THE YEAR OF THE DRAGON

Judgment and Yakuza: Like A Dragon (Yakuza 7 for technicality’s sake) make up for what I believe is an interesting back-to-back combo following the big franchise soft-reboot button Yakuza 6 pressed. Both pivoted towards newfound directions, with new leading protagonists, all while honoring the legacy of the games that laid foundations before them. It may be a lil strange to say, for something I feel is relegated as the kinda unimportant spin-off to the main series starring the actual yakuza people came to play for, but Judgment surprised me for stacking itself up as being the better refresh point for Yakuza/Like A Dragon to me. It still carries on the real-time brawlin’ beat ‘em up combat from the older entries, but everything else is wholly unique from what RGG has brought to the table before. There isn’t much overlap between Judgment and Yakuza/Like A Dragon, if at all. The most you’ll get is the Tojo Clan being a background presence and Kamurocho returning as the primary setting, but none of the important characters are even indirectly mentioned. There’s no shoe-horned in cameos from any of the series regulars, whether they be in the main story or side cases. There’s nothing linking Yagami and his supporting cast to whatever happened in Kiryu’s games, and that ultimately became why I preferred it over Yakuza 7. It doesn’t rely on or feel hindered by that legacy. Instead, relying completely on its own unique strengths to stand head-to-head with some of the stronger entries in the franchise.

Yagami is a protagonist who eerily felt specifically tailored suited to my needs and interests, which is to say -- I really love him. The decision in making the new protagonist a detective is brilliant because it already sets up what makes Judgment stand apart from Yakuza/Like A Dragon. Kiryu and Ichiban’s games are bombastic, melodramatic, with plots escalating to grandiose heights to stress the stakes at play. It never often leaves you with much room for something smaller to breathe in. You never think about what goes on beyond their wildest exploits in Kamurocho, for example. There're glimpses here and there, if we’re keeping this within the confines of the main plot, but Kiryu nor Ichiban can dwell on it because that’s not on their agenda as yakuza. With Yagami, the scope narrows the focus down to something more grounded with characters who feel like the faceless NPCs Kiryu would stroll past by, or villains he demolished easily like some small-time obstacle to get to the big villain he cares about fighting. Yakuza/Like A Dragon bounces dramatically between two polar opposite tones, from bloodied seriousness to unabashed silliness. It pings pongs back and forth almost effortlessly, never compromising the integrity of its own storytelling in favor of it. Judgment straddles on that established tonal wavelength by sitting comfortably in the dark end of it, yet never reaching the deep end. Yagami’s personal mission to uncover a murder mystery conspiracy helps explores these aspects that the mainline games just can’t really do, but that’s fine. Judgment does a fantastic job of breathing life into its rendition of Kamurocho as the red-light district where crime makes it a living hell with constant fights on the streets, but its people are survivors who push through the day.

The side content is mostly a miss, easily Judgment’s biggest sore spot. The side cases are harmless, but they aren’t terribly memorable, especially already knowing the quality output RGG can pump out by now. Weirdly, almost no mini-games except for a returning few and Drone Racing, which wasn’t really my thing. The friendship mechanic is a nice detail that plays into the game’s grounded rendition of Kamurocho where the focus is strictly street level, but they felt like annoying distractions from how thick the main plot would get. The incentive never felt strong with completing much of this, from either the standpoint of unlocking certain benefits to enhance gameplay or to deepen Yagami’s role as a detective. The worst offender had to be the Keihi Gang which evaporated so much interest I had diving into the side content because RGG annoyingly forced them onto you. I personally wish Kim suffers through the nine circles of hell. The Dragon Engine feels like it's more put together here, with collision physics playing more nicely than they did with Yakuza 6. Though, I can’t even deny how unbalanced Yagami’s fighting styles feel with Crane Style feeling very useless with just how much better Tiger Style is for dealing with enemies. I think this could’ve been a bit better if both styles didn’t have a restrictive move set of combos to dish out, a slight disappointment until you unlock Tiger Drop and it gets more fun. Strangely, a lot of stuff gameplay-wise here felt like RGG was relapsing back to more archaic tendencies just as much as they’re pushing into newer things. You could tell me this game had been secretly in development since maybe Yakuza 4 and I’d probably believe you.

Still, it pulled very hard into its own strengths by the end. With a final boss that goes down as one of my absolute favorites from RGG. A case was solved, people died, people lived to see another day, justice was finally served, convictions were upheld, and after everything was settled… Yagami charmingly treats it like yet another normal day in the office. I can’t really think of a more fitting ending to this memorable experience with a cast of characters I’m really excited to see what takes them next, especially my GOAT Kaito. I’m hoping for Lost Judgment to smooth out the rough edges here and polish everything up to peak, because I think the potential laid here is promising as hell.

RGG cooked hard with story, characters, plot, action, only the pacing in first half is too slow.
Playing as Yagami is fun, but Dragon Engine is still flawed in this game, unbalanced styles, lack of weapons, still much better than Y6 and kiwami 2.
Detective missions sucks, tailing = suffering.
Side content is meh, only liked drone racing. Substories meh, friendship is okay, but too many friends to farm, Yagami's girlfriends are whatever.
So yeah, story carries.

Base game is Yakuza-like but they added "phoenix wright" features to it. Its story is the good one, they added "Takuya Kimura" as MC, but the mystery solving part was not so hard, and about the combat honestly I'm not a fan of it since I like powerful moves Kiryu does.
The game itself is good but there are some features that makes it not perfect:

- The story is good but its slow and tiring due to some forced side quest and gang invasions.

- One of the main focus of this game that should be the detective part is simple and easy

- It's minigames are well made but when you try doing 100% it becames a really mess. For an example if you try to 100% the SEGA Arcade part you'll have to play Puyo Puyo game a lot to complete "defeat all enemies" cause some of enemies appear only at high win streak and its random appearing.

- The combat part is worst until you take combo speed up upgrade, but when you upgrade 1v1 style well it becomes funny and strong. Another style is a mess even upgrading so I won't recommend to spend your precious point to it.

The story is easily some of the best work RGG has put out. A solid, engaging mystery drama revolving around a massive conspiracy without any mind numbing plot points. It wasn't a surprise to me when I found out Yokoyama didn't write this...
My story complaints are fairly minor:
The pacing for the first few chapters is quite slow.
A lot of the supporting characters just don't do a lot. Especially Kaito who is presented as Yagami's partner doesn't get much time in the spotlight and feels like kind of an errand boy at times.
The Mole is deliberately lacking in characterization, the story even refers to him as a mere "tool". Would've liked it if he had bit more going on.
Throughout the game there's numerous points you're forced to do random side cases as as a part of the main story despite the side cases being completely unrelated and them clearly not being written with this in mind. Seems like something they just threw in to pad out runtime, not that it was needed.

The side cases as a whole were pretty underwhelming, just a lot of been there done that stuff with some incredibly unfunny comedy thrown in, nothing was really memorable.
The detective gameplay overall isn't great, it's very basic and the trailing and chasing segments definitely overstay their welcome.

I say this in every review of every Dragon Engine game but I fundamentally despise the engine's physics. Everything about it is just so unpredictable and Judgement makes the bizarre decision of having Yagami's attacks "bounce" off the enemy when they're blocked or they have armor which makes things feel even worse. The game also makes the same mistake as Yakuza 6 with it's upgrade system, Yagami starts off extremely weak, your combo speed, damage, abilities are downright pathetic, it makes the early hours a chore to play. The entire SP system is fucked, street encounters give you laughable 9 SP per enemy and the only realistic way to fully upgrade Yagami is through chugging grocery shop SP potions (forgot what they're called) which cost a lot of money.
With that being said, once you do get upgrades the combat does get pretty fun. Yagami is easily the most technical and stylish RGG character, he gets access to so much stuff it almost becomes overwhelming, in a good way. Leapfrog and wall jumps alone add so much by giving you more ways of approaching fights than just doing a rush combo. He feels way more "at home" in the Dragon Engine than Kiryu ever did. The incredibly bizarre thing about Yagami's kit are the 2 styles. Through the upgrades app, tiger style gets like 50 skills while crane style gets... absolutely nothing. Not sure what the thought process behind that was but crane is basically pointless beyond some niche EX switcheroos.
also mortal wounds lol!!
At the start of the game there's very few street encounters which I thought was refreshing but once the Keihen Gang mechanic got introduced that changed very quickly. I thought you'd just beat em once and they'd fuck off but there is literally no way to permanently get rid of them.

If Judgement was only drone racing it'd be the easiest 5/5 stars in my life. Such a fun idea that's executed extremely well. The only slight issue with it is the abrupt difficulty spike in the championship league as the AI racers are straight up faster than you even with S speed. It's still very much doable with a good balance of skill, luck and save scumming between races.
Paradise VR is Judgement's money making mini-game. It's the type of thing I didn't really wanna play again after playing once but considering the amount of money you need for upgrades + quickstarter, that's not really an option (god forbid 100%ing the game with the drone part cost). The Kuro-Nyan mode started feeling more like a punishment because the 2 (two) unique encounters it has get old very very fast.

Great game with some really bizarre design decisions.

How to make a spinoff of the most dramatic line of games about Japanese crime even more dramatic? Show it from the other side, in the form of a justice system, which most often has its threads on the dark side. It seems that this has already been shown in the Yakuza series of games, but this time we are a simple private detective, who was rewarded by fate to achieve the truth using our own methods, digging and diving between the edge of the law and street showdowns with Yakuza clans.

In fact. This is the same “Kamurocho” city simulator as in other parts of the games, funny additional missions, a living city with its own stories, contrary to the main part. There is something in common, there is something completely opposite, the gameplay is once again not boring, hitting faces is very pleasant in almost any part. There is of course a place of boredom, pursuit missions are the most boring thing. which I only saw and played. but the advantages in the form of searching for seals at any place of the investigation were very touching and covered all the shortcomings.

Как сделать спинофф по самой драматичной линейки игр про японскую преступность еще драматичнее? Показать ее с обратной стороны, в виде системы правосудия, которая чаше всего имеет свои нитки на темной стороне. Вроде бы это уже было показано в серии игр Yakuza, но в этот раз мы простой частный детектив, которого наградила судьба добиться правды своими методами, копаясь и ныряя между гранью закона и уличными разборками с кланами якудз.

По сути. это такой же симулятор города "камурочо" как и в остальных частях игр, забавные доп миссии, живой город со своими историями, в разрез идущих от основной части. Есть что-то общее, есть полностью противоположное, геймплей в который раз не приелся, бить лица очень приятно почти в любой части. Есть конечно место скуки, миссии преследования самая скучная вещь. которую я только видел и играл. но плюсы в виде поиска котиков на любом месте расследования очень умиляла и покрывала все недостатки.