CW: Trailer is kinda graphic and references suicide and bullying
I adored Judgment when that came out and apparently its sales figures wildly outpaced expectations, so we got a sequel. Out 9/24 worldwide, pandemic permitting.
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A simultaneous worldwide release is huge, usually Yakuza games take at least half a year to release in the west. Very excited for more Judgment also.
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Sorry, Yagami looks like forty. With all this school stuff, I can only think of this:
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In the most recent Yakuza when I’m in Kamurocho I always smile wistfully when I go by where his office is.
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Yeah, they did a big ol’ video and Q&A to go with it. They announced that they’re going to attempt to do simultaneous worldwide releases moving forward, and the Yakuza games are going to be turn-based RPGs and Judgment is going to be their action game.
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Based on the screens I’ve seen, it doesn’t look like Lost Judgment retains the visual aesthetic of the original game which is kind of a bummer. It’s been nice just existing in Kamurocho as Yagami (still only in Ch. 4), and the noir-ish filter and lighting on PS4 really helps me get into the role, so to speak.
I’m excited about that since the Dragon Engine has so many cool moves, Yakuza 7 is great but seemed like a waste to make such fun combat and then only have it be in like three games.
If Judgment goes on maybe they’ll drop the $$$ for Takuya Kimura’s discography, bizarre to have him star in a Yakuza-adjacent game that DOESN’T let him karaoke his own stuff!!! 
I’m wondering if the PS4 version will keep this, or like if the inevitable PC release maybe someone can make a mod for that (I notice shader mods are pretty common even on not very popular PC games).
Ideally they’d just have it as an option you can turn on and off, it did add a subtle griminess to the world that was a cool contrast with some of the game’s areas.
Yeah, they moved out of Kamurocho for this one. I can understand wanting to change it up, but gosh, whatever they did to make Kamurocho almost have a smell to it was the perfect thing for Judgment’s noir sensibilities.
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Still trying to wrap my head around this, like at first I just figured he’d be going undercover as like a teacher or maintenance person or something. But it seems like you’ll be able to join various school clubs to do mini-games and stuff so uh, Takuya Kimura is pushing 50 irl and the Yagami character is like 38 so this will indeed be hilarious.
Please be this. I really want this game to take the piss out of the return to high school as a student trope now.
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Always wanted to play the first game but somehow never got to it.
I like detective stories for the mystery alone, but am always skeptical about the playing a cop (or cop adjacent with private detectives) part and how “fighting/solving crimes” is presented.
So I wonder how this one tackled the topic of police, if it did at all. Is it the “some bad crooked apples in the otherwise good japanese boys (and some girls) in blue” way or is it more critical of the institution, as well as justice system and by extension society more broadly?
Judgment never outright says “policing is broken” or anything like that, but it’s awfully telling that 1. the only cops you ever interact with meaningfully are either crooked or sociopaths and 2. when they’re supposed to solve a crime, they almost immediately decided to throw the local yakuza captain in jail and call it a day.
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The entire series is generally very vocal about how while there are probably cops who aren’t like the absolute worst scum of the earth, the system itself makes everything being shitty inevitable. Judgment goes into it more but even the original Yakuza makes it the opposite of how police are propagandized in a lot of media.
In the entire series there’s like maybe two or three good cops and the entire rest of everyone you interact with is some degree of straight up evil/very corrupt/whatever. And in general the games have police higher ups and yakuza be outright friends. Like in a lot of the games the Yakuza are less, like, their own faction and more like, the go between the politicians, police, etc. “legitimate” institutions and industries use to accomplish horrible things. Judgment itself has a lot of critique of Japan’s legal system, and similar to the cops in the original Yakuza, you get a picture of an institution way more interested in just closing shit and looking flawless than in actual investigation or justice.
So in that respect I’m generally very happy with how the later games address some of this stuff even if it’s not perfect - even as well meaning as it may be just from a localization standpoint, some nuances of how one country’s society works vs. another’s are never going to totally come across consistently.
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Thanks for the answers DarthTythus and NeoRasa (is there a way to reply to two posts at once?). That sounds very promising indeed. Guess I have to move the game up in my list of things I want to play next.
Some early gameplay footage. Takayuki Yagami’s Pro Skater?
I’m insanely hype for being able to climb/wall run some areas, I’m curious to see if that’s something you can do anywhere/anytime or if it’s just for specific investigation moments. I was so happy with the amount of vertical space the new engine so it’s cool to see them taking advantage of that.
Still LOLing at the undercover thing but it makes more sense now that they’re saying it will be more like a hub for a lot of the side stuff.
A frequent refrain of Steve Gaynor when he streamed Judgment (usually about once or twice a year Steve finds a game to stream and he’ll go nightly-ish until he’s done with it, schedule permitting - I highly recommend checking it out particularly if you’re a fan of both memes and some very cool game dev insights) was “There’s so much game in this game.” Which looks like it’s going to remain true here.
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Yakuza games always bring hotel restaurant buffet-level amounts of content but Judgment was the first time I ever felt like oh there might be too much game in this for me. Yakuza 5 is also sprawling in scope but it never overwhelmed me because that game’s structure cloistered so many mini-games and entire mechanics within chapters of the story.
I wish they’d do a little bit more to present priorities to players. Color code stuff to say “this is a main story, this is a side mission, this is a friend mission, this is a minigame, this is a romance mission” etc.
Unbelievably pumped for more Judgment, love a good murder mystery. I’m also glad the brawler-style gameplay is going to live on in the Judgment games, the Yakuza 7 combat system never really felt right to me.
I really hope it runs well enough on a PS4 Pro.
