Well, here we go again.
Another
year, which marks the release of another game in Sega’s long-running and
tragically annualized Yakuza series. It was a series that burst onto the scene
in 2006 as a unique fusion of GTA with beat-em-up elements, along with very
strong storytelling, existing within a charismatic and explorable city. Though
new entries release every few years which somewhat reinvent and revitalize the
formula (such as 2018’s strong Yakuza 6) the rest of them very quickly fall
into the trap of treading familiar territory, often to increasingly diminishing
results.
Despite
being originally positioned as a new IP, Judgment in practice makes no effort
to differentiate itself gameplay-wise from the series upon which the majority
of its formula originates. Even with a promising start and some gorgeous
visuals, it by and large comes across as a lower budget spinoff. It has moments
of strong storytelling, as Yakuza games often do, but Judgment is far too eager
to stop its momentum dead in its tracks for tedious filler missions that have
all the presentational flair of PS2-era side content. These missions however
are required to progress the story, and though not difficult, as with the rest
of the game, they bog the entire thing down whenever its narrative seems to be
gaining momentum.
But
let’s step back for a minute. Judgment stars new main character Takayuki
Yagami, a former defense attorney who left that career to become a detective
after a man who he successfully defended went on to commit another murder.
Joining a law office in Kamurocho, Yagami becomes involved in the defense case
of a Yakuza member named Hamura, where things reveal themselves to be not quite
what they seem.
Yagami
and his detective partner Kaito are both likable and compelling, and though
Japanese voice acting is available, the English dub happens to be fantastic,
and at the start, with the gorgeous visuals of neon-drenched Kamurocho, and
upon seeing Yagami’s office-slash-apartment, I was initially very excited by
the prospect of where my adventures in Judgment’s world would take me.
Unfortunately,
you’ll get to experience almost all of this in the first couple of hours. The
detective elements are incredibly shallow and follow one of only a small
handful of different blueprints. There’s the “find the object” investigative
missions, a mechanic that’s almost always the least fun element of any game
that it’s featured in. There’s chase scenes, which are cool but grow repetitive
as they offer nothing new as the game goes on, and then there are missions
where you follow someone down the street, which similarly never veer from their
pattern and stretch on for far too long. Drone missions occasionally show up,
but feel like an afterthought, as they only offer more “find the object”
gameplay, with you simply using them to scan the environments for whatever the
game wants you to find. Aside from an under-utilized camera mechanic and the
occasional need to pick a lock, Judgment simply recycles these same mission
blueprints again and again, with nothing happening to spice them up or to
provide anything beyond what you experience in their initial reveals.
Everything
else is textbook Yakuza; you’ll wander the city, which is atmospheric but in
this case very small, heading from point A to B and getting in random battles
along the way. The combat system features two different styles to switch
between, with one being good for one type of battle and the other being good
for another one, though as the game went on I forgot about the other style
entirely. A new feature requires you to seek out a doctor to heal yourself from
“permanent wounds” from certain enemies; it’s different, but doesn’t do much
either way for the game. Battles occur when exploring Kamuracho at an
alarmingly high frequency, and avoiding them, while possible, is frustrating,
as enemies will follow you seemingly across the entire map before giving up,
requiring you to either engage them to get it over with, or to run a ridiculous
distance out of your way in order to avoid them. Most of these types of enemies
provide very little EXP for your trouble. As with all Yakuza games, the
combat’s fun on a basic level, and there’s an okay amount of character
customization, but battles in Judgment are mind-numbingly easy and
straightforward, making their existence feel like nothing more than a rude
interruption as you try to head from one place to another.
It’s
this area too where Judgment disappoints, as the vast majority of the story is
spent wandering back and forth between the same tiny selection of locations
over and over again; Yagami’s apartment, a bar, the law office, and a hidden
casino. The bulk of your experience in Judgment involves traveling from one of
these locations to the other, over and over again, and it’s this repetition,
which carries over to all aspects of this game, that sinks it. There’s very
little to see here that you haven’t seen in Judgment’s first couple hours, and
the game stretches its thin storyline across well over 20.
It
doesn’t take long to discover how incredibly little Judgment has to offer. The
explorable world is tiny even by series standards, and the side content
available to you, in the form of side missions you can take on and Friendships
and Relationships you can develop, is so boring that I almost recommend
skipping over it entirely. Even cool features that the game teases you with,
such as the ability to decorate your apartment and a number of records you can
collect for your record player, reveal themselves to be laughably limited in
scope, and you’ll exhaust those possibilities after just a couple hours of
playing.
But
Judgment goes on and on and on. Everything offered in the gameplay department
is introduced up front, with the game repeating its shallow and limited mission
types and battle sequences endlessly until you fight through its long-winded
but unexciting final sequences. The plot does take you to some cool areas, and
Yagami’s a great main character, but the bland filler missions kill the pacing
at the worst possible times, presenting some truly lame attempts at humor and
never managing to take the hint.
As
long as you’re not sitting through one of the many static, text box-ridden
cutscenes, Judgment looks great and generally runs well, the occasional
framerate hitches (on the Standard PS4) and odd pauses aside. The presentation’s
slick, giving it the look of a current gen game, something the Yakuza games in
the past have struggled with. But visual competency really only goes so far.
With such tired, uninspired gameplay and a world that’s so small and limited, I
find it hard to recommend this game to anyone. Yakuza fans I think would be
better off waiting until next year, when the inevitable Yakuza 7 will release,
and those new to the series would be better served by jumping in with almost
any other installment. It’s a bummer, because Yakuza 6 I thought was such a
promising comeback for what’s become an increasingly tired and predictable
series.
Judgment, on the other hand, is another example of why I almost
lost interest in it entirely. Great presentation and English voice acting
aside, the game’s so incredibly, thoroughly, disappointingly average, and the
sheer repetition of its gameplay wears out its welcome long before its
forgettable conclusion.
2.5/5
Note; this review is based on the Standard PS4 version.
