By Sam Coles:
The Yakuza franchise has been around for nearly 20 years, with the first debuting in 2005 on the PlayStation 2. After years of struggling to get a foothold in the west, it wasn’t until 2017 when it got mainstream recognition with Yakuza 0, and it has all been smooth sailing since then. However, they would change things up with the series, and I am not talking about the turn based JRPG approach with Like a Dragon, but with 2019’s Judgment. A game that takes a slower approach to the series but in the good way given the context of the narrative, anyway let's get into it.
Judgment takes place in Kamurocho the usual stuff, but this time you play as Takayuki Yagami who was once a lawyer but now a private detective. Yagami was once a lawyer but left the profession due to one of his clients he got acquitted ended up brutally murdering his partner soon after he was released. Using his knowledge of a lawyer he puts it to go use as a private detective, where he ends up stumbling upon a string of murders where all the victims have their eyes gouged out.
This makes Yagami chase this case, as it goes all the way to the top throughout the police department as well as a conspiracy to get a type of medicine to public trial. It is a really interesting story, yes it does include members of the Yakuza but it is mostly about a political conspiracy which had me on the edge of my seat throughout the narrative, coupled with the excellent Japanese voice acting.
Gameplay wise if you have played Yakuza, you will be instantly familiar with this game, you roam around the streets and sometimes you will get into fist fights with the local thugs. The combat is very similar to Yakuza 6, with reused animations but with certain aspects tweaked to Yagami’s more slim and slender build, so he is a more agile in fights. It’s rather entertaining seeing him bouncing off walls, as he flies foot first into some unfortunately thug’s face. Combat feels much faster, as you are playing as a younger and more agile person in this game, Yagami spins around like a tornado in fights while knocking people down like bowling pins and it is gleefully entertaining.
Like the other games in the series, you can get distracted with various activities in the world, you can go to the arcade, play pool, play darts or blow off some steam at the batting cages. However, one of the most iconic activities in the series karaoke is conspicuously missing which is rather baffling to me.
Besides the usual things you would expect in a Yakuza game, you have to act like detective. There is more dialogue in this game compared to the other games and I know that is saying a lot considering there is already a lot dialogue in Yakuza games. Contextually this makes sense, because you have to interview people about crimes and scenarios, whether you are going undercover or just examining a crime scene. It never got boring the dialogue because the characters are really engaging coupled with the well written script.
What I like is that you have dialogue choices in this game to piece together the crime, you use evidence to accuse people that they are lying or present it to a prosecutor. It requires you to pay attention to dialogue, otherwise you will be lost in key moments when you are finally putting it all together. How you gain said evidence is through examining crime scenes, this will put you into a first-person perspective, which immerses the player into the scenario. You have to really pay attention to details, as it will help you with your future investigations. It adds enough to make this game separate from the rest of the Yakuza series.
Visually the game looks incredible, it runs on the Dragon Engine which was first introduced with Yakuza 6 and it just looks fantastic. The streets of Kamurocho at night with its neon lit streets really standout especially when it is raining. Character models look great and believable, even for a game from 2019 it still looks fantastic.
Overall, Judgment is a fantastic spin off to the Yakuza series as it does just enough to differentiate itself from the rest of the series. The angel of you being a detective works really well, and it feels a mix of 1930’s film noir mixed with Jessica Jones and it is brilliant. It is really cheap on PS4 so I recommend grabbing it!
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