Reviews VideoGame / Lost Judgment

But what about...

In my analysis of the previous game, I concluded that Judgment had a lot of potential but was still stiff in the joints, trying to find its own footing.

So, it's with great joy that I announce that the devs did develop the game and give it a breath of fresh air!

... right before tossing it into the Ijincho bay watching it drown.

Basically, in nearly all aspects, Lost Judgment is an improvement over its predecessor:

• The gameplay is better, with Yagami having Crane and Tiger styles balanced, and the addition of Snake Style (and boxing with DLC, though it can be a gamebreaker), with the game incentivizing switching styles mid-combat through bonus experience points.
  • Parkour and Stealth sections were added.

  • Yagami can now equip items, and has a skateboard for travelling through Ijincho faster.

  • The secondary arc (School Stories) offer many different minigames.

  • Romance options aren't as bad as the first game (though they're mostly DL Cs, and the in-game romance option is kinda annoying).

While they are welcome additions, they also suffer from the 'scattershot effect', as in, there are so many new tweaks and points, that some will be really good, others so-so, and the rest have problems and/or the lack of experience from the developers is evident. For example, the stealth sections were a pain because Yagami can only knock down distracted enemies... and he can only distract enemies if he steps into a specific spot. And if you're seen, its insta-defeat. Some of the club activities are nice (boxing), others are grindy and awful (biking). Meaning, its business as usual for fans of the Ryu Ga Gotoku studios.

• The story was partially moved from Kamurocho to Ijincho, so the studio can reuse asset- I mean, do something fresh. The themes are still a staple of the RGG studios, hitting necessarily hard with topics that are ignored by a lot of Japanese society, such as bullying and familial relationships. The School Activities explore touching moments with surprising subversions of established tropes, like parents realizing that the 'japanese stoicism' is awfully detrimental to relationships, and if someone you know is in a fragile moment needing help 'tough love' is the worst thing to offer.
  • And the characterization was overall improved: Now Yagami is more quirky, less of a creep, and decisively leaning towards a Jackie-Chan fighter instead of trying to be a glass cannon AND a tough guy at the same time: Now he uses his wits and agility in combat, and is beaten up or ends winded a lot more often.

But that all changed when the Chapter 8 attacked

From that point onwards, everything, story, characterization, gameplay, takes a nosedive to the point where I ended honestly loathing Yagami. The writers must have thought that 'bigger is better', and decided that a mystery surrounding bullying and murder wasn't good enough. The plot expands so suddenly into a blackmailing conspiracy that threatens all japan, that it feels like an asspull, even if some characters had been already introduced. From then on, the themes of bullying are basically forgotten, turned into a twisted muddled 'The law is flawed but you HAVE to obey it' and you don't step inside the school again, making it feel wasted. By chapter 9, the mystery is completely solved, and the rest of the game turns into an annoying 'chase me if you can' sequence with Yagami and Kwana shouting the same arguments at each other.

And the biggest problem is that Yagami is a gigantic hypocritical moron. Through the game he commits all sorts of crimes, from breaking and entering, assault, blackmail and more, the cherry on top being harassing Sawa-Sensei even if she pleads to be left alone, afraid for her life. He takes no measures to secure her, continues chasing her with flimsy excuses of 'this is what a detective does' and when she is in a vulnerable situation surrounded by a gang, he just tells her to lock the door and goes chase Kuwana, resulting in her getting killed. From then on, the worst thing is that he starts to use Sawa's name as a leverage and excuse for every. single. argument he is faced with. Over and over he repeats "But what about Sawa Sensei?" to the point it became an infamous meme within the community. "The law let a killer loose"? "But what about Sawa Sensei?" "The bully would do horrible things if I didn't stop him"? "But Sawa Sensei..."

His actions lead to other people getting killed when he double-crosses Kuwana in order to reach a person that had the flimsiest relationship with the case, him babbling about sensitive information IN FRONT OF THE GUY THAT KILLED SAWA BECAUSE SHE KNEW TOO MUCH nearly gets an innocent girl shot, he frequently hangs around with THREE people that are confessed killers who didn't get jail time (Kaito reveals in the DLC that he has killed before, Higashi was accessory to murder and Tesso is a confessed hitman). Kuwana is a manipulative bastard, but the narrative conveniently forgets everything Yagami did and tries to play him off as having moral ground. By the end of the game, Yagami may have literally crippled the entire Japanese healthcare by forcing a senator to admit killing a literal psychopath, even though she was literally the only thing standing between a group of greedy politicians and the ENTIRE JAPANESE HEALTHCARE FUNDS. Even if she wasn't related to Sawa's murder at all. Oh sure, one guy was arrested by the end. I'm sure no one else from the same group of unseen people will try to pull the same thing off especially now that the healthcare ministry will be completely mistrusted by the public...

In the end, literally every single thing Yagami spits against his opponents (lack of consideration about potential victims, justifying his own actions through twisted lenses, refusing to think about the consequences of his actions, etc) can be shot back at him.

My recommendation is, play until you can finish the School Stories, and skip straight away to Kaito Files (which I may review at a later date). I don't know if I should be sad or happy that, due to irl problems, the chances of getting a sequel are slim. This means that Yagami won't have a chance of getting better, but neither he will have a chance of saying "But what about Sawa Sensei..." ever again.