We visited the Kabukicho area in Tokyo many times in the Yakuza Games series, an area full of colors, lights, night houses and of course the Yakuza bands.
In the game of Judgement we return to the same place again, but with a new perspective, the view of right and justice with the former investigator and lawyer Takayuki Yagami.
Judgement not only reintroduces the elements in Yakuza games in a new way, but we discover that there are many elements in this game will love fans of some famous Japanese game chains such as Persona, Shenmue, Ace Attorney and even fans of Batman games from Rocksteady can find themselves in this the game.
Judgement .. A different journey to the world of Japan
The game begins with a moral conflict in the mind of the hero Yagami when he was working in the legal profession, where he caused the defendant to get out of the courtroom innocent after a professional pleading, but this defendant after his exit from the court killed his girlfriend and burned the house where she lived Fully.
This attitude was a fierce shock to the hero and a knockdown at the heart of his career. Yagami became a source of ridicule for his fellow lawyers, and he became suspicious and no longer knew the right thing to do wrong.This led to his leaving the entire legal profession and opening his FBI with his friend Kaito, a former Yakuza member.
Beginning of the story
I don't deny that the idea attracted me a lot because it presents a difficult problem to solve, and the hero of the game must live with the matter and the mistake he did rather than bypassing it as if it were not something. This attitude later becomes the spark that ignites the spirit of truth and goodness in the same detective in order to help friends and strangers and catch criminals everywhere.
The story delves into many different aspects of life in the Kabukicho area, or the so-called Kamorocho game, where you have the opportunity to learn more about the life of the yakuza gangs within the region, the situation of the poor, the rich, the workers, the students, the singers and the doctors. Yagami meets all kinds of people on his working days, influences them and affects their lives in different ways as we will explain later.
Investigations in Judgement are carried out by a series of small tasks that are frequently repeated, such as searching areas for evidence, asking the right questions for witnesses and criminals to get the information you need, chasing around the city, and these chases are divided into slow and secret tracing without revealing Your identity, or quick chases resembling action movies and you need to adjust the movement and press some buttons in order to maintain your speed.
Sometimes you need to keep some evidence by filming it from your phone's camera (which can be used to take selfies anywhere you want), the investigator can also open closed doors with a small Lock Picking game, or try to find out a specific password by searching About in the surrounding area. The investigator's abilities stop at a certain point because he is not a superhero and needs most of the time to use a knowledge to complete the task.
Fighting
Fighting contains the Ex Attack element, which is a cinematic blows that can be activated when the notification appears on the screen, and when pressed, the investigator makes crazy cinematic movements that can inflict heavy damage on opponents. The topic is very interesting and I found that the amount of movements is varied and different with the quality of the opponent you are facing, but sadly is the permanent decline in the rate of frames whenever you try to carry out one of those movements.
An experience I loved so much
In the game is the use of flying robot Drone in investigations and races in which you can compete with drivers of other flying robots. This reminded me of the well-known Forklift in Shenmue games, but it's more fun here, and the robot can be developed in different ways to make it faster and more powerful.
My opinion in general
I can't ignore the problems I mentioned, namely the low frame rate and the lack of audio performance on side missions, because these things had a huge impact on my enjoyment of the game. But overall Judgement is one of the best anecdotal experiences I've seen this year, which I hope will turn into a whole series in the future.
Summary
Judgment reintroduces most of the elements found in Yakuza games such as street fights and side games, but in a new dress that presents an engaging story that draws you from the beginning to the end, and many Japanese action and drama scenes found to be on the same level as Sony's exclusive exclusives.
