Lost judgment is a great game - What it isn't, is the "best RGG game ever made".
I hear this statement a lot, and it annoys me. I'd recommend LJ to anyone, but allow me to present my take on it.
Combat is slick, fast paced, visually awesome, and overall very engaging.
It's also wildly unbalanced. Yagami has kit to deal with anything that can come at you and it's very easy to pull off, he also deals enough damage in one combo to make kiryu weep. His boxing style is extremely fun but makes one-on-one battles pathetically easy. The only boss that gave me trouble in this game was one with an instakill QTE, and i *suuuckkk* at QTEs.
The enemy AI is also very janky, and represents a downgrade from the first judgment. The final boss's moveset is very novel as he has a large number of singular moves that are each meant to mimic one of yagami's styles, but he fails to chain them into any meaningful combos like you can. The second latest boss has a set of attacks that can remove friction from his movement and make him appear to be floating across the ground at you. That's.. Very difficult to dodge and i can't imagine it is intended. I've heard many of kiwami 3's enemies borrow that bug from his moveset.
The amon fight of this game is also the most absurd of the series in my opinion, but as a secret boss i guess that's ok.
The story is one of the most nuanced I've seen coming out of RGG, but it falls flat on it's face quite often with overly repeated plot points, "But what about [spoiler] Sawa Sensei!? [/spoiler]" slightly inconsistent characters, and what feels like some general slight sloppiness. It's still very good, but it isn't the *best*, not to me.
The side content, for as much praise as it gets, is just a mimic of yakuza 5 and 0 to me. The motorcycle racing? Worse version of taxi racing. you can't control the camera and steering is largely automatic. I don't like feeling i'm not in control. The girl's bar? Worse version of the telephone club or ishin's brothel. The esports team? Cheapened version of catfights/mesuking subplots, just with a fighting game. Robotics? Slot-car racing. Dance club? yakuza 5 haruka section. None of them are bad, But none are *the best*.
Graphics are good, But dragon engine in my opinion is always just a little ugly..?
Certian textures appear very flat, like bottoms of ponds with rocks that just look like they're printed on a sheet of paper, or bricks that look like they're painted on the wall. Maybe that was OK in yakuza 6 and Kiwami 2, but those games were 5 years old when LJ came out. Some lighting effects are odd, ailiasing is always kinda visible no matter what settings i use at 1440p, and overall, i think the visual style of something like 0 or ishin remake is just a little nicer to look at. Dragon engine needs to die. It's 10 years old now, and doesn't really feel like it's grown much since LJ. in ways, it's regressed.
Lost judgment, on the whole, is pretty damn good. But i don't think it or judgment should be most people's entry to RGG's works, nor do i think they're the peak of RGG. It has everything, but it comes with lots of little issues. Maybe i just don't like new things. Maybe i should just replay kiwami over and over again. But i do believe what i say.
One day, maybe RGG will shelve yagami entirely due to his actor's agency being too cagey, and make a full sugira or kaito game. I'd love to see that.
