Lost Judgment Video Game Review (About In Description)
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The Yakuza series and its spin-offs are renowned for juxtaposing simmering crime drama plots alongside quirkier complementary diversions, but Lost Judgment is the first time that the side dishes have turned out to be more satisfying than the main course. An intriguing murder case at its center doesn’t quite go the distance thanks to a lack of late-game twists and turns and puddle-deep detective gameplay, but a surprisingly absorbing series of optional investigations that place returning star Takayuki Yagami undercover at a Yokohama high school go a long way towards redeeming the overall adventure.
When a body is found decomposing in an abandoned warehouse, the prime suspect has an airtight alibi: getting caught committing an entirely different crime at the exact same time the warehouse murder is believed to have taken place. It’s a provocative jumping off point to be reunited with private investigator Yagami and his likeable crime-solving cohorts, and it kept me enthralled in its opening hours as a series of contradictions were picked apart and modern concepts like deepfake technology were posited that made me feel like I was leading man in an episode of CSI: Shinjuku.
This initial intrigue doesn’t last, though, since all of the major parts and players in Lost Judgment’s main case have been identified and unmasked roughly by the start of the third act, which means any sense of mystery evaporates from there on out as the characters talk in circles and at length while re-examining the same pieces of evidence without revealing any new details. I kept waiting for a rug-pulling plot twist that never arrived, and despite the customary escalating boss fights in Lost Judgment’s closing chapters, I couldn’t help but feel like it was just going through the motions.
Defective Agency
I felt equally apathetic towards Yagami’s detective work which, despite some minor tweaks and additions, remains as disappointingly shallow and inflexible in Lost Judgment as it was in the original. Quick-time event-heavy chase sequences are repetitive and often ridiculous, running laps of the same small circuit and always seeming a few comedic toots of Yakety Sax away from being an actual Benny Hill skit. Meanwhile, the covert tailing missions are slightly less frustrating this time around thanks to the ability to press a button to “act casual” and hide in plain sight, but no less plodding.
Then there are the parkour sections, which are clunky enough to make an Assassin’s Creed fan want to fall on their hidden blade, and the stealth scenes that force you to throw coins in very specific spots to distract guards before you can take them out (just quietly creeping up behind them greets you with a greyed-out button prompt and no course of action other than to scurry back to your overtly signposted hiding spot). The added detection gadgets, like a highly sensitive microphone and a detector for hidden cameras, are certainly welcome but in practice they’re effectively not that different from the simple crime scene pixel-hunting from Yagami’s first outing.
The one aspect of Lost Judgment’s sleuthing that does feel a bit more involved is Yagami’s ability to eavesdrop on conversations between pedestrians in order to pick up certain words or phrases that can be used as search terms in the Buzz Researcher app on his phone. In doing so, he can sift through a feed of text messages and triangulate specific points on the map where new clues might be uncovered. It’s still relatively restrictive since you can only use the exact search terms you’re given, but as far as actual deduction goes it at least made me feel I was getting my hands dirty rather than merely having them held.
Private School Private Eye
And yet, despite all of these gripes, I can’t say that I didn’t end up enjoying my time with Lost Judgment overall, and that’s almost entirely thanks to the surprisingly meaty undercover side cases that Yagami can undertake at the Seiryo High School. Playing the role of a Japanese Johnny Depp in a 21 Jump Street-style high school sting feels refreshingly novel, and I enjoyed posing as a choreographer for the school dance squad or helping the robotics club refine their machines, while simultaneously sniffing around for clues to the identity of an unnamed professor suspected of recruiting students into criminal activity.
Playing the role of a Japanese Johnny Depp in a 21 Jump Street-style high school sting feels refreshingly novel.
These school stories often spill out into interesting places outside of the school grounds, and also do a great job of contextualising a lot of the mini-games found in Lost Judgment. The amount of time I spend in the virtual Club Segas found in Yakuza games has diminished with each subsequent sequel over the years; however, in Lost Judgment I was forced to brush up on my Virtua Fighter 5 skills in my efforts to endear myself to the school’s eSports team