if you skip everything and only blaze through the story on easy, maybe the game's good. the story is about the best thing this game has going for it
but if you actually play it like a yakuza game, the only worse entry is fist of the north star lost paradise
the crux of this game are the highlights of the mainline yakuza games to me
the substories
the minigames
the combat
lets start with the minigames, since they tie into my problems with the substories
"you want bad stealth, mediocre lockpicking, annoying lockpicking or drone races with some of the worst controls, take your pick bro. btw we're gonna reuse all of them for all the substories, have fucking fun dipshit"
very few side activities from mainline yakuza games return for judgment. series staples like karaoke are nowhere to be seen (despite a recurring song literally being called "judgment") so that already kinda sucks. wouldnt be so bad though if the new content was good. its not.
theres 2 different kinds of lockpicking and they both make me miss bethesda lockpicking and the tailing missions are fucking horrible, legit ive seen shovelware with better stealth
its just waiting
and then you sometimes move
and it doesnt feel natural
you'll be tailing someone that would have no reason to suspect they're being tailed and isnt doing anything wrong, but they'll literally stop every few steps just to turn around, act like they know they're being followed and look out for you
but even if youre being suspicious af and literally running in circles around them, it'll take forever for them to notice you
so you just hide and wait and hide and wait
and its not like there arent many places to hide, you can hide fucking anywhere
i hate the stealth in judgment so much, its so fucking abyssal and they reuse it fucking any chance they get
also the only consistent way to earn money in the game is through the mario party boards
which sounds fun
but guess what
90% of the tiles are lockpicking minigames
and since some of the drone shit is so expensive, you gotta grind mario party for hours
the fucking combat doesnt even save the game since its either
mash square to win, with no strategy whatsoever, just stunlock till they're down with the crane style
or
hold square to instantly kill the enemy with the tiger style
only tigers and i think some bosses can resist the latter
but on bosses you got some other tiger move that will do big damage
literally the only saving grace about the game is the story and characters
it also bugs me that they reused kamurocho again, when like
that was their chance to get away from it
i get reusing assets, but we see kamurocho in every yakuza game
if youre gonna reuse assets, fine, do sotenbori, do onomichi, maybe bring back one of the areas from 5 like saejima's christmas town or baseball bat boy's town
as for the substories, they're just nothing, barely memorable, completely uninteresting. most of them are just tailing anyway from what i recall
and what is your reward for bearing through all of this? well as tradition with yakuza games go, you get to fight amon, the final test of skill and just how much you know the combat, cheese strats will never work on him, he is your final test. you never truly beat a yakuza game until you beat amon, that's what i believe.
but this is a dragon engine game, so his gimmick is making the fight go below 10 frames per second as you just mash square to beat him
also you cant use items, so its kinda just up to luck if you beat him once he goes into bad framerate mode. the game doesnt even run too well to begin with on a base ps4, but having the secret final boss literally just do THAT to the framerate is just inexcusable. if this is your first yakuza game and you dont even touch any of the optional content maybe you'll like it. but if you're a yakuza fan that spends countless hours in the game to do all the content... well you're gonna be disappointed. very disappointed
just watch the cutscenes on youtube. skip this like you no doubt skipped fist of the north star lost paradise.
lost judgment does seem like it will improve on most my problems though, i will say that
and sorry if this review isnt structured perfectly, a good chunk of it is copied from a chat with some friends where i just went on a tangent about this game
but if you actually play it like a yakuza game, the only worse entry is fist of the north star lost paradise
the crux of this game are the highlights of the mainline yakuza games to me
the substories
the minigames
the combat
lets start with the minigames, since they tie into my problems with the substories
"you want bad stealth, mediocre lockpicking, annoying lockpicking or drone races with some of the worst controls, take your pick bro. btw we're gonna reuse all of them for all the substories, have fucking fun dipshit"
very few side activities from mainline yakuza games return for judgment. series staples like karaoke are nowhere to be seen (despite a recurring song literally being called "judgment") so that already kinda sucks. wouldnt be so bad though if the new content was good. its not.
theres 2 different kinds of lockpicking and they both make me miss bethesda lockpicking and the tailing missions are fucking horrible, legit ive seen shovelware with better stealth
its just waiting
and then you sometimes move
and it doesnt feel natural
you'll be tailing someone that would have no reason to suspect they're being tailed and isnt doing anything wrong, but they'll literally stop every few steps just to turn around, act like they know they're being followed and look out for you
but even if youre being suspicious af and literally running in circles around them, it'll take forever for them to notice you
so you just hide and wait and hide and wait
and its not like there arent many places to hide, you can hide fucking anywhere
i hate the stealth in judgment so much, its so fucking abyssal and they reuse it fucking any chance they get
also the only consistent way to earn money in the game is through the mario party boards
which sounds fun
but guess what
90% of the tiles are lockpicking minigames
and since some of the drone shit is so expensive, you gotta grind mario party for hours
the fucking combat doesnt even save the game since its either
mash square to win, with no strategy whatsoever, just stunlock till they're down with the crane style
or
hold square to instantly kill the enemy with the tiger style
only tigers and i think some bosses can resist the latter
but on bosses you got some other tiger move that will do big damage
literally the only saving grace about the game is the story and characters
it also bugs me that they reused kamurocho again, when like
that was their chance to get away from it
i get reusing assets, but we see kamurocho in every yakuza game
if youre gonna reuse assets, fine, do sotenbori, do onomichi, maybe bring back one of the areas from 5 like saejima's christmas town or baseball bat boy's town
as for the substories, they're just nothing, barely memorable, completely uninteresting. most of them are just tailing anyway from what i recall
and what is your reward for bearing through all of this? well as tradition with yakuza games go, you get to fight amon, the final test of skill and just how much you know the combat, cheese strats will never work on him, he is your final test. you never truly beat a yakuza game until you beat amon, that's what i believe.
but this is a dragon engine game, so his gimmick is making the fight go below 10 frames per second as you just mash square to beat him
also you cant use items, so its kinda just up to luck if you beat him once he goes into bad framerate mode. the game doesnt even run too well to begin with on a base ps4, but having the secret final boss literally just do THAT to the framerate is just inexcusable. if this is your first yakuza game and you dont even touch any of the optional content maybe you'll like it. but if you're a yakuza fan that spends countless hours in the game to do all the content... well you're gonna be disappointed. very disappointed
just watch the cutscenes on youtube. skip this like you no doubt skipped fist of the north star lost paradise.
lost judgment does seem like it will improve on most my problems though, i will say that
and sorry if this review isnt structured perfectly, a good chunk of it is copied from a chat with some friends where i just went on a tangent about this game