Lost Judgment (2021)

I think I just have to settle for the fact I just don't like RGG games. I've been playing Lost Judgment and I'm just not feeling it. The same locales, the same combat, the same thugs, I'm just so tired. XD

I have exactly ONE RGG game left on my backlog - Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise. I'm gonna give that one a fair shake, because at very least, it's a totally different world, art style and works with a different set of themes.

Having played A LOT of RGG games in the last 5 years or so, I think I just straight have series fatigue. The bugbears have become nuisances, and I definitely think this series suffers HARD from quantity over quality.

If I have to rank the ones I've played...

1. Yakuza: Like A Dragon
2. Yakuza Kiwami
3. Yakuza Zero
4. Lost Judgment
5. Infinite Wealth
6. Yakuza Kiwami 2
7. Judgment

I've said it before and I'll say it again - I hate hate HATE how RGG games railroad you into completely pointless side stories and other tangents. I'm invested in the main story; I want to play the main story.

I don't give a single damn about this random side character from the first game giving me a pointless fetch quest.

Do people like the side stories? Great. Happy for them. Leave it as strictly optional content. Don't completely derail the momentum of the story for this low-effort "comedy" content. I think this is like the 5th or 6th RGG game I've played, and they all do this. 😭

I beat Judgment today, a lot of problems like misogyny, the worst tailing missions, and the combat starting off too sluggish for my liking, but I loved it in spite of them. That now brings me to LOST JUDGMENT!!! FUCK YEAH!!! LOST JUDGMENT TIME! WOOOOOOOO! FAST STYLE SWITCHING!!!! YEAHHHHH! EASIER JUGGLE COMBOS!!! FASTER INITAL COMBO SPEED!!!

That first fight made me lose my judgment. Holy shit.

I've already beaten this game's story (which was luckily above many a Yakuza game but with some nitpickings). However, I still have a LOT that I haven't seen in the game. The amount of side content is insane. The school stories seem to provide another game's worth of stuff to do.

And they finally have given us an awesome beat' em up system in Dragon Engine. I like it a lot. Plus the soundtrack is again great but with RGG Studio's games that's hardly newsworthy.

Gonna hopefully get this on Friday. The first Judgment was brilliant. It felt a bit like a smaller spin-off in its scale but the upgraded Dragon Engine combat system and especially the story made it one of my favourite Yakuza games. The detective and lawyer elements were pretty barebones but that didn't really detract a lot from the experience. It was just so refreshing to see a Yakuza game with a completely new backstory. It was finally a game where the suspense held up and the story didn't fall on its face by pulling up stupid twists and tropes (like doppelgangers, rubber bullets, secret twin brothers at CIA, last-minute villains). It has the best story out of Yakuza games in my opinion, followed by Yakuza Zero.

Lost Judgment seems to up the scale A LOT by offering tons of stuff and refining on the combat even more. Even the detective and lawyer stuff seems to have had some additions but if they still end up underdeveloped, I'm not gonna care too much. My main concern is the story. I hope they nail it again. Supposedly it will be a bit more "human" once again so I have my hopes.