Why do we put so much value in truths if all they do is crush us?
The original Judgement felt like a breath of fresh air to the Yakuza franchise that I wasn't really aware that I needed until it arrived. Witty, thrilling, humanising, exciting- Tak's journey hit many of the notes that were no longer reachable with the immortal Kiryu, or Joryu, as the lead of this franchise- and playing on the, somewhat, right side of the law as a detective opened up a whole new bevy of gameplay opportunities as well as avenues for narrative exploration that RGG utilised to spectacular ends. But what would a sequel to that look like? Honestly, I found the satisfying personal journey of Tak to clear his own conscious for his past failings to be a gripping narrative hook that couldn't simply be recycled for a follow-up, and that worried me for wondering how I would come out my Lost Judgement experience.
From the outset Lost Judgement clearly focuses on smoothing out the seams between gameplay verticals. Tailing you target is no longer treated as a separate form of gameplay but a hidden style applied on the player that allows them to lean against cover or activate a limited 'be casual' button if you get spotted out in the open. (Which is a lifesaver on those long tails where you make that one mistake. Would have killed for something like that in the original!) There's even a new parkour mode which is applied similarly, and a stealth mode given just the same. It's a really smooth way of transitioning gameplay that speaks to the not-yet-latent ingenuity of RGG as developers. Even in the heights they haven't gotten lazy with success.
Along with these systemic improvement come gameplay ones. Crane is actually far more useable as class with faster combos and I think even an improved switching time. (Although switching times were never really a detriment to useability thanks to the slow-down effect they apply.) Dodge windows and perfect dodge effects are more impactful this time around, heightening the feedback of being that lithe ninja brawler- and the ability to literally fly for a full second before performing a gravity defying air strike literally never gets old. They turned Crane around from one of my least favourite styles to one I couldn't stop toying about with. And that isn't all the combat improvements.
Yagami now has three styles, four with DLC! The Snake Style is essentially Tanimura's misdirection style from Yakuza 4 but revised to be far more useable with powerful punishments. It also offers some of my favourite heat actions- the 'surrenders' wherein you threaten a frightened opponent with particularly close judo kicks until they literally feint out of fear. (Love it!) Then there's the boxer class which is pretty useless at the start, but once you start the boxing 'school story' quest line, which unlocks skills simultaneously with the combat style, you'll find it to be a surprisingly effective single target duel move-set with quick dodges and counters so effective they honestly outpace even Tiger style at their peak!
A new welcome edition to the combat is the 'Battle Rewards' system which provide Yagami with extra SP (level up points) if he meets certain milestones during each fight. Take out an opponent without getting hit, knock someone out with each style, use an EX action- stuff like that. Naturally these kind of incentives encourages players to change up how they play the game, find the strengths in all the different Styles and then be all the more equipped in the late game when you really do need to understand when to switch effectively. Those late game bosses really do put you through your paces in all the best ways!
Lost Judgement begins at a much slower pace than the original, which you might recall practically threw the serial killer in your face from the word 'go'. Lost Judgement is more interested in weaving something of a web of mystery that pulls itself together with time, which results in a much different early game where, unlike in the original, I honestly had no clue what Yagami would be faced with on a character level. Some not small part of me even considered it to be a much weaker opening for that very reason, but in hindsight that same decision to dynamically pace the game as the story progresses proved very much to this story's benefit. Even if it does make this game feel twice as long as the original, at least to start with.
Bullying is actually the major hook to start with, as Tak is hired to investigate claims of harassment as an upper class prep school in Yokohama called Seiryro High. Couple that with a new gang of ex-Yakuza forming in Kamurocho and a seemingly impossible murder tucked in there for good measure and you'd be justified in wondering how all of this can come together in a sensible manner, let alone result in a conclusion as powerful as Yagami's return to lawyering at the climax of Judgement. But would you believe it, I think RGG do such an incredible job juggling all of these I might actually consider it better done than the Mole investigation, at least for how many plot points are juggled and how long the mysteries are allowed to unravel- as opposed to in Judgement where you kind of fell onto the core leads of the serial killing nearly immediately.
Outside of the investigation Lost Judgement of course presents a plethora of side activities, including a huge meta-game investigation known as 'School stories'. These are not just questlines, they all feature fully developed minigames for wildly different genres that have progression built into them and all bleed into something of a larger investigation for the MRC (Mystery Research Club) at Seiryo High. Yagami stumbles into the position of 'outside council' for the club and, through an investigation into the identity of the mysterious 'professor' who appears to be orchestrating the downfall of many Seiryo school mates, becomes embroiled in just about every club in the school! You'll go through about half-a-dozen fully developed minigames on this journey. And yeah, it's a lot!
Yakuza 5 was the last game in this franchise to leave me feeling seriously overwhelmed, but Lost Judgement has to take the cake- I honestly thought I would never finish this game for all the tasks this one side story dumps you with. I'm talking a rhythm-action dance minigame like Haruka for Yakuza 5's but much harder, a competitive biker-racing minigame, an entire boxing league, a robot-wars/ Splatoon hybrid- you spend so much time in this darn School you start forgetting that Yagami isn't actually a teacher. Although, with all the clubs he ends up juggling, and the genuinely heart-warming way he ends up guiding and uniting his wayward club charges, I honestly wonder if the future of this character is to enrol as an official teacher, at least part time. I would actually be interested to see how Yagami grows further in this otherwise side gig of his.
But would you believe that these huge school stories aren't the only large-scale side quest that Lost Judgement throws at you? You will also be expected to scour Yokohama and Kamaurcho hunting down Squirrel stencils that lead towards goodies tucked away in the open world requiring simple gadget utilisation in order to reach in a manner not a hundred miles away from Arkham Batman Riddler trophies. And then there is the extensive bugging questline that has you chasing after the 'Illegal detective agency' across town as their services infiltrate ever corner of daily life. Although School stories have the most cohesive narrative to them as well as quite possible the best laid out mystery in the entire Judgement series so far. I was genuinely impressed when I figured out who the culprit was for how naturally they managed to lay out all the clues over the course of the extended questline.
Covering all of this content is a lot less daunting with the new edition of the Skateboard, making travelling around the two maps a lot more feasible now you can ollie and jump kick through the streets! There's even an entire skateboarding metagame built into School stories! (Unfortunately it's one of weakest vectors of that questline.) The skateboard serves as a clever little edition to your travelling repertoire that makes the journeys not just fun but speedy- which is a life-saver in the huge Yokohama world space imported right of Yakuza 7. There's only so much Yen you spend hiring Taxi's day in and day out!
My initial worries regarding how the story would evolve upon Yagami proved to be wasted concerns, because whilst this may not be a personal narrative delving into Tak's past- what we get instead is an amazingly direct story that stab right at the heart of Tak's core convictions with his foil, an opponent with similar morals but contradictory convictions! It's the classic beautiful clash between exclusionary ideologies that bring erstwhile brothers to arms against one another, brought in this game under the banner of the nature of justice itself and, if I were to be so bold, of the role that the concept of 'Judgement' can play in the pursuit of absolution. I was totally gripped by the intensity of these debates as the lines between friend and foe constantly seemed smudged and the electrifying performances of the leads were dragged to the forefront to shine.
A narrative about school-age bullying had every right in the world to be fluffy and cringe-worthy after school special style trite: but RGG pull absolutely no punches bringing these matters to their absolute darkest extremes. Systemic abuse buried beneath conformist corruption, the utter extremes of self harm and even suicide, and the extents that ordinary people can be pushed to in extraordinary circumstances. This was a narrative I honestly found thrilling. Sure, perhaps the story does not pick up quite as quickly as Yakuza 0, what I consider to be the team at their writing best, but I wouldn't question the team's pacing choices for a moment in hindsight. Bringing children into the narrative as more than just bundles of sympathy points required care and consideration- which RGG brought in rare droves. (They didn't even have any school girls inappropriately crush after Tak like they absolutely would have done in literally any other Yakuza game. RGG were taking this one extremely seriously.)
When the fireworks start flying things truly shoot fully off the rails, thanks in no small part to what I'm going to executively call a fresh legendary villain for the Yakuza hall of fame- Soma. It is extremely difficult, at this point in the franchise, to give us a villain who is genuinely frightening- but the utterly cold Soma, with the way he calmy walks (walks!) into scenes and callously causes hell. He's not portrayed as some inhuman monster like Lao Gui, nor a braggadocious cartoon like Sadamoto. He is just efficient and empathy-free, quietly 'just' and subtly commanding. He is one of those villains with a bigger presence than his screen time, which makes the moments where he does show up all the more special. And don't get me started on that theme! I cannot get 'Viper' out of my head, it is simply supreme!
In the end the final fight is actually not all that consequential in the grand scheme of events like it typically is in an RGG game. There's no 'battle in front of a ticking time bomb' or 'duel to inherit the Dragon of Dojima'. That last battle, as excellently choregraphed and dynamic as it ultimately is, transcends the boundaries of 'winners' and 'losers'. Without slipping into pretentious babble let me just gush about how it is a fight of almost primal necessity, with either side representing utterly distinct shards of the conceptual that is 'Justice' clashing as their conflicting ideals must, in pursuit of a truth neither can confirm but both must believe in. It is art. Possibly my favourite finale in a RGG game. Sublime.
The Kaito Files DLC is more traditional RGG fair, only with a heavier player character in Kaito who seems to suddenly refer to himself as Gorilla all the time because the new translation team who took over for this DLC found that really funny for some concerning reason. That being said, it is by no means shoddy in it's execution. The files present what is something of a retelling of Yakuza 1 with a bit of Yakuza 5 mixed in there for good measure, as Kaito tracks down his lost love whilst accompanied by a child that he kind of extra-legally adopts. (Seriously, did Kiryu ever actually officially adopt Haruka? Could he have orchestrated the most successful kidnapping in history?)
Kaito is a supremely endearing side character for the Judgement games and these files prove he makes for a charming protagonist too, in that same sort of way that Ichiban is- a traditionally dense guy with the street smarts to make up for it. It's particularly cool to see Kaito stretch his detective muscles without Tak around and solve mysteries on his own, and though the mystery in question is rather obvious from the outset- (Particularly directly after experiencing the web that was Lost Judgement's main game.) I do take a bit of solace in the familiar. Sometimes you just want to pummel a completely unquestionably evil bad guy on a rooftop whilst flailing around with Kiryu's Beast style that the team have renamed to 'Tank' for some incomprehensible reason. (They wanted to call it 'Gorilla' style, didn't they?)
Last and extremely least, I might as well discuss RGG's continued attempt to make me lose my mind and commit a violence on myself. Lost Judgement's Amon is nowhere near as insane as Judgement's. He doesn't steal your phone, thank god! Do you know what he does do? The biggest crime any boss in any franchise can do. He heals. A lot. And he stun locks you so you cannot stop him from healing unless you stun lock him first. (Hint: two or three Warrior Onslaught's when he hits his second stage will get the dick.) Not impressed. And once more I scream unholy hatred at those who crossed every line of decency to bring that monster into this world. Thank you RGG, now get out of office.
Summary
I do think that Lost Judgement might cross the line in being too big just by a scant few mission chains. But if you are willing to overlook a bit of bloat (and as long as it's not Assassin's Creed Valhalla levels of bloat, I'm fine) then Lost Judgement might just be one of the best Like a Dragon series games ever made. Fantastic progression, balanced gameplay, a thrilling mystery, searingly contemplative core themes, a fantastic core cast, a series icon for a chief villain, ample amounts of side content and an entire Sega Master System emulator chucked in Yagami's office for the hell of it. And Sonic The Fighters in the arcade. They really did stuff this one full of everything. Of course this is a recommend, that pretty much comes standard with this entire franchise. (With the staunch exception of Yakuza 3.) And I'm willing to slap an A+ grade. Where it might have lost points for it's length, it won them back with the surprisingly worth-my-extra-time Kaito Files. And with that, the last seal is broken. Now my journey can finally begin- towards INFINITE WEALTH!
