Yeah I'm not gonna lie, I've only played this now because (potential spoilers for LaD Gaiden) I heard that some of the characters from this side games were going to show up. And I must say, I don't regret playing this, as it was surprisingly great.
Starting with the best part of the game we have the story. The mystery that you solve in this game is solid as hell, it unravels at a nail-biting pace and while it's incredibly complicated it's surprisingly easy to follow. The characters also help with this, my favorite being Kaito by a mile but the whole cast is instantly loveable, all except for maybe the main character Yagami, who while now I think is awesome it took me a while to get used to his more stoic and kind of dull personality.
The gsmeplay is kind of a mixed bag. Combat is divided in two styles: crane and tiger, and while the latter is incredibly fun and solid, the crane style is waaaay too slow. I mean yeah it has a lot of range and it comes in handy whenever there are a bunch of enemies onscreen, but even then you can also use tiger style and the results are basically the same. As for other stuff outside of combat, you have some cool detective segments. These segments can either be really fun and put you in Yagami's shoes (object finding, dialogue branches, drone flying) to being a slog and bringing the pace of the game down (tailing people, using keys). But my biggest problem with this game is that these segments are only made to differentiate the game from the Yakuza franchise, and they just feel like artificial add-ons and it makes this problem stick up more.
Despite my fair share of problems, Judgment is a game that made me have a blast. It's a great introduction to the Yakuza universe and these characters, and I can't wait to play Lost Judgment.