Judgment

[h1]An RGG Game Without Kiryu—Familiar Kamurocho, New Detective[/h1] [hr][/hr] [h2]★ 7.5/10 — An Excellent Detective Drama Dragged Out by Chores[/h2] [b]⊕ BEST FOR:[/b] Japanese detective drama fans, a new cast outside Kiryu’s story, moral conflict, cinematic brawling, playing a detective, and classic RGG design. [b]⊖ NOT FOR:[/b] Deep deduction, realistic detective work, concise campaigns, new locations, restrained action, or painless completion. [b]▣ Critical Benchmarks:[/b] Metacritic PC 84/100 · Xbox Series X 85/100 · PlayStation 5 83/100 · PlayStation 4 80/100 · Famitsu 37/40. [hr][/hr] [h2]◆ Opening[/h2] Judgment first reached PS4 in Japan in 2018; Steam has the later remaster. 60 FPS helps, but the environments, background characters, and blurry pre-rendered footage still show their age. Facial animation and action scenes hold up much better. Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio keeps the familiar RGG framework—Kamurocho, street fights, side stories, shops, and minigames. Kiryu is gone; Yagami and a new cast take his place. The serial murder case turns it into a Japanese detective and legal drama, making Kamurocho feel different again. The case is not massive. Map running, tailing, errands, random fights, and Side Case-style chores in the main story are what drag it out. Even simple progress gets tiring. [h2]◆ Strengths[/h2] [b]⊕ A Mystery That Gradually Comes Together[/b] Judgment slowly puts its characters, past events, and early clues where they belong. Details that look unrelated eventually connect, so the final answer does not feel improvised. It is also about more than finding the killer: justice, sacrifice, necessary evil, and whether a worthy goal stays justified once its methods cross moral lines. [b]⊕ A New Cast With Few Obvious Weak Links[/b] Almost every major character has a clear personality, background, and place in the case. Even small roles leave an impression. Some scenes make little sense and some performances are overdramatic, but facial animation, line delivery, body language, and CG scenes carry the emotion. Kimura is not the only familiar face. Shosuke Tanihara, Kenichi Takito, and Akira Nakao lend their likenesses to major roles. This cast feels made for Judgment’s own story. [b]⊕ Takuya Kimura Is More Than a Famous Face[/b] Takuya Kimura has been a major Japanese TV star since the 1990s, known across Asia. Judgment uses more than his face. His voice and expressions shape Yagami too. Yagami is poor, beaten, humiliated, and stuck with unpleasant work—less a TV hero than a stray dog surviving in Kamurocho. His past as a lawyer stays tied to his choices and relationships. Against Kimura’s public image, this battered life gives his setbacks and later choices more weight. [b]⊕ Excellent Fight Choreography and Action Direction[/b] Yagami moves more lightly than the usual RGG fighter, but his attacks still have weight. Combat openings, EX Actions, environmental takedowns, and finishers play like short action scenes. Important fights turn simple inputs into cinematic action. QTE windows are generous; the result still looks excellent. [b]⊕ Side Cases That Fit Yagami’s Life[/b] RGG substories often begin with a chance street encounter. Judgment turns them into Yagami’s jobs, commissioned through his office, legal contacts, and acquaintances. The stories stay absurd, but the structure fits a private detective. These people do not vanish when a case ends. Shop clerks remember Yagami, friends join street fights, and reputation opens jobs. Kamurocho feels less like an old RGG map and more like where he lives and works. [h2]◆ Weaknesses[/h2] [b]⊖ Too Much of the Case Is Spent Crossing Kamurocho[/b] Running across Kamurocho is one of Judgment’s biggest problems. Taxis are the only regular fast-travel option, but have few stops. Calls, errands, and investigations send Yagami down the same streets; enemies turn each trip into another fight. With no second district, familiarity becomes exhaustion. Mortal Wounds make it worse. Certain attacks cut Yagami’s maximum health, and food cannot restore it. Getting treated or buying Medical Kits means returning to the doctor beneath Children’s Park. This adds little strategy; mostly, it creates another trip across an overused city. [b]⊖ The Main Case Works; Some Scenes Do Not[/b] The main threads come together, but many scenes care more about dramatic effect than believable cause and effect. Yagami looks helpless one moment and defeats everyone the next; armed enemies lose their aim whenever the plot needs them to miss. The ending works. The road there often does not. This is a familiar RGG flaw, and a new cast has not made it disappear. [b]⊖ A Detective Game Without Much Deduction[/b] Search scenes usually mean moving the cursor to highlight the right object. Evidence selection has one intended answer, and mistakes barely matter. Tailing is worse: fixed routes, fixed cover, slow walking, and long waits make it one of Judgment’s most torturous parts. Chases have the same problem. Even when Yagami is close enough to catch the target, most continue to a scripted endpoint. They remind players of Yagami’s job, but remain mechanical—more detective role-playing than actual deduction. [b]⊖ Many Moves, but Far Too Few Reasons to Use Them[/b] Judgment has many skills and EX Actions, but regular play gives few chances to use them. Many need rare conditions; slow SP gain also pushes players toward side content. The camera gets too close, and almost every fight insists on a slow-motion ending. It works in important battles and the first few street fights. After that, it gets irritating. Repetition wears the effect out. [b]⊖ Side Content Eventually Becomes a 100% Chore[/b] Judgment has minigames, SEGA arcades, drone racing, Paradise VR, Quickstarter, and investigation activities. But it lacks a deep core side mode like real-estate or cabaret management, spreading its content across smaller systems. Side Cases keep reusing tailing, searching, chasing, and fighting. Friends, reputation, cases, minigames, Quickstarter, and KamuroGo are tied together. Casually, Kamurocho feels richer. At 100%, the old RGG problem returns: unrelated activities must be cleared one by one. [b]⊖ The Main Story and Side Cases Have Different Budgets[/b] Main scenes get full voice acting, detailed faces, and careful performances. Smaller Side Cases rely on text boxes, repeated animation, fixed poses, and familiar models. Some footage is blurry; objects misalign, float, or fly across the room. The remaster improves frame rate and performance, but it cannot hide every shortcut. This budget gap is common in RGG games, and Judgment keeps it. [h2]◆ Conclusion[/h2] Judgment remains one of Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio’s stronger standalone crime stories, and a successful start for this cast. Some scenes are far-fetched, but the ending has enough conflict and emotion to hold the story together. Takuya Kimura brings Yagami more than a famous face. The other actors prove this group can leave Kiryu’s shadow and carry a series of its own. Judgment does not rebuild Kamurocho. It puts a different person in it. Yagami is not a yakuza legend returning home; he takes commissions, knows shop clerks, builds a reputation, and worries about bills. That alone makes familiar streets feel different. Even so, 100% completion is a chore. Repeated map running, minigame requirements, and interconnected systems turn the city into a task list. How much this hurts depends on how much players want to finish. Judgment is no realistic detective simulator. It is a flamboyant, emotional Japanese TV detective drama built on the RGG formula. Its story and action make the journey worthwhile, even if players must cross the same Kamurocho streets again and again. [hr][/hr] [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/43837750-Just-Game-Curator/]Follow my curator to get the latest review push![/url] Your support is my greatest motivation!

The story is a significant step up from the mainline Yakuza series, offering deeper character development and a more compelling mystery that keeps you hooked from beginning to end. Combat also feels fresh, moving away from the brawler style the series had so far. While it shares the DNA of its predecessors, Judgment stands on its own two legs and counts as one of the best entries in RGG games

Absolute Peak, The story from start to finish just kept on going up. Gameplay is okay but the story is crazy and W Yagami.