Judgment is a game I’ve been eager to hop on for some time. I have played every mainline entry in Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio’s much-beloved Yakuza franchise, and the only thing holding me back from starting Judgment was the game’s inability to be played on the Xbox One, despite Judgment‘s very own sequel being compatible with the Xbox One. Despite that baffling roadblock, I recently upgraded my Xbox One to the Series X, finally allowing me to take Judgment off of my Xbox wish list! As a longtime fan of both the Yakuza games and the mystery genre as a whole, I was beyond excited to finally step into the shoes of one of Kamurocho’s private gumshoes.
Taking a step back, let’s discuss what the game is actually about. Judgment places you in the sneakers of Takayuki Yagami, a disgraced former lawyer now working independently as a private eye. Hanging up his lawyer’s badge after one of his cases led to a grisly outcome, Yagami now ekes out a living by solving cases big and small for the residents of Kamurocho. Returning Yakuza fans will immediately feel at home in Yagami’s shoddy back-street detective’s office, but let me be clear – outside of the game’s setting and combat flow, there is very little, if any, overlap with Kazuma Kiryu’s adventures in the Yakuza games. Judgment‘s story is wonderfully self-contained, making it a great first entry to dive into if you’re interested in trying some of Ryu Ga Gotoku’s games out.
In true detective fashion (no pun intended), Judgment‘s narrative is divided up into cases. Judgment’s central plot is tied to the game’s Main Case – following Yagami and his friends as they try to hunt down a serial killer stalking the streets of Kamurocho, all while unveiling some comically elaborate political conspiracies. The Main Case unfortunately begins with some clunky tutorials that muddy the player experience for the first few hours, but once players power through that, they’re treated to a highly gripping drama filled to the brim with plot twists and mysteries to uncover. Alongside the main murder mystery, Yagami has plenty of Side Cases to take on, ranging from proving a husband’s infidelity to disguising yourself as a vampire to help a celebrity avoid the paparazzi. As always, Ryu Ga Gotoku does a great job at writing some of the most entertainingly absurd side stories, but these Side Cases can sometimes muddy up the pacing of the adventure, especially since it will likely take players 25-30 hours to complete the Main Case in its’ entirety. Additionally, Judgment provides a case file application on your phone to review evidence you’ve collected on both the Main and Side Cases, but I rarely found this feature useful. The Main Case, while rife with plot twists and mystery, requires little to no independant problem-solving on the player’s part to resolve, and the Side Cases as a whole are largely self-contained, making it largely a waste of time to read through Yagami’s case files.
While players may not find much purpose in managing Yagami’s case file, the same cannot be said for Yagami’s combat skills. The game’s action RPG brawling takes heavy inspiration from Ryu Ga Gotoku’s previous work, giving players a combat system that feels simple to learn, but satisfying to master. When fighting his was through Kamurocho’s slew of street thugs and ruffians, Yagami has access to two different fighting styles to keep the gameplay fresh and your enemies unprepared. First is the Crane Style, which focuses on long, flowing kicks to deal with crowds of enemies all at once. While the Crane Style was fun to mess around with, I much preferred the Tiger Style, which focused on brutal, heavy-hitting combos ideal for one-on-one fights. While different fighting styles is nothing new for a Ryu Ga Gotoku entry, Yagami feels like a distinctly different character to control than Yakuza‘s Kiryu. Yagami is the more nimble fighter, able to wall jump and hop over enemies to both avoid sticky situations and enable new combos. However, Yagami’s swiftness comes at a price, with many of the game’s bosses and minibosses able to inflict Mortal Wounds on Yagami with special attacks, should the attack connect. These Mortal Wounds will lower Yagami’s Maximum health and can only be removed by using medical kids or talking to a specific character, but both of these methods are expensive and require you to go to an inconvenient corner of Kamurocho for treatment. The Mortal Wounds system and the inconveniences it brings further encourages players to master Yagami’s dodges and other swift maneuvers to avoid danger – a welcome change of pace given how many Yakuza fights can be bested by simply button mashing.
While Judgment‘s combat takes obvious inspiration from the Yakuza games, the same cannot be said for most of the game’s investigative elements… for better or for worse. Let’s start with the bad part first – this game has a LOT of tailing missions, especially in the optional Side Cases you’ll get to embark on. Tailing missions come with a negative reputation for good reason, and unfortunately Judgment does little to no work to change that. Every tailing mission, save for one story-specific mission, follows the same format as Yagami awkwardly walks behind an NPC, hiding behind taxis and street signs every 20 seconds when the NPC stops and turns around. These missions are best described as a semi-miserable slog, and are required to complete many of the game’s Side Cases. Yagami will also need to complete a large number of chase sequences throughout both the Main Case and Side Cases, a returning feature from earlier Yakuza titles. The chase sequences, while far less miserable than they were in Yakuza 3, are largely just extended quick-time events that don’t require much player interaction. Judgment also has two different lockpicking minigames for some reason, though these both are pretty straightforward and standard for the adventure genre. One blatantly baffling minigame requires Yagami to look at his key ring and try to remember which key opens the locked door in front of him. For some reason, this includes his office door, a casino you’ll frequently visit, and a few story-specific doors you’ll rarely, if ever, visit again. Players will have to complete this same minigame a dozen times throughout the game, just so they can return to Yagami’s office – a truly bizarre decision that only makes Judgment‘s detective mechanics feel more tacked on than they already are.
While many of Yagami’s investigative mechanics fall flat, it’s worth noting that some of them do range from above average to downright fun. When investigating a crime scene, players will enter a first-person Search Mode to scour the scene for clues. This is a pretty straightforward mechanic present in most mystery games, but it does stand out among the other undercooked detective minigames you’ll be dragged into throughout the game. In many Side Cases, you’ll be tasked with sneakily taking a photo of a crime or scandalous behavior being committed in the act. The delicate balancing act of finding the right position and timing for the photo, all while avoiding detection, was genuinely enjoyable. Players will also get to use Yagami’s drone to scout out buildings looking for clues and possible points of entry, usually before you attempt to infiltrate it yourself. Using the drone for investigations is a satisfying, if under-utilized mechanic that does an admirable job at making players feel like real investigators. By far the best investigative feature, however, actually involves not playing as Yagami at all. Instead, you’ll be placed in the shoes of Yagami’s coworker, going undercover in the hopes of discovering new evidence, having to choose correct dialogue options in order to progress further in your investigation. This welcome change of pace rarely happens throughout the game, but I hope it makes a bigger return in Judgment‘s already-released sequel, Lost Judgment.
On the topic of investigating, let me address the elephant in the room – Judgment is not much of a mystery game, per se. Sure, there are a TON of mysteries that will unravel as you progress through the Main Case, but none of these revelations require players to deduce anything at all, frankly. Judgment‘s plot twists are all revealed in cutscenes, not through player choice. That being said, as a crime drama, Judgment has an excellent overarching story, rife with lovable characters such Yagami’s former coworker Saori Shirosaki and his current partner Masaharu Kaito. Kaito in particular quickly cements himself as one of Ryu Ga Gotoku’s most well-written sidekicks, bringing some much-needed levity to an otherwise heavy story. The plot twists themselves are generally well-written, oftentimes catching me off-guard as I attempted to figure out the identity of Kamurocho’s serial killer before the game outright told me. Unfortunately, Yagami will unravel all these mysteries for you in cutscenes, which unfortunately takes away the undeniable joy of clevely deducing the solution to case. As a potential buyer, if you’re going into Judgment hoping for a choose-your-own adventure mystery, you will be sorely disappointed. However, if you look at Judgment as less of a pure mystery game and more of a detective-themed roller coaster ride, there’s a lot of fun to be had here.
For players looking to take a break from investigating, Judgment has plenty of minigames and side activities to offer. While none have the depth nor replay value of the likes Yakuza‘s frequently returning cabaret management minigame or Yakuza Kiwami 2’s castle defense-like Clan Creator mode, Judgment does have a good amount of arcade machines and traditional casino games to let players blow off steam. There are a few standouts, among them being the bizarre VR board game Dice & Cube and the wonderfully addicting Drone Races. Aside from minigames, Yagami can also dabble in the dating scene, allowing players to romance four of Kamurocho’s eligible bachelorettes, all of which you’ll meet through Judgment‘s Side Cases. The dating dialogue options are surprisingly good, and texting your potential love interest is always cute. That being said, I was disappointed to find a jarring age discrepancy between Yagami and the women he’s trying to woo. While two of the four women are roughly in Yagami’s age range, the other two are way younger, and I personally find it off-putting to attempt to romance a 19-year-old when I am playing as a 35-year-old man.
As Ryu Ga Gotoku’s games become more mainstream in the and less niche in the U.S., the studio has a put in an admirable amount of work towards localization. Judgment‘s Japanese voice cast is undeniably stellar, with Japanese superstar Takuya Kimura providing the voice and facial likeness for Yagami. That being said, Judgment‘s English cast is no slouch either, with heavy-hitters such as Greg Chun, Matt Mercer, and Cherami Leigh voicing the game’s top-billed characters. The Japanese and English voice casts alike, when paired with Judgment‘s excellent graphics and visuals, do wonders at making Kamurocho feel vibrant and more alive than ever before. While I personally choose to play all Ryu Ga Gotoku games with the Japanese voice cast, it’s highly commendable to see such effort and care go into making Ryu Ga Gotoku’s excellent library of games more accessible for players across the world.
As a complete package, Judgment is rife with highs and lows. Like most Ryu Ga Gotoku games, Judgment possesses excellent combat, mixing familiar moves from the Yakuza franchise with new techniques unique to Yagami. This comes at the expense of much of the detective gameplay, which features far too many mediocre tailing missions and not nearly enough mystery solving. The story presented in the Main Case is a fascinating web of murder and political intrigue, but despite the strengths of the story and its’ cast, there is a distinct lack of player agency in solving the Cases themselves that keeps this game from really being a true murder mystery title. Despite its’ flaws, Judgment is rife with more than enough engaging content to justify a trip to Kamurocho for both new players and diehard Yakuza fans alike.
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