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.

“All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed.”
--Watership Down

Rain World one of those games where the line of "I like it because I think it's fun" and "I like it because I respect the work that went into it" is blurred.
Every enemy has observable behavior patterns, be it hunting, pack tactics, fear of environmental hazards, or symbiosis with other creatures. Looking at the behind the scenes it's impressive how it all fits together with the AI having separate ways of tracking through sight or vision. It truly feels like I am escaping a wild animal and not an enemy with a "pursue entity: [Player]" protocol.
And understanding that is what helps mitigate the frustrations when the simulation works against you. Three camouflaged lizards camping by the one path forward isn't the devs crafting a challenging encounter, that's just where their AI is telling them to gather because they're being chased out of their usual hunting grounds by a migrating tribe of Scavenger Monkeys.
Still, this can be used to your advantage, because the lizards are territorial and don't like sharing space with one another. Coax one to assault another and they may just leave enough of an opening for you to slip past.
90% of the time it works and feels like you're overcoming the odds of a world programmed against you by fighting back with your knowledge of it.

The other 10% of the time is when the simulation breaks down. You start to see the artifice in the design and things transcend from "Tolerable inconvenience" to "Bullshit Setback."
Because Rain World still needs to be a game with a goal and path forward, and this at times is incongruous with it's measured little world.
Much of the actual frustrations I had came at the fault of the rain mechanic. You're on a timer (with inconsistent length) at the start of each day to fill your belly and find shelter, and sometimes the path to shelter just isn't the path that food has spawned on, and vice-versa.
This wouldn't be so much a problem without the karma system preventing your passage to new areas. Survive a day with a full belly, your karma goes up a level, die and it goes down. At the entrance to new areas you'll be denied access if your karma isn't above a certain level. Get rejected and you now have to remain in the area you just got through, back tracking until you find reasonable hunting grounds and survive enough cycles to get your karma level requisite.

Grinding. It's grinding. And the grinding is never fun because of the aforementioned chaos and unfairness of the simulated ecosystem. Getting through an area by the skin of your teeth feels terrific, being told to go back and do it five more times is deflating.

And it's clear the devs became aware of this deficiency, because endgame areas simply start to include farmable food and shelters right outside the karma checkpoints. Were it not tied to the game's themes and story of cycles and rebirth, I'd question if the game even needs the karma system.

The true frustrations lie in a few gimmick areas causing deaths (and thus depleted karma) far outside the control or understanding of new players. A completely pitch black network of tunnels that causes eye strain, a complex of sentient cancer and zero gravity, and fields of carnivorous grass that can only be traversed on the back of a squishy deer that can sometimes just not spawn near you (this is oddly the worst one).

But as I walk away from Rain World, I can't stay mad at it. It's too fascinating a creation. A labor of passion and experimentation.

I will, inevitably, grit my teeth and dive back in again.