[h1] In the name of Sawa-sensei [/h1]
I used to love RGG games for their strong writing: interesting plots, epic cutscenes and memorable characters. Do you remember the first Judgment? Yagami was fighting an entire yakuza family and the police, destroying a damn medical center and exposing a government-level conspiracy. So, what's next for him? Protecting the president? Inventing a cure for cancer? Saving the Earth from aliens?
Of course not. Now he deals with bullying issues, beats up teenagers, skateboards around and teaches cute girls how to dance kung fu.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to devalue the bullying problem. I had some hard times myself in childhood. But after the first game, Lost Judgment feels cheap in terms of plot and strongly agenda-driven. Moreover, after a certain event, most cutscenes turn into pure melodrama, and all you hear from Yagami is: "Sawa-sensei, sob-sob... Sawa-sensei, argh, grrr!.. Sawa-sensei, Sawa-sensei, Sawa-sensei!". By the end of Lost Judgment you will hate poor Sawa-sensei. You will hate Yagami as well for constantly striking dramatic poses because of her. And you know what? I don’t recall him acting like that toward poor old Shintani-sensei. What a sexism!
Well, you may try to take a break from Sawa, but you almost have no side cases or substories. Instead, you got school clubs and one big composite quest where a local Nancy Drew tries to expose a local villain. A criminal mastermind corrupting students because evil must be planted early, muhaha! There is no friend system anymore: now you have to establish relationships with kids to "save their future".
To be fair, the school stories are not so bad, but they are quite repetitive. For example, a few death races are fine, but you have to complete sixteen of them, and that's just one school story (and I don't mention whole bunch of cut scenes, absolutely pointless sometimes). When you finish them all, you suddenly discover a plot hole in the quest. The same can be said about the main story, by the way.
If you don't like annoying selfish kids, you can pet cats, look for squirrels, or enjoy riding your skateboard. The last one feels like it was added mainly because there is a related school quest. All other activities are carried over from the first game. This is definitely a paradox: you have two cities instead of one, yet somehow it feels like there's less content.
Finally, you can always beat up street thugs like in the good old days. I'd even say combat is actually improved compared to the first Judgment and Yakuza series. It feels smoother, and you now have counters against bosses special moves. At the same time, fights and XP progression became much simpler (for good or not). Especially if you're familiar with RGG games and carry ten yakiniku sets in your pocket.
Overall, the game leaves mixed feelings. On one hand, it's traditional RGG stuff as we know it. On the other hand, for me, it's the weakest RGG game I've played so far. I'm not saying their other games are perfect, but they usually compensate for flaws with epic vibes. This one, at times, reminds me of a Netflix TV show, in a bad way.
Lost Judgment is playable but I can't recommend it with a clear conscience. If you wanna buy it — well, buy, but not at full price.
