...

Okay, simple stuff first.

Playtime: ≈53 hours

Completion date: 11/8/21

Favorite new characters:

1. Kuwana
2. Sawa
3. Tesso
4. Amasawa
5. Watanabe

Now for my more complicated long-winded thoughts, roughly sorted together by subject.

I really like that Lost Judgment plays more into its mystery adventure game nature and had segments where you ask around for information with the character models being used like VN stories. Other than that, the visuals of this game are really well done in a way I wasn't expecting from how bad the Judgment remaster (using the same version of the Dragon Engine?) looked.

I think the story did suffer somewhat from being disconnected from Kamurocho, because unlike Kiryu, I feel like Yagami is more deeply connected to the district. I can't fault the developers for not wanting to use the insanely huge map they had to make for Yakuza LAD to go to waste, though.

They did accomplish Yagami's connection to Ijincho by having Sugiura and Tsukumo set up detective shop there (cute...) and with his relationship to Sawa. I thought his overbearing behavior towards her regarding the case was scary, but fascinating to watch. Yagami may have been under dire circumstances (2 week time limit), but it was disconcerting to watch him act so desperate for the truth in the way he did. I'm not really sure how I feel about Sawa's death, other than probably more negative than positive. I did think it was fascinating how this game goes as far to implicate Yagami to be responsible for her death though.

The parts in the beginning where you had to straight up fight teenagers to progress were weird to me even if Yagami was getting attacked by them first, so I'm glad after Yagami solved the initial bullying case that was dropped.

I didn't realize it until later but it's very bizarre that the side cases were essentially removed from the game in place of the School Stories? And the School Stories are basically all longer side cases which is kind of fun but also feels really out of place when the plot moves away from Seiryo High and Yagami's plot need to be a counselor there does not matter at all. Yakuza games (and by extension Judgment games) have always had moments where you have a very tense objective to do but you can screw around to do other stuff, plot be damned, but it feels especially disjointed. Like Kiryu and Majima both have side businesses with their own storylines in Yakuza 0, but also have a bunch of different substories to do aside from that. Judgment didn't give Yagami a seperate side story like that really, but he had many cases to solve and friends to make. Not every game has to be the same, but I really feel like introducing the plot point of Sugiura and Tsukumo opening a detective agency but not having a side case(s) where Yagami helps them out for a case was a disappointing part of the experience.

I feel like this game is not great with the subject of sexual assault at times (e.g. making the reasoning behind the fabricated groping alibi "people would never think to question a sexual battery case") , but I'm a little more forgiving with it considering that it makes mistakes while trying to take the subject seriously over Judgment's comical tone over the "Let's get Saori to lure a man to try and sexually assault her for blackmail" sequence.

After finding out that the fabricated sexual battery incident was a convoluted plan powered by blackmail, I thought it was a lot more interesting. But getting to that point was pretty painful....

I think the writers are naïve in their belief that a sexual assault case would be treated with the full seriousness of the law, and that's why Ehara didn't frame himself for purse snatching or something. But Yagami's fight against the law is already somewhat of a fantasy removed from reality. When justice isn't served, there usually is no grand conspiracy or epic battle, either tragically morning happens or it's a years long process uphill. So, I could follow the off from reality logic the story rests on because it's not like the rest of the game is fully realistic about its subjects. I can still see what the writers wanted to say, even if their logic is faulty. Also, with the writers' beliefs on how sexual assault cases are treated, I feel like the game treats the sexual battery incident being part of a plan as something unthinkably rare and unheard of and not that the writers' were accusing all sexual assault cases like this.

Saori did have to do some hostessing in this game as well, but I felt like both instances were charming or over the top in an actually funny way so I'm not as irritated with them. Also, she actually got to do get lawyering job in addition unlike the first game so I'm a little more lenient. I'm sad Mafuyu didn't get much to do though. I am glad the writers at least remembered get and Saori were friends because it keeps to some cute lines. I really like that now Saori and Higashi seem to be unlikely friends... Or maybe he's always respected and liked her over Yagami out of the Genda Law lawyers? It's fun to see their short moments together. Higashi's moments of being involved for no reason were really great for character introductions I never really thought I needed in general.

I wish Tsukumo and Sugiura had more moments to shine, because Yokohama 99 unfortunately just felt like a new office for Yagami to have for most of the game :( I envisioned that the side cases would have been partly Yagami assisting in the cases Yokohama 99 took on outside of the main case, but their only involvement in something like that was the skateboard introduction and Tsukumo introducing the Buzz Researcher.

I did like Reiko Kusumoto's story a lot, but since her involvement came into the plot so late my feelings are less strong. I do love that this game has a complicated older woman character though. I think it's great that a large part of her character is devotion to revenge for her son, both as a character foil to Ehara and also because I haven't seen a lot of mother characters who go to violent extremes for their children.

Soma and Akutsu are pretty horrible villains (murdering Sawa and torturing Yagami almost to death for one) but I do appreciate that they have a lot of personality. I feel like I do dislike them on some level, but at the same time they're kinda cool, so it's not full on hatred. Akutsu's design is doing a lot of work for him, though.

This game was rumored to be a "darker" and "edgier" sequel, and that did turn it to be true. While Yagami was beaten by the Matsugane family early on in Judgment, Lost Judgment ups the violence by having Yagami tortured and beat within an inch of his life, and then threatened to livestreamed death by chainsaw. Not to mention the disgusting rotten body shown in the very first cutscene, which in comparison to the tasteful covered victims of the Mole in the first game is on a whole other level! I wouldn't call the subject of suicide being introduced part of the increased edge factor because that's a sensitive topic, but it definitely is more grim in that aspect than the first game.

I thought the sudden leaps between tragedy and comedy were strange in this game even for an RGG game, but as the story continually got bleaker the lighter moments became more than welcome.

It's shocking to me that an RGG game could come up with a character twist more shocking than Oda's... It really surprised me that Kuwana turned out to be the infamous teacher implicated in Mitsuru Kusumoto's suicide. It's not as bad as suddenly revealing an abrasive, but allying character was a sex trafficker in the past but it still really surprised me.

It didn't help that Kuwana was one of my favorite new characters and that it was the night after I broke my wrist in an unfortunate accident and decided to play Lost Judgment to cheer up and ended on one of the parts where all this is revealed so it seemed immensely worse...

Despite his crusade working well in the context of the story, I still kinda don't understand why didn't he ruin the other bullies' lives from the start, because it's not like he had anything to lose risking jail time for illegally recording his students or bring further implicated in Mitsuru Kusumoto's suicide. Or, why didn't he just murder his students that were bullies and be done with it. I guess it's one of those things where trying to logic a seemingly contradictory plot doesn't work because Yagami would probably still be opposed to his actions no matter what.

Bullying is a very complex issue, but I think the game gets it across well, if a bit heavy handed, that while Kuwana's anti bully crusade isn't entirely wrong, he manages to get the person who alerted him to the original bullying incident (Sawa) that led him on his path killed indirectly, so his solution isn't a completely "proper" solution to his sins he thinks it is. I think it's interesting because the game pits two characters against each other who have different ideas on how to deal with the very complicated subject of bullying, Yagami with his social manipulation plan which sounded Mami Koda's problems vs. Kuwana whose inability to take action before Mitsuru Kusumoto's death caused him to decide that justice by death afterwards is the only way.

Also, it was extremely funny when Kuwana pulled the "We're not so different, you and I..." card on Yagami when as much as I like them being character foils... you can't just go and do that, man......

Additionally funny adding to this is at the very end when Kaito all but looks at the camera and asks "Yagami, what if you're not the right one in this argument either???" before you fight Kuwana... The fact that Yagami and Kuwana are both portrayed that they think they're in the right but might not be is great and compelling but having Kaito of all people come out and point it out is a lot...

As I played more of the back half of Lost Judgment and having time to think about the Kuwana plot since more, I did think it was more interesting than I thought at first. A teacher whose neglect of a student was part of the cause of his suicide coercing the bullies who helped into his revenge against other bullies as a way to deal with his guilt is really fascinating... But it's still a bit scary...

Despite that though, the game's portrayal of Kuwana and Yagami's unyielding ideals in both the plot and game mechanics was so well done. The first proper boss battle against Kuwana post-twist reveal being this seemingly epic fight, but being seen as silly by onlookers was great. It still was cool to play, but showing that Yagami and Kuwana were sort of wasting time and not putting aside their differences to work together against the big bad so they could have this physical kind of clash of ideals properly was a good touch. I thought I accidentally spoiled myself on the final boss (the wiki claims it's Soma), and was disappointed because Kuwana was such a fascinating antagonist for Yagami to face... until I actually played through the finale and got to the true final boss, who did turn out to be Kuwana. There are no words to how epic this boss fight feels. I'd go so far to say it's one of the best final bosses RGG Studio has made. I really like the bosses who feel like the culmination of the emotions and plot leading up to that point (the sucessive Ryo Aoki → Masato Arakawa boss fights from Yakuza: Like a Dragon is the next best example). Yagami and Kuwana both think that they are in the right and the other is wrong, so they have no other choice but to go hand to hand other their truth. Is it even true that there is a clear right and wrong between them? Beside from the plot, the subtle longer than normal battle intro (I only noticed because I tried to pause and couldn't) disguised as a simple cutscene is so cool, and the music is a tragically beautiful electronic/orchestral/chorus mix. Literally god tier music.

Just listen to this.

I didn't know that you could level up your attack power until after the finale was over, but honestly, it worked really well with the plot being about the ultimate struggle of ideals between Yagami and Kuwana. I ended up dying once, and then was on my last healing bento when I finally beat Kuwana...

The scene afterwards where Kuwana breaks down after learning he can't protect Reiko from the consequences of her revenge he tried so desperately to keep away was so heart-wrenching... his actor really gave it his all.

The credits scene for this game was pretty cute and the character interactions were fun, but nothing can beat the first game's. Mostly because there wasn't another song done for the game, even if the instrumental track used was pretty sweet. Overall, despite some reservations I held about the game and its strange pace, I think I liked Lost Judgment almost as much as the first game. It's a different sort of appreciation this time, because nothing will ever give me the same feelings of excitement and wonder I did playing Judgment.