Judgment (25th June PS4)

[S.C.G]

On 28/06/2019 at 12:20 PM, S.C.G said:

I had a CEX voucher to use up, so I got this, seeing as it just came out, hopefully I'll get a copy that's in good as new condition, I hope so anyway.

I know, the game will probably be £25 in two months but, it's a game that I want in my collection and that I plan to play.

*sigh* I should have known there would be something wrong with even a practically brand new game when ordering this from CEX...

Since when have they been adding "Warranty Void if Removed" stickers to brand new games?

I know that it probably won't come off in the PS4 but I don't tend to take those chances, plus I'm pretty sure this doesn't belong on the disc.

These stickers shouldn't even exist, I can just about understand them putting them on electronics... but games?

Anyway, as "inadviseable" as I'm sure it is I'll be removing the sticker so that I can play and enjoy the game, it can't have been on the disc for long so hopefully it'll be fine.

This is the last time I bother buying any new games online from CEX though if this is what they are doing to brand new disc-based games.

Edited February 2, 2021 by S.C.G

[S.C.G]

Well, after a bit of persistence I got there...

After peeling the sticker, I was left with a lovely patterned VOID mess which was really sticky, so I put some tape over it which got some of it to shift.

Fortunately, it was a case of good old white tack to the rescue, because while the label was tacking the stickiness out of the tape, the white tack shifted all of it... after a while.

And there's the end result, good as... almost... just about new!

It'll do nicely anyway and I suppose the effort it took was worth using up the voucher and not paying full price for a PS4 game for a change.

Otherwise, I probably would have just waited for the price to drop but this is a game I really do want to play.

Edited February 2, 2021 by S.C.G

[Mandalore]

Started playing this yesterday, enjoying it so far. The map is very familiar from the Yakuza games, but it's nice seeing the city from a different characters perspective.

[Mandalore]

Finished it earlier today, great game overall. The main characters were interesting and well written and the story was somewhat easier to follow and keep up with compared to a typical Yakuza game. The detective stuff was generally well done and set it apart from the main series games. Quite a few hilarious moments in both the main story and side missions, especially when Kaito was around.

Only thing that dragged a bit was the amount of random encounters in the streets, especially when the Keihin gang was about. And none of the vending machines worked.

 

[Julius]

Next-gen version inbound, with the games also coming to Series X|S and Stadia, as well as the PS5. 

From IGN:

Quote

Originally a PS4 exclusive, the action game will come to new platforms with all of its DLC, "refined" visuals, 60 FPS performance, and improved loading times. It will be released at a $39.99 price point (UK and AU prices not available at time of writing).

Sega confirmed to IGN that cross-buy will not be supported for PS4 and PS5, and we could not get an answer on whether progress can be carried over from the PS4 version to the PS5 version. Furthermore, RGG Studios says it does not have plans to release Judgement for PC at this time.

Sucks that there's no free upgrade, I'd be curious to hear the reasoning besides "money" (because there absolutely isn't one).

I haven't got the game on PS4 yet, but given that I'm waiting for Yakuza 7 to get a standard edition PS4 release, think I might just get this on PS4 too anyways so that they're all in the same case (for now). 

Edited February 2, 2021 by Julius

[Dcubed]

SEGA must be desperate for cash if they’re accepting a moneyhat from Stadia of all things!

[Julius]

An announcement being teased for May 7th...

I wonder what it'll be? The lower stakes thing here would probably be a PC announcement, as it's only on Stadia at the moment, but that deal only started today with the release of the next-gen version. So it's probably going to be a sequel, or (hopefully not) something like a film/TV series, right? 

Edited April 23, 2021 by Julius

[Hero-of-Time]

Did anyone on here play through the game? @Happenstance? @RedShell? I was going to play it after my Yakuza marathon but never got around to it. It seems like a few of us bought it but nobody played/finished it.  

[Happenstance]

16 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Did anyone on here play through the game? @Happenstance? @RedShell? I was going to play it after my Yakuza marathon but never got around to it. It seems like a few of us bought it but nobody played/finished it.  

Not yet for me. It fell into the same cycle as usual for Yakuza style games for me, play it for a bit and enjoy it but then just drop off. Once I’m in the right headspace I’ll play these games for hours at a time but unfortunately it doesn’t always work out that way. Still haven’t finished Kiwami 2 yet so I can move onto the remastered games.

[RedShell]

50 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Did anyone on here play through the game? @Happenstance? @RedShell? I was going to play it after my Yakuza marathon but never got around to it. It seems like a few of us bought it but nobody played/finished it.  

Nope, I haven’t played it yet either. Hopefully a PC version is on the way though as I’d still like to play it at some point.

[Julius]

Well I needed something to pick me up after putting Dark Souls on hold for a while (too bleak for the mood I've been in lately, and the stretches I went without playing the game just kept getting longer and longer), and I figured a visit to Kamurocho would be just the ticket, so I've been playing this the last few days.

Only a few chapters in, but I'm enjoying it. The story has definitely slowed down since the initial half an hour, and the first chapter felt far longer than it did in the Yakuza games I've played so far, though I imagine some of that is down to the tutorials and actually needing to get to grips with some of the newer and updated mechanics...which I'm not a huge fan of so far, if I'm being honest.

Sure, chase sequences were a bit janky before, but now it leans really heavily into QTE's, and makes some weird choices like using the left stick rather than the D-Pad for directional QTE inputs. However, it's far from the worst offenders so far, which is a judgment I'd square at two of the newer mechanics: tailing sections and investigative sections, both of which bring the game to a screeching halt.

Tailing sections have you follow guys through Kamurocho at a distance, hide behind boards and in small groups whenever your target turns around, until you get to your destination without being spotted. Once you've got some of the skills for it, there's very little challenge there, and it's just a bit of a chore to get you from one place to the other. My biggest problem with it though is that almost immediately after you lose sight of your target, sirens start going off and a countdown begins while some dramatic music comes in, and my issue with this is that it doesn't really reward trying to do anything interesting. For example, I've tried to duck into open shops or pathways with clear line of sight for characters through windows, however the moment they walk by a pillar or a car and my vision of them is obstructed, the countdown begins. I guess a fix for this would just have been giving a few more seconds as a grace period before it starts, or depending on a radial distance from Yagami rather than direct line of vision. 

The investigative portions basically turn the game into a point and click as you zoom in and walk over to areas of crime scenes / scenes of interest to determine what was there. It's nothing new, and this is a complaint I'm sure I could aim at many other games with the mechanic, but it's simply just not fun. 

Final big complaint I have so far is the lack of a hunger gauge. One of my favourite parts of Kiwami 2 and 6 was that the hunger gauge rewarded your exploration and running around these fictional settlements, and so there was a constant need to try out new eatery combos for skill points to make progress. I guess part of it is that the "skill tree" isn't as fleshed out from what I've seen so far as in those games, but there are still skill points assigned for the completion of innocuous tasks, and I just wish it would have still been here as it was one of my favourite new mechanics after the move to the Dragon Engine. Going back to using it as a means to fill the health meter back up feels almost archaic, and while I got a skill through a friendship and 5000 skill points which allows me to eat as much as I want, this sends it so far the other way and just doesn't feel very rewarding. 

One other nitpick I have is that there are times where the game doesn't run all that great, as we've seen in the other games running on the Dragon Engine. I'm playing the PS4 version rather than the PS5 version, so it could be on me, but there have been a lot of times where in-engine cutscenes just don't seem to play out right, there was one time where the game freaked out at me walking up some stairs and into a short cutscene which resulted in a fight, and maybe I'm just misremembering my experiences with Kiwami 2 and 6, but I can't remember seeing nearly as many loading screens in those as I have here. 

It probably sound like I'm down on the game, but I can assure you that I'm enjoying it, especially after things opened up and more side content could be accessed  what I've found with RGG's games is that, unless I have any story nitpicks, the bulk of my complaints are frontloaded, so unless there's some egregious new mechanic I've yet to encounter, *hopefully* that should be most of my negativity out of the way. I just hope some of these nitpicks are worked on in Lost Judgment! 

Game looks incredible and I've really enjoyed it since it opened up, especially the new way in which side content is handled in the friendships and side cases, the streets of Kamurocho feel filled with things to do! Though I've definitely ran around more only a few chapters in than I have in any other Yakuza game, which feeds into the whole hunger gauge thing, so... 

I'm only in the third chapter, so like I said before, haven't seen too much yet, but I'm surprised just how much Yakuza involvement there has been at this point, considering that making this game seemed like them wanting to move away from Yakuza. I'm hoping it's just the focus early on before it goes elsewhere, because I think that's why it doesn't feel quite as fresh as some of the story's early moments suggested it would be. Also, really wished that they'd kept the same font, sound, and black/white character cards for important Yakuza characters that they've introduced so far! I understand the decision not to, but it just feels plain wrong. 

Anyways, look forward to diving back in later. Can already feel the game cheering me up a bit  

But one final thing I want to mention: man, seeing some of the extra details they've added in here like coming across NPC's while walking around town and them bowing to you, I really wish Yu Suzuki would team up with RGG for a Shenmue game. I've felt this a lot going through the Yakuza games, but even more so here, their projects do feel like Shenmue's spiritual successors, and honestly I'd say that might be one of my dream games at the moment. Hunger gauge + skill tree + the combos from the original Shenmue games just makes too much sense to me! 

Edited August 14, 2021 by Julius

[Mandalore]

2 hours ago, Julius said:

One other nitpick I have is that there are times where the game doesn't run all that great, as we've seen in the other games running on the Dragon Engine. I'm playing the PS4 version rather than the PS5 version, so it could be on me, but there have been a lot of times where in-engine cutscenes just don't seem to play out right, there was one time where the game freaked out at me walking up some stairs and into a short cutscene which resulted in a fight, and maybe I'm just misremembering my experiences with Kiwami 2 and 6, but I can't remember seeing nearly as many loading screens in those as I have here.

I'd get the PS5 version if you can, it made such a big difference for Yakuza 7. The game runs extremely smoothly and there isn't enough time to read the text on the loading screens.

It's hard going back to PS4 Dragon Engine games, the frame rate is really jarring and visually they look low res, it makes them feel very dated. 

[Julius]

10 hours ago, Mandalore said:

I'd get the PS5 version if you can, it made such a big difference for Yakuza 7. The game runs extremely smoothly and there isn't enough time to read the text on the loading screens.

It's hard going back to PS4 Dragon Engine games, the frame rate is really jarring and visually they look low res, it makes them feel very dated. 

I probably would have if I didn't already own the PS4 version and wasn't three chapters in, but it definitely feels like it's struggling more than Kiwami 2 and 6 (which certainly struggled quite noticeably at times). The decision to have no upgrade option - even a paid one - is so silly to me, I'd probably pay up to £20 for an upgrade, but more just seems a bit much. It feels even worse and weirder considering that Like A Dragon did have a free next-gen upgrade. 

[drahkon]

Downloading this now!

Aside from the fact that it takes place in the Yakuza universe I know almost nothing about it. Can't wait to dive in!

[drahkon]

Ahhhh, it hasn't been long but it feels good to be back in Kamurocho

Playing the PS5 version and it's gorgeous. Obviously a cross-gen game but the city is a lot more detailed! Runs like a charm, too!

As usual: Won't give a damn about the trophies and just do as many side-activities as I want

[Julius]

21 minutes ago, drahkon said:

As usual: Won't give a damn about the trophies

Yeah, Judgment is yet another one of the RGG games where they want you to do a second playthrough to get the Plat, and I'm pretty sure the same goes for Lost Judgment, too. 

I find it really funny how they seem to flip-flop on that from game to game: Yakuza 6 needed just one playthrough (well, +reload difficulty change antics), Judgment needed two (after they got rid of the reload antics), Like A Dragon needed one, Lost Judgment needed two, from what I gather from how quickly people have got the Plat in Gaiden I'd assume that's just one...

...they'd never do it (right?), but following the pattern, Infinite Wealth would need two. But it's a JRPG and probably going to be a 60+ hour investment, so surely not...right?! RIGHT?! 

21 minutes ago, drahkon said:

just do as many side-activities as I want

Play how you want to play

but also

Edited November 19, 2023 by Julius

[drahkon]

Phew, so that first chapter drags on and on and on...
If this is how the detective part plays, I hope there won't be stuff like this in every chapter. It's painfully boring to play.

 

[Hero-of-Time]

27 minutes ago, drahkon said:

Phew, so that first chapter drags on and on and on...
If this is how the detective part plays, I hope there won't be stuff like this in every chapter. It's painfully boring to play.

 

It's why I dropped it last year. The detective stuff is very tedious, especially the tailing missions.

[drahkon]

24 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

It's why I dropped it last year. The detective stuff is very tedious, especially the tailing missions.

Yeah, I think I'm gonna drop it too.

Maybe taking a break from the Yakuza style games will help. Gonna get back to it next year (if it's still on PS+ then).

[Julius]

17 hours ago, Hero-of-Time said:

It's why I dropped it last year. The detective stuff is very tedious, especially the tailing missions.

 

17 hours ago, drahkon said:

Yeah, I think I'm gonna drop it too.

I find it funny that all three of us, who I reckon are all pretty good at starting a game and then sticking with it regardless of how we feel, ended up dropping this at one point or another – I feel a little justified in having done so when I first booted it up in 2021 now  I think I got through the first three chapters, which were a whole lot of set-up, but then when it finally opened up more found myself inundated with so much side stuff that my attention just dropped through the floor. It also just feels a bit too similar to the preceding Yakuza games once you can roam around for what was supposed to be a bit of an injection of fresh ideas for the series. 

Also, yeah, the tailing missions suck. I don't think I'll ever make another post about this game without mentioning that fact, and it doesn't get better as the game goes on; I remember several points where I would use my knowledge of Kamurocho to follow someone by cutting through a building, etc., but the second they're out of sight sirens start blaring and you feel rushed to catch up, which is just so unnecessary! 

Would definitely recommend getting back to it at some point, as I think it's got some great substories, story moments, and one of the better substory culminations in the series. I also think they leaned way too heavily into marketing the idea that this was a detective game, which I think oversold just how much of a shake up this was to the RGG formula; I think it's more accurate to say that it's a crime/mystery in the style of a J-/K-drama, where putting together the clues isn't the focus at all, but the drama, relationships, and underlying mystery of it all is instead. 

Thankfully, I've heard Lost Judgment is better when it comes to shaking things up, and I can see the traversal on a skateboard, spending time in a school, and some other things they do shaking things up in the way I think the first game probably should have in the first place, so I'm looking forward to getting to that at some point 

[martinist]

Ah Judgement, the "follow that guy" game. Seriously there are alot of tailing missions in that game like they didn't really know what to do with the character. "hes a detective! have him follow everyone"

If i remember right there are a few fun substories that reference 6 and other games. Also theres a full on pinball machine in the office, the ball physics kinda suck though. I like that they changed it to the Master System in Lost Judgment. Lost Judgement overall is a big improvement compaired ot the previous game but the story is really what I play the game for. That and maybe some of the new minigames like Kamuro of the Dead. Full on light gun shooter, fun times.

It's been a while since i last played this game. I'm currently grinding in Like a Dragon to do the final mellenium tower but i might go back to the Judgement games after.