Review: Lost Judgment is fun, but takes itself just a little too seriously
Lost Judgment is the latest game in the Yakuza series, which are action-mystery titles known to mix crazy side activities and stories with a serious main plotline. That means you get games where the main character is simultaneously investigating a mystery that deals in very dark, disturbing subject matter while dancing his heart out and parkouring over buildings like a champ.
Lost Judgment is the sequel to Judgment, a Yakuza mystery spin-off. It’s the more serious cousin to recent Yakuza games such as Like a Dragon, but it still retains some of that strange tonal difference. While some find this tonal difference offputting, if you’re a fan of Yakuza games, then you’ll find this is a great new entry in-line with that ethos.
In this entry, former lawyer-turned-private detective Takayuki Yagami is looped in to investigate the murder of a young teacher. The victim’s body was identified after the most likely suspect, the father of a student who committed suicide thanks to the victim’s bullying, is convicted of a crime that took place at the same time as the murder in another part of the city. In other words, the only person who initially appears to have a motive also has a rock-solid alibi.
Yagami goes on an investigation into the school where the victim taught, Seiryo High, and uncovers an unsavory web of lies and crime within its walls. While I won’t spoil the content of the game, I will say it gets into some very heavy subject matter very quickly. If the topics of bullying, suicide, or sexual assault are triggers for you, then you should probably avoid this game.
Lost Judgment
The Good
- Great combat that’s typical for the series
- Tense, enjoyable mystery with dark themes
- New gameplay fits well with stuff from first game
The Bad
- Sometimes too serious
- Tone is all over the place
Lost Judgment: The great stuff
Source: Windows Central
Category | GameNameXXX |
---|---|
Title | Lost Judgment |
Developer | Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio |
Publisher | SEGA |
Genre | Action-adventure |
Xbox Version | Xbox Series X |
Game Size | 49.7GB |
Play Time | 30 hours |
Players | Single |
Xbox GamePass | No |
Launch Price | $60 |
Source: Windows Central
Picking up a chair and going to town on the head of some fool who thought he could test me will never get old.
Also, the voice acting in both the English and Japanese voice tracks is excellent. Both actors who play Yagami manage to sell him as a noir-ish detective who nevertheless isn’t afraid to expose his humorous side. While he lacks Kazuma Kiryu’s stony immunity to nonsense, he’s still an appealing foil to the game’s crazier elements. Also, while it’s not as spectacular as some of the other games available on the console, Lost Judgment is beautiful on Xbox Series X.
Lost Judgment: The not-as-great stuff
Source: Windows Central
Lost Judgment can at times seem a bit less wonderful than Yakuza: Like a Dragon.
The differences are especially apparent in their protagonists, as Yagami’s world-weary, almost too-cool-for-school (literally) attitude is a far cry from Ichiban’s earnestness. This means that when the game does indulge in its crazier Yakuza impulses, they feel a little dissonant. For example, when Yagami first arrives at the school, a student accuses him of being a creeper. Her plan for making him prove he isn’t is to drag him to the school’s female dance troupe and make him dance with them. It leads to a decent rhythm game, Lost Judgment’s substitute for Yakuza’s customary karaoke minigame, but still, her plan to make this stranger prove he’s not creeping on high school students is to make him dance with a bunch of teenage girls? We get what the developers were trying to do, but the effort doesn’t always land.
Lost Judgment: Should you play it?
Source: Windows Central
Lost Judgment is about as typical of the Yakuza series as you’re going to get: serious story, silly side content, fun fighting action, and very good character performances. Yagami feels a bit more like a detective this time, and the mystery in which he finds himself embroiled is tense and interesting. The few extras added to the gameplay don’t change the game in any fundamental way, but they are fun anyway.
Again, I want to stress that, if you’re at all uncomfortable with the topics of suicide, self-harm, sexual abuse, and bullying, then you should not be playing this game. They delve into these topics very frankly and very early in the game, and it could be upsetting if you’re not prepared for it. It also just doesn’t live up to Yakuza: Like a Dragon, which was one of the best games of 2020, so if you’re expecting it to, you might be disappointed. However, if you’re looking for a good mystery with some parkour for good measure, Lost Judgment might be the way to go.
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