Judgment

2024-04-21
God I love the Yakuza series. I especially love how if you start with the original and go forward they just keep getting better and better. The no-doubt increased budgets means things look better, the voice acting gets better, the stories get better, the mocap is better, the combat gets better, the array of side activities get better. Judgment is a further testament to that. If you've played and liked Yakuza games before this is one of their best stories, with some of the best actors, and beautiful mocap paired with fantastic combat. Not only that but they add a bunch of extra layers because you're playing as Yagami, a detective instead of a Yakuza. You're still mostly beating the shit out of people but you also have to find clues, or trail people, pick locks, or control a drone to spy. Nothing major but it does a fair amount to flesh out the character through gameplay as well as vary things up to reduce tedium.

Really though above all of this is the story. Yagami rules. The story of a lawyer whose career falls apart because the guy who defends turns out to be a murderer and then his redemption arc via a convoluted conspiracy. Classic Yakuza. And in classic Yakuza fashion that story is made all the better through a wide cast of characters. You have the thuggish Yakuza boss in Hamura who fucking rules with his white suit and slicked back hair. The shady cop leaking secrets in Ayabe. And the all-too-perfect cop, Kuroiwa. I mean there are twists in here I genuinely didn't see coming and it's a great ride the whole way along.

Combat-wise it's one of the more interesting engines. You have at two different modes of attack similar to Kiryu in Yakuza 0, you have a big time epic move mode, and enemies also have special moves that will wreck your shit and do permanent damage. The whole permanent damage debuff is kind of whiff in that it just adds a bit of tedium but I did like the fact that these moves add a little more variety to the proceedings. Boss fights I kind of find to be a weak point in a lot of these games but in Judgment I was actually enjoying them.

Anyway, if you like Yakuza this is one of the best.