This is a full, true Yakuza/Judgment hybrid story that just happens to only be only available as DLC and 6 hours long. Knowing the length beforehand, I was really surprised how intricate and high quality the plot ended up being. The core mystery was on par with the better stories in the franchise and never really felt like it was compromised or rushed to fit into a smaller package, with plenty of twists and turns along the way.
The gameplay/story ratio was a little off at the start, but it rounded itself out nicely by the end. Pretty much all of the Lost Judgment mechanics get at least a brief time to shine, which was also cool to see. Kaito also gets a little bit of new stuff in his sleuthing skills. Even if it's a bit of a reskin, it's still nice that new features made it in and their use in finding collectibles was a good, appropriate level of "city" content for this size game.
As far as side content goes though, this is where it feels the most like a DLC and not like a full game (which it is, so I can't fault it much there), and where I'm guessing Gaiden will get to flex a little more as a separate package. Since the series is already so side content heavy and I'm about to play Ishin though, I don't mind this too much. Maybe a very small group of side cases involving the supporting cast, new and old, would have been nice, but I get that it could take away from the focus of the story here.
On that note, the story really was nice and had more going on than I would have expected. I won't get too spoilery, but the thought occurred to me that while LAD felt like a reimagining of a large chunk of Yakuza 1, this felt like it was taking some of the remaining Y1 components and putting its own spin on them (in a good way). It really ended up fitting nicely with both parent series in terms of carrying forward their themes (failure of fathers, cycles of revenge, rippling effects of past actions, etc). Kaito himself, while still not my favorite character ever, does a good job overall being the protagonist of his own story. The worldbuilding was also really nice here and I wouldn't be surprised at all to see some of these characters and factions pop up in later games. There's also a plot point that felt straight out of Yakuza 4, though Y4 kind of butchered it so it was nice to see it executed better here. Also, the ending, IYKYK.
And finally, the combat. It's... solid. I think coming from Yagami in LJ, everything else is going to feel kind of bad, but throwing mostly-Brawler/Beast in the same base game as the LJ styles is just not going to feel as nice. The styles are definitely touched up and have a bunch of cool new LJ-stuff going on (like the buffs for each), though quite a bit is locked behind exploration, so I only got certain skills in the final couple fights of the game that I wish I had earlier. My biggest pet peeve was not having something like Rising Tornado to not have to spam X when you get knocked down (except for one EX action in a niche situation), because this happened a lot. Maybe it's also that a ton of enemies have blades in this game, I don't know. It was serviceable and I like the effort and having 2 styles, but this is definitely one of the weaker spots of this entry.
Overall, a pleasant surprise. I expected this to be a fun little adventure, but it really drew me in and convinced me it was its own full scale entry (as far as main story goes), just in a shorter play time. A lack of side content and just "solid" combat hold it back a little, but hey, at the end of the day, it's DLC. Definitely highly recommend anyone who enjoyed the base game to pick this up.
The gameplay/story ratio was a little off at the start, but it rounded itself out nicely by the end. Pretty much all of the Lost Judgment mechanics get at least a brief time to shine, which was also cool to see. Kaito also gets a little bit of new stuff in his sleuthing skills. Even if it's a bit of a reskin, it's still nice that new features made it in and their use in finding collectibles was a good, appropriate level of "city" content for this size game.
As far as side content goes though, this is where it feels the most like a DLC and not like a full game (which it is, so I can't fault it much there), and where I'm guessing Gaiden will get to flex a little more as a separate package. Since the series is already so side content heavy and I'm about to play Ishin though, I don't mind this too much. Maybe a very small group of side cases involving the supporting cast, new and old, would have been nice, but I get that it could take away from the focus of the story here.
On that note, the story really was nice and had more going on than I would have expected. I won't get too spoilery, but the thought occurred to me that while LAD felt like a reimagining of a large chunk of Yakuza 1, this felt like it was taking some of the remaining Y1 components and putting its own spin on them (in a good way). It really ended up fitting nicely with both parent series in terms of carrying forward their themes (failure of fathers, cycles of revenge, rippling effects of past actions, etc). Kaito himself, while still not my favorite character ever, does a good job overall being the protagonist of his own story. The worldbuilding was also really nice here and I wouldn't be surprised at all to see some of these characters and factions pop up in later games. There's also a plot point that felt straight out of Yakuza 4, though Y4 kind of butchered it so it was nice to see it executed better here. Also, the ending, IYKYK.
And finally, the combat. It's... solid. I think coming from Yagami in LJ, everything else is going to feel kind of bad, but throwing mostly-Brawler/Beast in the same base game as the LJ styles is just not going to feel as nice. The styles are definitely touched up and have a bunch of cool new LJ-stuff going on (like the buffs for each), though quite a bit is locked behind exploration, so I only got certain skills in the final couple fights of the game that I wish I had earlier. My biggest pet peeve was not having something like Rising Tornado to not have to spam X when you get knocked down (except for one EX action in a niche situation), because this happened a lot. Maybe it's also that a ton of enemies have blades in this game, I don't know. It was serviceable and I like the effort and having 2 styles, but this is definitely one of the weaker spots of this entry.
Overall, a pleasant surprise. I expected this to be a fun little adventure, but it really drew me in and convinced me it was its own full scale entry (as far as main story goes), just in a shorter play time. A lack of side content and just "solid" combat hold it back a little, but hey, at the end of the day, it's DLC. Definitely highly recommend anyone who enjoyed the base game to pick this up.