Judgment
Underrated Games of 2019
Yakuza developer Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio decided to take a slight side excursion before moving immediately onto the next title in its headline series.
The end result was Judgment, and if you speak to my co-worker, Yakuza superfan and Twinfinite Senior Editor Hayes Madsen, he’ll tell you it was certainly worth it.
Adopting much of the same gameplay as the Yakuza series, Judgment tells a new story with a fresh cast of characters. It makes it the perfect game for newcomers to the Yakuza series to jump into, as there’s no knowledge required to enjoy Detective Takayuki’s story.
The city of Kamurocho is jam-packed with mini-games to complete, shops to restock your supplies, restaurants to eat at, and NPCs to chat with. Add on top its engaging third-person combat system that requires players to change between Crane and Tiger attacking styles, which continue to develop as you progress.
With a plethora of zany side content to act as the cherry on top of this generously-iced cake, Judgment is well worth experiencing for yourself. Just let this opening section from Hayes’ review do the rest of the convincing:
“One minute in Judgment I’m investigating the scene of a grisly murder where a Yakuza has had his eyes gouged out, the next I’m pretending to be an actor who’s pretending to be a vampire.”
If that’s not enough to convince you, I don’t know what is. Go play this criminally underrated and underplayed game… now.
