaging pieces of writing I've had the pleasure of experiencing since maybe Umineko Chiru. It's not as good a mystery as Umineko, not even close, but the drama and character writing are so on point that some moments brought me close to tears. Lost Judgment's antagonist is, in my opinion, one of the best this medium has to offer. Yagami is no slouch either, he is definitely one of my favorite protagonists now, and his interactions with said antagonist are the best scenes in the game. The themes of truth and justice the game tackles are very heavy, sometimes to the point of being almost exhausting. This isn't something I hold against the game, but it might be something that puts some people off. The game does an overall great job of balancing light heartedness with some really heavy topics like bullying, suicide, murder, political corruption, and more. It's a true detective story through and through, and never pulls any punches. The ending is particularly impactful and left me speechless.
Lost Judgment deserves to be called a modern classic, 100%. It's a bit of a shame that this series lives in the shadow of its big brother Yakuza (or Like a Dragon, whatever Sega feels like calling it here in the west), but I'd highly recommend it to anyone looking for something to play. In a medium currently plagued by mediocrity and lame attempts at mimicking the Hollywood machine in the AAA space, it's nice to see a game that marches to the beat of its own drum; one that takes risks by tackling sensitive topics while also being proud of being a video game. Raidou Kuzunoha may be no more, but I'm glad to see his spirit live on through Yagami and the Judge Eyes series. Just don't take this one away from me, Sega. Not this one.
UNWAVERING BELIEF.