Lost Judgment
Review
2026-08-30
"Yagami's back in his skin-tight, faded lady-jeans to solve yet another convoluted murder mystery by beating the answers out of people. But this time he's going back to school and kicking the shit out of students and teachers till he finds the killer."
- Lost Judgment, back-of-the-box quote
At one point a woman asks Yagami, "How long are you going to keep talking? "How many times have I asked myself the same question playing Lost Judgment? As Yagami babbles on, repeating the same plot points and conclusions and his little morality lectures over and over. It left me having a crisis of faith: after 10 RGG games have I finally burned out? Has it always been like this, and me stuck in a reverie?
No. It's Yagami. Kiryu would never. Kiryu's stoic demeanor isn't prone to rambling. The only time he lectures, he keeps it brief because he knows lessons for the lost are only learned by smashing a bicycle over their head. After receiving the third consecutive concussion from the Dragon of Dojima's fists, everyone comes around and sees the light.
Yagami not so much. He must fight and defeat Lost Judgment's collective antagonists ten times over, always delivering a lecture, and they never learn. It's an incredible feat really, Lost Judgment's characters refuse development at every turn. Every villain or quasi-villain stays the same until they either die or depart for parts unknown. Yagami is stuck lecturing everyone--and by proxy our bored asses, nodding off on the couch--because he believes they'll change, not knowing he's in a world where they never will.
The greatest casualty of the droning structure of the narrative is I have no idea if the plot is any good. It certainly feels like dogshit when any momentum is cratered by repeating every development three times over. But I was initially intrigued. A fair amount of the game is spent in a school and it took me back to season 4 of The Wire. A total changeup from the streets of Kamurocho, with the lens zoomed in on the lives of students, teachers, bullies, and their victims. Yes! Give me something boring and mundane and show me the drama in it.
But they fumble that too. New characters are the lifeblood of RGG games but the only memorable one is Kuwana, and his collection of cool jackets. Who could forget angry, leopard-shirt Yakuza-man or evil guy who coughs in handkerchief? Everyone.
It's all trope-y and lame. Twists are signposted and spoiled by repetition. Courtroom scenes are Laudanum and Order, zZz zZz. Themes of suicide, bullying, a legal system that lets evil go unpunished are incredible themes that are then treated with such a naive, sanctimonious, and pedantic tone that all the gravity and interest in them is beaten out of you. I've heard more nuanced takes from freshman pre-law students on cocaine. I mean Christ that scene with the microphones in the classroom is one of the dumbest things I've ever seen. Who on earth would be tricked by that? And then they come out of it all "Wow, that was amazing," babbling on about "I've heard it said in America, the first penguin is a term of respect." It absolutely fucking is not, brother.
Ok, whatever, the story is the simpleton cousin of the twisty-turny, riveting Judgment but they did introduce a whole Yagami-as-school-club-leader system. I saw someone online say "The school stuff could have been its own game!" Yeah, a bad one! Running back and forth around that school engaging in deeply uninteresting tales such as "The dancer against the other dancer because they both like the same guy!" Or uhh "Some geeks like doing Robot Wars". But don't worry each one is paired with one of the most mediocre minigames in the entire RGG saga. Would you like bad RTS robot chess or maybe a mid ass rhythm game? Or maybe I can interest you in a reskin of an existing minigame? No? Yeah me neither, bailed out on my 100th lap running the same hallways to meet the same cast of students slowly progressing through their inane stories about fucking whatever.
Man, I'm on a roll, guys, I hate everything in this game. But I haven't touched it all. How about just the plain old detective shit that was in the first game? Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of tailing people, and chasing suspects down is stupid-simple, arcade-y, button-tapping fun. But the fucking "look for clues" view is putrid fucking pixel-hunting refuse. How many times have I gotten stuck for minutes because Yagami needs to find a thing to climb and I highlight eight separate ways he could absolutely fucking climb up but they wanted a specific milk crate in the corner. And the whole time I'm listening to Yagami go えーと ("eh-toh") over and over and over again. And it's used so arbitrarily. There's already a climbing game which they added (itself, an entirely mediocre addition). Why do I need a minigame to find a thing to climb when there's a whole separate climbing minigame that already involves finding things to climb?
And yet at its core it is still an RGG game and I at my core am a simple man with simple pleasures. We're back in the tri-combat mode bliss of a Yakuza 0, only with Yagami's flavor of acrobatic monkey-like kung-fu. Pop into red mode when you're facing a single enemy to tank hits and charge-punch break their guard. Swing into green to take on groups of enemies with weapons by sliding around them and countering. It's a counter that's timed, but it's a button held not tapped. Quirky enough that I thought it was broken before I came to love it. Ah there is nothing better than absolutely clowning a boss by baiting and countering their entire health bar without being touched once. And who could forget blue? Actually I have forgotten blue mode, dunno what that does; swings his legs around or something. Who cares, the point is the combat is full of mode-switching, comboing, counters, and general shit-houser-y.
The rest is as it always was. Substories about aliens and panty thieves, baseball challenges and dart games, and drinking every formulation of alcohol from every bar to gain enough experience to unlock a new kind of curb stomp.
But that's the problem. The only good thing about Lost Judgment is the thing that's good about all of them. Everything new to the table is merely fine. This is a McDouble after a series of Big Macs. So, am I done with RGG games? Absolutely not. I'm stoked for Infinite Wealth. But above all I'm stoked to say goodbye to Yagami. Now I just need to say it 10 more times so he understands me.