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The announcement of Lost Judgment by Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio and SEGA came as a surprise earlier this year for fans of the beloved game. Started as a spin-off from the long-running Ryu Ga Gotoku series, or known in the West simply as “Yakuza”, Judgment introduced a new protagonist and characters, a dark story, more investigation-focused gameplay, various new sidequests, and new brawler fighting styles.
While the previous installment Judgment ended on a high note, the duo of Yagami and Kaito are back at it again to solve another mystery, now looking better than ever at the prospect of newer side quests and minigames for them to discover.
Lost Judgment is everything the previous game was with subtle improvements
The core gameplay of Lost Judgment has stayed similar to its predecessor, 2018’s Judgment. Still, RGG Studio has optimized the Dragon Engine and added quite a few new changes to the game, along with a unique story for our series protagonist to solve.
1) Lost Judgement deals with heavy themes and topics
RGG Studio doesn’t shy away from serious topics when it comes to making their games. It comes as no surprise when Lost Judgment follows the tradition of having some serious issues. Be it Japan’s 99 percent conviction rate, bullying in schools, or wrongdoings in the judicial system. Lost Judgment covers it all.
Compared to western studios who sometimes avoid social and political issues from their games, Lost Judgment doesn’t shy away from those topics. It uses them to flesh out the game's core storyline while also sending a message to its players.
2) The familiar yet distinct Injincho is your playground
Compared to previous RGG Studio games, where the series centers primarily around the fictional entertainment hub Kamurocho in Japan, based on real-life location Kabukicho in Japan, Lost Judgment picks the protagonist and his buddy. It sends them to a new city to explore. Called Isezaki Ijincho, the city is located in Yokohama and is modeled after the real-life Yokohama district of Isezakichō. First introduced in Yakuza: Like a Dragon, players can explore the new map as the area is filled with tons of side activities to explore and minigames to find and play.
3) Small, yet important visual and gameplay changes
Judgment was known to have some very concerning technical and visual issues in it. Be it the character's movement, sometimes feeling robotic, low-resolution textures, or the load times, the engine struggled. Lost Judgment eliminates most of these issues and improves upon an already perfect gameplay mechanics and visuals.
The colors have been made better, facial animation looks smoother, textures and load times have become much better, combat and movement are smoother. To top it all, there are a lot of new ways to investigate a case. Lost Judgment ensures that fans and new players are mesmerized by the hand-crafted world and stay back for brilliant gameplay and story. This video by Ryu Ga Gotoku content creator devilleon7 covers most of the QoL changes present in the upcoming game.
4) New moves and minigames
Quite possibly, the major changes which are present in Lost Judgment are in the combat and minigames. Lost Judgment has the returning Crane and Tiger style of fighting, the crane being the rushdown focused fighting style and Tiger being a more traditional brawler style of fighting. Lost Judgment adds a new fighting style to it, the Snake-style fight, which is geared towards parrying the opponents and disarming them, bringing even more depth and variety to the brawler combat.
Side missions and minigames make a return to the series, and to top it off, players now have a Megadrive in their office, which they can use to play retro SEGA console games from the 16-bit era. Apart from these, the Arcades also return with five different retro SEGA arcade games to choose from and a lot more.
5) A fully modeled school for you to explore
To make things fresh in Lost Judgment, RGG Studio added a fully modeled Japanese Highschool in Yokohama for the protagonist to explore. The school follows its storyline, which ties up to the game's major plot, and is packed with its own set of mini-games, side stories, and characters.
If anything, the school changes the game's pace, letting players feel the Japanese high school lifestyle through video games.
Lost Judgment is an upcoming action-adventure video game developed by Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio and published by Sega. The game will be available worldwide on September 24, 2021, for Playstation 4, Playstation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series S/X.
