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.
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.