School Stories
School Stories are Lost Judgment‘s equivalent to the first game’s friendship system. Rather than befriending random people around town, Yagami gets roped into solving a series of problems around school, most involving the overarching Mystery Club plot of the Professor, a mysterious character who leads Seiryo High students into delinquency. If you do no other side stories in this game, at least do the School Stories. Not only do they augment several themes from the main game, they also flesh out Seiryo High into more than a plot point, and several of the storylines are pretty great in their own right. Plus, completing all the stories nets you a neat finale that’s worth the hassle.
The School Stories are broken into two distinct groups: Story heavy and short but sweet. The story heavy ones consist of the Mystery Club, Dance Club, Robotics Club, Boxing Gym, and Biker Gang, with only the Mystery Club not having its own attached mini-game (it does get two special storylines, though). For the Dance Club, Yagami gets roped into helping choreograph routines for the students, and its mini-game is a simple, but addictive, basic controller-based rhythm game with multiple difficulty levels (I played all songs on Hard). Inputs will scroll down from the top of the screen and you need to hit them in time to build up your score. Yagami can also break out his kung-fu knowledge for EX Solos to rack up massive combos and points. The Robotics Club finds Yagami acting as an impromptu advisor while the club competes in the RE Robo Rally. This mini-game involves building robots to compete against opposing teams in a turf war. While the objective is ostensibly to own most of the board, in actuality it’s easier to just spec your robots to be fast enough to make it to the other team’s base to take it over and win. The Boxing Gym is not a school club but does involve a student. Of all the School Stories mini-games, this is the most robust, with a fully-functioning fighting style and roster of fighters. Yagami can perform hooks, jabs and uppercuts, as well as special EX Actions. It’s a solid system, but I also wasn’t particularly enamored by it. (You can use the boxing style in street fights if you buy the DLC pack, but it won’t award extra SP points like the base three styles.) Finally there’s the Biker Gang, another non-club activity that involves Seiryo students. Like it says on the tin, Yagami has to infiltrate a bike gang to try and stop them from performing death races. The bike races are a modern day Road Rash, with upgradeable bikes for better performance. It was pretty fun, honestly. Of these five School Stories, the Boxing Gym was by far my favorite for story, while the Dance Club was my favorite for gameplay. I did not particularly care for the Robotics Club.
The second group of School Stories were shorter and less involved. The Photography Club has Yagami going around taking photos and doing some stealth; the Skaters have a skateboarding minigame that was fun but shallow; eSports Club was literally just playing Virtua Fighter 5; and the last two, Casino and Girls’ Bar, aren’t actually school clubs but involve Seiryo students. The Casino is what it says on the tin, and the Girls’ Bar introduces Bar Talks, as well as Yagami’s one base-game girlfriend. The Bar Talks reminded me of a mix of the photo sessions from Kiwami 2 and the old man chats from Yakuza 6. They were fun. The Skaters School Story also unlocks a skate park and race course where Yagami can compete to earn coins, which can be turned in to buy better skateboards, gear, and some recipe items.
Everything Else
There is so much to talk about in Lost Judgment that I could spend days waxing poetic, but this review is already really long, so I’ll try to keep it short. Several series staples return here, including Mahjong, VR Paradise, drone racing, golf, the batting cage, and the gambling halls and shogi. VR Paradise receives a facelift and upgrade, though it’s a bit of a mixed bag. You have unlimited dice rolls, but you’re also now competing against Rivals – both generic and special Rivals who take the form of major characters from Judgment and Lost Judgment, including Kaito and Sugiura. Both Rivals and Yagami now have access to Star moves, such as increasing the amount of dice you roll, swapping places with Rivals, and even skipping your Rivals’ turn. I personally liked the Rival system, but it does significantly slow down the pace of each game.
New to Lost Judgment are the Detective Dog, befriending cats, squirrel graffiti, and Aircelios, a VR twin-stick shooter you unlock pretty late in the game. The Detective Dog can help Yagami find hidden items and is required for completing all of the squirrel graffiti sidequest. You can also call your Detective Dog at random to just walk around town, because Lost Judgment is the most accurate pet simulator on the market. There are multiple cat colonies throughout the game from which Yagami can befriend some felines, who will randomly show up in his office to bring him junk they find on the streets. Most of it is useless, but they will also bring VR Paradise passes and gear. The squirrel graffiti works similarly to Judgment‘s QR code hunt, though it’s expanded here. Every graffiti Yagami finds will award him an item, and finding every graffiti completes the game’s longest sidequest. It’s pretty neat. Aircelios is a simple, quick-moving game where you shoot at virtual items to rack up points. It’s fun but pretty basic, and ties into another sidequest. Overall, I liked the additions, especially the squirrel graffiti and cats, and look forward to befriending more kitties in the future.
Issues
Lost Judgment does way more right than it does wrong, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have missteps. The aforementioned gear, for instance, felt entirely superfluous and I actually forgot it existed for the majority of my 72 hours of playtime. Previous Yakuza titles had equippable gear and it was pretty negligible there, too, but considering Judgment got by fine without it, adding it here felt pointless. I’m sure there are niche situations where gear could help, but I never found a need. The stealth system also leaves a lot to be desired. While I appreciate the idea of it, and it’s thematically relevant (Yagami being a detective, and all), in practice it’s shallow and hand-holdy. You never have the opportunity to figure out where to go or what to do, because each stealth section is scripted, and the game tells you what to do in each situation. I wish we could have had the option to disable the guides or at least have more than one solution to each encounter.
The lack of base-game dates for Yagami is also a major issue. Yagami had four available dates in Judgment, each one unlocked just by playing through the game. Lost Judgment has one base-game date, but three paid DLC dates. Other paid DLC includes a skateboard, some consumable items, some different skins for the Detective Dog and the ability to use the boxing fight style outside the boxing gym, but the dates seem particularly egregious when compared to the first game. This is only amplified by one of the DLC dates being a returning character from Judgment and having probably my favorite sidequest associated with her. I don’t begrudge Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio making money, but cutting down on the amount of content from the first game and gating it behind a paywall feels particularly bad, especially for a series that is known for adding on to previous entries, not paring back.
Lost Judgment is an amazing game with a relevant, compelling story, memorable characters, gorgeous locales and an impressive soundtrack. Combat is incredibly fluid and fun, and there is an absolute truckload of things to do. It has its pitfalls, but the good so far outweighs the bad and I can’t help but place this in my Game of the Year contender list. It’s a shame the future of this series is in limbo, but I can only hope we get to see some more adventures of Yagami and Co. for years to come.
Lost Judgment is available for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S, and retails for $60 USD.
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Base game provided by the publisher. DLC purchased by the reviewer.
