Lost Judgment

Played this after playing every Yakuza game and I gotta say, I now believe the Judgment truthers. This was so so so much fun, every character is lovable and cool, story was the best thriller I've seen in this franchise so far and the combat was nice! The detective vibes were immaculate and every investigation was intriguing. The finale was super elaborate and exciting too, just cannot think of anything but nonstop praises for this game.

Edit after finishing the game: While this game is totally out of place in the yakuza series at first (everything after chapter 11 goes squarely into the "yakuza ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ending" philosophy so not all is lost), it's still a decent game despite its flaws. It's got a lot in common with tv drama slop from 20 years ago which is ok in my book because I liked those shows, but it was hard to get used to at first. The gameplay is very inexcusably half-baked, with me needing a mod that backported "Lost Judgement"s combat system into this for me to just tolerate it, but the ending of the story more than makes up for the game's flaws. Now I guess you could just watch the "game movie" on youtube and get all the good parts that way, as if it was a real tv series instead of a game, but where's the fun in that? I liked it, though that ending is carrying a LOT of crap along the way to get there. --- Edit after about 20 hours: The game does the "tv show as a game" thing better than telltale ever did, but the issue remains that this isn't yakuza. The absurd, rude humor of the original series is just gone here, instead replaced by more "female friendly" hr-approved slop you would see on any primetime network-tv drama. That is when there is humor at all, which is very rare. The 80's style manliness of the main series isn't just gone here, it's actively feminine. Everything has its edges sanded off, replaced with toothless melodrama, and you can tell who the main "hero" characters are even when initially presented as antagonists by whoever is portrayed by a "new man" prettyboys. The relationship between the two leads are often memed as being "gay" because people are unconsciously picking up that their relationship is catty, built on convenience alone, and fake like they are male characters with a "female-style friendship." No actual male bonding is present, and you can tell this story was written at minimum with heavy oversight by a woman. To that point, ALL of the female characters are super average at best with mannish jawlines. Stuff like this is done on television so as to not have the characters women are supposed to "identify" as be coded as a "threat" by being actually attractive. The game also spares no effort explaining how "pretty" these "everygirl" female characters are too, so as to allow the viewer's narcissism to seat herself into the prettyboy harem without fear that any actually Beautiful women are waiting around the corner to "steal" their definitely-straight prettyboys. [i]So we have a game where all the characters you root for all look like "non-threatening" teen boy underwear models, all the women (there are only two or three, each with distinct but broad personalities, all on purpose) are meant to be little more than empty chairs for lonely office-worker females to project themselves into, the two "best friends" feel like a back-handed female friendship instead of genuine male-bonding, and the "banter with the boys" reads like teacher-approved slop that a middle-aged woman observes her elementary school sons doing while she is present (not knowing when she is away, the boys talk like a mid 00's halo lobby).[/i] [b]Ugh.[/b] I basically was forced to watch shows like this by my Mother decades ago, so I do have a soft spot for slop like this, but it's slop. Being older and being able to "notice" what's actually going on too behind the scenes REALLY doesn't Help. I'd say shows like "The Mentalist" did the tone this game is going for in a much more compelling way. This game has nothing on a masterpiece like "Psych" in the "two friends start a private eye business" genre; and that show not only has a genuine male friendship but the humor actually gets even worse (aka better) than the mainlike yakuza series. The action is on the level of a usa network series from the 00's like "Burn Notice," but without any of the weight. It's better than more modern slop like "tracker" by a mile, but the tv slop of 20 years ago has this slop beat. I guess what I'm trying to say is that a dvd box set of "Psych" will give multiple thousands more times the satisfaction than this fast-food-level meal, and about the same price as this on a steam sale. I once more reiterate that "who is this for?" This is copying shows made for women, but marketed it to guys who think pro wrestling is a good time. I don't get it, and sadly neither did sega. --- EXTREMELY clunky gameplay, which isn't the biggest deal as there is so little of it. Unlike a normal yakuza game which is 90% cutscenes, 5% menus, 4% walking around, 1% crappy combat; this is like 95% cutscenes with the rest being point-and-click adventure mechanics with scripted "steath" and "chase" sequences. The combat in this is incredibly stilted and clunky, but there is even less of it than the main series. Also the title is weirdly translated. In Japanese it's "Judge Eyes," referencing the main character giving up on being a defense lawyer because he doesn't know how to properly judge people's intentions and therefore fears hurting innocent people by defending criminals (of which he repeatedly points to his eyes and says dramatically "these eyes can't judge"). This is then put to the test in his new job as a private eye where he is constantly slapped across the face making "morally grey" decisions where someone always loses. Pretty standard primetime drama crap, but even the basic gimmick of the story was messed up in the translation. Main character is a waifish prettyboy who dresses like he's in an ambercrombie and fitch ad, has exactly one "mewing" facial expression, and is corrupt and unlikable even by japanese standards. The actor who plays him (takuya kimura) has had so many face-lifts and plastic surgeries to give him the silhouette of a teenage boy that you can see the scars in his face scan. The guy can barely even talk and it comes across like bad mocap, but it's actually the actor not having enough skin left on his over-stretched face to move his jaw. Every character here could be lifted both in look and dialogue from any japanese tv show and nothing would be out of place. People call this anime, which is not correct outside of the HORRID dub being on the level of 00's funimation. No, this is a carbon copy of a mid-budget japanese primetime drama, even down to the opening sequence being indistinguishable from any other show on 8-10pm on a weekday in japan. Think "ally mcbeal" but with kungfu fistfights, and marketed like if "law and order" was meant to appeal to teenage girls, but the actual target audience is middle aged single women who care about nothing more than seeing a skinny 40-year-old man dress in tight clothes and act smug. Also, the game is covered in stock lighting and smoke effects as if the editors here just opened up adobe after-effects for the first time. This is pretty common in primetime j-dramas as well, so it's on brand. The issue of the above comes when the yakuza games are thinly-veiled references to 1970's and 1980's crime films and 1980's and 1990's pro wrestling. Extremely masculine and very much solidly "boomer" storytelling and tropes, with wwe style plot twists every 5 minites, and many of the side characters are veteran actors who made mafia movies in the late 20th century. While the games seemingly appeal to single, leftwing chuds in the west, the main target is clearly Married Dads who were teens in the 70's though 90's. On the other hand, this hyper-focuses on aping specifically 2010-2015 era primetime japanese dramas with nearly entirely female audiences. The tonal shift is absurd to the point that this does not fit in any metric in a yakuza series playthrough. I might still tough it out just for story and to get my money's worth, but I have no idea who this is for.

예전에 플스로 나왔을때 했었는데 스팀으로도 출시되어서 이걸 사야되나 말아야되나 싶었는데 때마침 세일을 하네요 ㅎㅎㅎ 재미있어요! 용과같이는 시리즈가 너무 많아서 엄두도 못하고 있었는데 이건 딱 2개만 있어서 스토리 따라가는데 지장없었습니다