Review Lost Judgment: The perfect sequel to a top game

Lost Judgment has improved on the shortcomings of the previous installment and continues to promote the strengths of the series.

In 2018, Judgment, the Spin-off game of the Yakuza series was released to the audience. In this game, gamers have the opportunity to experience the neighborhood of Kamurocho and investigate cases related to the Japanese underworld through the perspective of private detective Takayuki Yagami (played by actor Takuya Kimura). .

Now, Yagami has returned to players through Lost Judgment, the sequel to the above game. Through our experience, it can be said that this is the best work of the developer RGG Studio and one of the best titles of 2021.

Taking place in December 2021, the story of Lost Judgment continues Yagami’s detective career in the Kamurocho area. Since the story includes some details of the events occurring in the two games, Judgment and Yakuza: Like a Dragon, this is not necessarily a good starting point for newcomers. However, this can be easily solved through watching the summary on YouTube.

After solving a scam, Yagami and his colleague Kaito were invited to Isezaki Ijincho, in Yokohama city to investigate a difficult case, related to school violence, triads and gangs upstart criminal named RK. This is also when the story of the game officially begins.

The first point to mention is the plot of the game. The story that Lost Judgment tells is somewhat dark because it revolves around bullying, school violence and suicide, which are big problems in Japanese society. The game succeeds in making people aware of how serious the problem is and can make those who have been bullied at school feel uncomfortable while playing.

There will be times when Yagami has to “teach” students who like to bully by force. Normally this would make many people wonder because the bullies are still in their teens after all, but with the RGG Studio building the story as well as the characters, many people will surely feel handing out is reasonable and necessary.

The second point to mention about Lost Judgment is the Beat em Up gameplay. A few months ago, RGG Studio confirmed that the Judgment franchise would continue the classic gameplay of the series, while the Yakuza turned to RPG. Because of this, if you are a fan of hand-to-hand fights that take place on the streets of Japan, this is a must-buy game.

Similar to previous games in the series, Lost Judgment has relatively simple combat mechanics. Players will combine the buttons to hit lightly, hit hard, wrestle, block and dodge to create beautiful and powerful combos.

During the battle, the EX energy bar will be gradually increased and with this energy bar, the player can unleash brutal moves, enough to knock down the enemy in one hit.

The highlight of Lost Judgment is that Yagami can switch between different fighting styles. If Judgment has given us two styles of “Tiger” (effective in the case of 1-on-1) and “Hacker” (confronting the majority), Lost Judgment adds a completely new style called “Xa”. This is a style that specializes in defense, knocking down opponents with grappling blows and disarming them.

All three fighting styles have enough moves for players to use from beginning to end of the game, and if all three are combined, Lost Judgment’s street battles will hardly make players bored.

Besides the fighting gameplay, another notable point of Lost Judgment is the minigames. In this game, players will be able to do choreography, boxing, motorcycle racing, arcade games and a variety of other activities. Most of these activities have their own depth and progression that we spent hours on, almost forgetting about the plot.

Every game has a minus point and with Lost Judgment, that is the detective segment of the game. RGG Studio has made new additions to make investigating more fun, such as the fact that Yagami can use parkour, stealth, and disguise to enter a criminal’s lair, but these mechanics are far too linear. count and can sometimes only be seen as an extended “Quick Time Event”.

Not only that, the choices that the player makes while investigating and deducing doesn’t make much sense, because if the inference is wrong, the game will correct the player’s reasoning.

In case the player can’t think of it, just choose all the results, until there is a correct result because Lost Judgment will not penalize the player for choosing the wrong inference or evidence. In general, we should only consider Lost Judgment as a fighting game with detective elements, not a real detective game.

In conclusion, Lost Judgment is a good game and has many improvements compared to the previous part, which is not an easy thing. Due to some trouble related to actor Takuya Kimura’s management company, the game is only available on PS4, PS5, Xbox ONE and Series X/S. If you are a console gamer then Lost Judgment is a must buy game.

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