This review contains spoilers
8
For every step Lost Judgment takes forward, it takes half a step back. I say half because there's a lot of good here. Side-content is pretty great with some real standouts (Boxing, Dance and the MRC side-story easily trump over Judgment's mediocre side-content), the combat is amazing, and the music is really solid too (even if it loses the action noir vibes of the first.)
Where this game falters the most is the story. Playing Judgment and Lost Judgment back-to-back just puzzles me. There's some really great little details about how Judgment incentivizes paying attention the story, the best feature being gaining SP for answering correctly. The removal of this feature only drags the infamously long talky segments out. Onto the actual story, a lot of the mature subject matter is handled really poorly. Many of the bullying scenes are disturbing to the point that it feels gratuitous. Why even include them if there's nothing to say other than "Beat them up and they won't do it again!" It's a similar situation with the sexual assault plotline where as soon as Yagami brings up the possibility of it being faked, it's just kind of a plot device which just feels wrong for a topic with that level of weight. It's the same issue with the idol business in Yakuza 5 except there the game felt like it was at least thinking about it. There is no stance here, they are just plot devices. There are a couple of fun moments in the plot and the trademark RGG epic finale stuff is all there, it's just hard for me to think about this game's story and its poor handling of these heavy topics.
Lost Judgment is the RGG-Gameplay gold standard, it's just a shame that the story is poorly thought out in important places.
For every step Lost Judgment takes forward, it takes half a step back. I say half because there's a lot of good here. Side-content is pretty great with some real standouts (Boxing, Dance and the MRC side-story easily trump over Judgment's mediocre side-content), the combat is amazing, and the music is really solid too (even if it loses the action noir vibes of the first.)
Where this game falters the most is the story. Playing Judgment and Lost Judgment back-to-back just puzzles me. There's some really great little details about how Judgment incentivizes paying attention the story, the best feature being gaining SP for answering correctly. The removal of this feature only drags the infamously long talky segments out. Onto the actual story, a lot of the mature subject matter is handled really poorly. Many of the bullying scenes are disturbing to the point that it feels gratuitous. Why even include them if there's nothing to say other than "Beat them up and they won't do it again!" It's a similar situation with the sexual assault plotline where as soon as Yagami brings up the possibility of it being faked, it's just kind of a plot device which just feels wrong for a topic with that level of weight. It's the same issue with the idol business in Yakuza 5 except there the game felt like it was at least thinking about it. There is no stance here, they are just plot devices. There are a couple of fun moments in the plot and the trademark RGG epic finale stuff is all there, it's just hard for me to think about this game's story and its poor handling of these heavy topics.
Lost Judgment is the RGG-Gameplay gold standard, it's just a shame that the story is poorly thought out in important places.