A. MA. ZING. game.
Call it recency bias or not I don't care. I loved this game. Just mix Yakuza, detective stuff and hot fictional men and we got a GAME.

Story was kinda starting slow but it is very quick to pick up and it just gets better and better the more you go on. The characters are amazing, the music is amazing, the gameplay is super fun, (aside from my usual dragon engine targeting ick).

One more thing I want to add.
FUMIYA SUGIURAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

That's it. Thank you for reading.

Judgement is so close to being a top-tier Yakuza game. It fixes a lot of problems that have hung over the series but also introduces new ones.

Well, they're not so much "problems" as "Odious Additions." Judgment is a detective story, so they've added some detective gameplay. The game starts off with a 4 hour prologue introducing you to all the new detective stuff you can do. Tailing missions, looking for clues, spotting people in a crowd, presenting evidence, disguises, lockpicking!

The issue is, most of these mini-games fall by the wayside outside the first chapter, left to be used in the side cases. Those that do stick around, clue searching and tailing, lack engagement and come across half-baked (the fact that every search sequence in accompanied by a hidden mewling cat kinda robs them of any inquisitive or dramatic tone.)

When the detective elements work, they work great. Spotting a camera on a rooftop or calling out a flaw in witness testimony feel good in the moment and help set the noir tone. Other times it's things like "Find the lightswitch." The lightswitch isn't in any unique spot, It's where you expect the lightswitch to be, they just wanted to make that spot interactive for....??

The key ring is the most head-scratching inclusion. I don't know what the value gained here is other than a tiny XP bonus.

No, for most of Judgment's runtime it leans back on the Yakuza tradition of violence to solve problems. Here you get two styles to swap between: crane for crowd-control, and tiger for one-on-one. Most of the abilities you get are for tiger and the game actually doesn't throw hordes of foes at you like prior titles, so Crane by and large falls by the wayside.

Not that I mind this. The RPG elements have been greatly reduced. No longer are you doing twelve 5% increases to health at ramping XP costs. Instead there are 3 increases to health, each one doubling your bar. It may be simplified, but it feels more satisfying and each trip to the level up screen meant walking away with a tangible benefit (though it's still loaded with borderline useless perks like heat moves exclusive to fighting in a convenience store).

What raises Judgment up is it's narrative. Completely seperate from the mainline games, this is a great noir story about lingering regret and corruption. The story is maybe two chapters longer than it needs to be, but I enjoyed the more grounded story. Yagami doesn't have the immediate likability of prior franchise leads, but he does have strong "just a dude" energy that gives him a John Mclain feeling.

Some may find the main story forcing you into side missions to progress the plot annoying. It's certainly something I've complained about in prior titles, but here I didn't mind it. For starters there's no point where they interrupt any forward action, instead acting as time killers while waiting for a phone call or the events to progress. It gives a kind of a TV show feeling, where the main mystery builds gradually amidst "case of the week" type missions. It helps to build the very likeable cast of characters. I'd actually hazard to say that this is one of the best casts of any Yakuza game.

The big gold star Judgment gets is that in the last chapter a last hour antagonist isn't introduced to explain how he was the mastermind all along and also the head of the illuminati somehow. Here the main antagonist becomes clear half-way through, but like any good detective story the thrust becomes about uncovering how they did it. It unfurls very naturally with a thrilling final set piece. If there's any final BS revelation in line with prior titles it's to do with a particular method of execution and the reasons for doing so are so goofy it loops around to being palatable.

Best part of the narrative is how it actually ties to Yagami's arc of regret and lost faith in his judgment (Hey, that's the name of the show!) It has shades of Saejima's arc in Yakuza 4, which is still the best Yakuza game and probably why I liked this one so much.

For those that view the Yakuza franchise as a vehicle for playing SEGA roms, then this game has you covered with all of Virtua Fighter 2 & 5, and Fighting Vipers. Weirdly a lot of normal side activities have been removed, probably to make room for the detective missions. Drone racing is a banger though, and best addition since cabaret management.

Honestly my feelings on Judgment could go either way. I can see how the shake-up to the formula could be found lacking enough to drag down the experience. For me, the narrative saves it from a lower score and I'd probably consider this a personal favorite. If they had trimmed a bit of the fat then this would easily be an S-tier entry in the series.

It's been ages that a game had had me smiling like an idiot and actually clapping my hands at the ending but this one of those hall of fame games that genuinely touches your soul
RGG how do you make it seem so easy i owe my life to this studio
This game made me realize how much i love the detective/murder mystery unfolding stories. the way this game laid out its narrative was fucking PERFECT they cooked so fucking well on the first game of a spin off duology from a yakuza series which is the literal opposite of this
Just goes to show how absolutely fantastic the writing is for these games that they did the boldest move ever and switched it all up and somehow made an almost perfect game
i fucking love the cast to death, They made the perfect cast to a story like this i cannot describe it
Kaito and Yagami are my favorite RGG duo by miles from just one game and i genuinely cannot wait to see how Lost Judgement takes the blueprint to an even higher level
my only major issues with the game are some egregious padding examples and the combat is slow at first

A great story and great spin off of Yakuza/like a dragon that both fleshes out the city we’ve come to love and introduces incredible characters. Very strong plot, with one of my favourite RGG villains. Yagami and his crew are so Peak. It’s peak. Sadly I think it’s brought down a little by a few unneeded segments involving a certain female character and also a strange amount of side content and weird pacing throughout the- wait, what was that? The keihin gang just beat up Kim’s friends? Crap, what am I going to do!

Eh. The story is OK, but takes some time to get interesting. The side quests mostly bored or annoyed me. The "girlfriend" system is cheesy, and the 3 girls I "girlfriended" were all the result of me saving them from sexual assault or similar situations, which felt really uncomfortable.

The combat is Not It. It's been a minute since I played Yakuza 0, which I remember liking the combat in, but this feels slow and clunky and there's way too much of it. Can't help but feel this game is padded out.

Maybe I'm just losing my excitement for the RGG Studio games. Yakuza: Like a Dragon didn't hit super well for me either. I know Infinite Wealth is super hot right now, but I just need a break from this shit, maybe forever.

Cool "walking around Japan" simulator, though, as always with these games.

Just an incredible story and fun to play all around. Can't believe I waited this long to finally dive into the Yakuza side games.

Yagami has some really fun combat. His combos and two playstyles felt really well done. Plus all the side content in the game, as tradition with Yakuza, is really good!

Just an all around excellent game minus where it crashed on me one time during load during the final chapter. Not sure what that was about!

After enjoying Yakuza Kiwami, I knew the next game I jumped into in the series would be this. Everything I read about it made it seem like it would be tailored directly to my interests by being a detective game set within the open world of Yakuza. However, I have a lot of gripes with this and feel like it could have been so much better with a few changes. Maybe it's pointless to critique a 6 year old game that has a sequel that got universally higher acclaim but video games are weird and I have a lot to say because it's a game I really wanted to love.
First, the good. The story is really engaging and the friends system is super simple but rewarding. Absolutely demolishing rooms full of furniture never gets old. The characters are strong and there's character moments that are genuinely heartfelt and tragic.
Now, as much as I enjoy the combat it can feel very separate from the narrative at times which is fine. It is easier to excuse in Yakuza than when you're a private detective but the random encounters are torturous in this. They're so repetitive and boring and feel like filler.
The first chapter is like a 5-6 hour tutorial and you're not really let loose fully into the open world until some time through chapter two which is disappointing and probably turned a lot of people away before they got to the great stuff.
Unfortunately, the detective mechanics feel very out of date. As much as I love LA Noire, the mechanics in this should feel close to a decade more refined and they just don't. The tailing and drone missions are too manufactured, there's no freedom in the playing. The running sequences with QTE are frustrating. If you let me run free in this environment with options in how I pursue someone that would be really fun but pressing the stick to the left to dodge a group of people gets old after the first time. The overreliance of QTE in action sequences made this feel like a gorgeous graphical update of a 2013 game.
Even with all those gripes I enjoyed a lot of this game and am excited to play Yakuza 0 with the hopes it is more in line with what I would have loved this game to be. Similarly, I still really want to play Lost Judgment.