One of RGGs best. The detective game I always wanted and more. Can really feel Nagoshi's passion and his desire to create a detective game and it shows.
The story was excellent, leaves you lots of clues to slowly unravel the mystery and there's plenty of "OH IT WAS THAT" moments when a reveal happens and an old scene comes to mind that will make it feel even better. Balances its serious and yet more light hearted and funny moments fantastically as the studio always does. Just a very well written story
The characters I ended up absolutely loving much more than I thought. The game features an entirely new cast in order to make it be more accessible to newcomers. Going in I was initially worried because I was wondering if they would be able to give all these new characters enough moments to stand out and be compelling. My worries were absolutely for nothing, as I LOVE this cast so much. From everyone to the MC Yagami and his loveable assistant Kaito, to even Izumida from the prosecutors office all of these characters made me like them and have at least 1 thing to remember them by. I won't talk about all in detail here as it would get insanely long (more than it already will be lol) but I love this cast of loveable misfits and cannot wait to see them again in Lost Judgment.
The gameplay is great as well, uses the Dragon Engine much better and in a more refined way than the likes of Yakuza 6 and Kiwami 2 and really had me warming up to the engine even more. Jumping off walls and even enemies later on added another super fun element to the combat and I had a blast fighting throughout the whole game.
Side content was great, almost 100% all of it (which I almost never do), but I do have a few issues. It is all very interconnected which is great and makes it feel more rewarding, but sometimes if you just want to take a break from main story and do a substory it can require you to grind up some friendship NPCs or some other objectives. Especially to unlock some of the last side cases. Now it never felt like a big grind to me as I enjoyed it and did them as I came across them but I can understand if someone were to think so. Only other thing is that a lot of restaurant workers are apart of the friendship system, yet they finally removed eating as a way to up stats in this game. Which i like from a gameplay POV because that could get very annoying in Y6 and K2 but in this instance since to start some of the friend links by eating, you actually have to take damage to be able to eat (without an unlock later on in the game which lets you eat at full health) which could result in some moments of me having to run around waiting to get in a fight to take damage so I could finally get the friend meter starting. None of this was really a super big issue to me but its this little issues that I feel the LJ can improve on the most and really just make sure there is no weaknesses in any part of the game.
Overall this is one of my favorite games of all time, from everything to its mystery, story, characters, game play, and side content I consistently enjoyed myself so much throughout my entire playthrough. I can't wait to get to Lost Judgment, and if that really is a "perfect" sequel I could see myself dropping this to a 9/10 (4.5 star) in hindsight, but for now its an EASY 10, and one of RGG's finest games. Thank you Nagoshi.
The story was excellent, leaves you lots of clues to slowly unravel the mystery and there's plenty of "OH IT WAS THAT" moments when a reveal happens and an old scene comes to mind that will make it feel even better. Balances its serious and yet more light hearted and funny moments fantastically as the studio always does. Just a very well written story
The characters I ended up absolutely loving much more than I thought. The game features an entirely new cast in order to make it be more accessible to newcomers. Going in I was initially worried because I was wondering if they would be able to give all these new characters enough moments to stand out and be compelling. My worries were absolutely for nothing, as I LOVE this cast so much. From everyone to the MC Yagami and his loveable assistant Kaito, to even Izumida from the prosecutors office all of these characters made me like them and have at least 1 thing to remember them by. I won't talk about all in detail here as it would get insanely long (more than it already will be lol) but I love this cast of loveable misfits and cannot wait to see them again in Lost Judgment.
The gameplay is great as well, uses the Dragon Engine much better and in a more refined way than the likes of Yakuza 6 and Kiwami 2 and really had me warming up to the engine even more. Jumping off walls and even enemies later on added another super fun element to the combat and I had a blast fighting throughout the whole game.
Side content was great, almost 100% all of it (which I almost never do), but I do have a few issues. It is all very interconnected which is great and makes it feel more rewarding, but sometimes if you just want to take a break from main story and do a substory it can require you to grind up some friendship NPCs or some other objectives. Especially to unlock some of the last side cases. Now it never felt like a big grind to me as I enjoyed it and did them as I came across them but I can understand if someone were to think so. Only other thing is that a lot of restaurant workers are apart of the friendship system, yet they finally removed eating as a way to up stats in this game. Which i like from a gameplay POV because that could get very annoying in Y6 and K2 but in this instance since to start some of the friend links by eating, you actually have to take damage to be able to eat (without an unlock later on in the game which lets you eat at full health) which could result in some moments of me having to run around waiting to get in a fight to take damage so I could finally get the friend meter starting. None of this was really a super big issue to me but its this little issues that I feel the LJ can improve on the most and really just make sure there is no weaknesses in any part of the game.
Overall this is one of my favorite games of all time, from everything to its mystery, story, characters, game play, and side content I consistently enjoyed myself so much throughout my entire playthrough. I can't wait to get to Lost Judgment, and if that really is a "perfect" sequel I could see myself dropping this to a 9/10 (4.5 star) in hindsight, but for now its an EASY 10, and one of RGG's finest games. Thank you Nagoshi.