what's your name it's Yagami take a good
look when it was revealed that judgment
a spinoff from the Yakuza series was
going to cast the main character as a
private investigator based in Tokyo's
red-light district I had wondered if it
would break with yuccas a tradition and
focus more on actual detective work in
LA noire to Yakuza's GTA if you will as
it turns out judgment is not that game
it's sprinkling of detective oriented
gameplay mechanics are mostly
superficial and fairly repetitive but
the good news is that judgment succeeds
in more traditional ways with its
free-flowing combat entertaining
diversions and an absorbing serial
killer hunting plot that all combined to
make for a better Yakuza game than 2018
yak is a six
with the exception of a few side
character cameos from the Yakuza series
judgment features an entirely new cast
of heroes and villains and its plot is
completely self-contained making it a
no-strings-attached entry point into the
y-axis series for newcomers further if
you're a non-japanese speaker who's been
previously turned off at the idea of
playing through dozens of hours of a
dialogue heavy yak is a game with
subtitles
only laureates monitor you'll be pleased
to hear that judgments English voice
dubbing is excellent this is nothing
personal although it seems odd that the
lip-syncing has been altered to suit the
English voices in some cutscenes but not
all are you sure we're talking about the
same guy main character taki yuki Yagami
has a number of detective oriented tools
and skills at his disposal in order to
solve both the main mission which
revolves around a serial killer stalking
high-ranking underworld figures and side
cases some of these methods are quite
enjoyable like piloting Yummy's camera
drone to peer through the windows of a
multi-story office block in search of a
suspect various others are less inspired
such as the QuickTime event heavy chase
sequences and tedious tailing missions
each of which are employed by judgement
far too often without ever varying the
formula to any significant degree well
aside from occasionally making the
perpetrator naked the bigger problem
here is that despite the fact the game
is called judgment a surprisingly little
room given to make your own decisions
you can brute-force your way through the
conversation trees during a suspect
interrogation because there's no fail
state and searching for clues at a crime
scene is as simple as dragging the
cursor around and pressing on anything
that makes the controller Rumble
suspicious only on a handful of
occasions during my 35 hour playthrough
was I left to properly deduce anything
on my own the rest of the time I was
allowed to trample along a linear
investigation path without any fear of
ever arriving at the wrong conclusion
[Music]
Yagami maybe a detective but just
because he's a gumshoe doesn't mean he
can't still kick some ass Yoga means to
switchable fighting styles crane and
Tiger offer enough flexibility between
them to suit any scrapping situation but
it's his more acrobatic abilities that
give judgments fisticuffs a freedom of
movement not found in any Yakuza game
allowing him to vault off objects and
enemies in order to continually change
his angle of attack it's effectively
impossible for enemies to back Yagami
into a corner when he can do this this
or this
which is not to say that the combat in
judgment is too easy and indeed certain
strong or well armed enemies can deal
mortal wounds to yoga me shattering
fragments off the end of his health bar
that can't be replenished by consuming
health drinks or food mortal wounds can
however be treated with medical kits but
these are both expensive and only found
in one specific area of the map rather
than risk the inconvenience of having to
treat my wounds I found myself employing
blocks and quickstep Dodgers more often
in judgment than I have in the Yakuza
games and I felt more engaged in each
fight as a result judgment isn't all
cracking cases and smacking faces though
and as is typical of Yakuza games
there's no shortage of entertaining
diversions to tackle when you need a
break from the main story you can play
the pinball machine in yoga Me's office
hit the local arcades for a number of
classic Sega games customize your drone
and race it through the camera toe
streets befriend and date NPCs win money
in a bizarre VR board game spend it all
on crowdfunded products buy the
QuickStart app on the Army's phone and
more although I was surprised to find
the hilarious karaoke minigame
traditionally found in the Yakuza series
is absent in judgment especially since
the Japanese actor who plays Yagami is
t'keyah Kimura a former vocalist in one
of Japan's most popular boy bands of all
time
although I do wish its detective work
had more depth judgments smooth and
spectacular street fighting eclectic
array of side activities and suspenseful
serial killer based plot makes for the
best original the actors a game of this
console generation with its high-quality
english-language dub and all new cast of
characters it's also the most
approachable for newcomers provided
you're happy to serve justice with the
swing of a sledgehammer rather than the
knock of a gavel judgment is well worth
investigating
for more ya kazar reviews check out our
verdicts on Yakuza 6 the song of life
and yeah kazarka wha me too
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okay that just happened