This is Ryu Ga Gotoku’s storytelling at its peak paired with the best gameplay so far. The studio used this spinoff as an opportunity to experiment without the confines of the main series. Not everything was a hit, but most was.

Funnily enough, I was actually aware of (and wanted to play) the Judgment series before the Like a Dragon series. I had vaguely heard about this series of beat-em-up games set in modern Japan. I think I saw some clips of streamers playing Yakuza Zero when that came out. However, when Judgment was released in 2019, I was immediately interested. At first, I didn’t even realize that it was connected to the Yakuza series. I didn’t yet know the name Ryu Ga Gotoku Studios. Onto the backlog it went.

Years later, the entire franchise was finally released on PC. Remasters of some of the oldest games were finally released. More and more people were getting into the series, as it was more accessible than ever. I started to become more aware of this community. I started seeing more and more memes that stemmed from it. I started seeing some of my favorite content creators catching up on it.

Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth released in 2024 to such explosive praise that I decided I was finally going to play through this series. As I made my plans, figuring out the best play order, the best versions of each title to play, and so on–what do I discover? Judgment and Lost Judgment, those games I stumbled on years ago. Finally, time to pull them out of the backlog (and dust them off because they’ve been on there for far too long).

I’ve been looking forward to getting to this game while I played through the Like a Dragon franchise. This game doesn’t really spoil anything from the others, but I wanted to play in release order to see how the studio’s games evolved over time. Finally, I’m here, and it was worth the wait.

Judge Eyes is a way better title than Judgment though and they should have kept that

The Review#↑

Visuals#↑

This won’t be shocking. I’m sure this pattern will continue now that we’re out of the weird era of engine switches, and uneven remakes/remasters. This is the best looking game so far.

After the initial growing pains of the Dragon Engine in Yakuza 6 and the ugly green filter and uncanny half-remade assets of Kiwami 2, RGG Studios finally learned to tame their beast of an engine.

There are still some silent scenes where characters deliver their lines like an MMO or an older RPG, using canned, “emote-like” animations and nodding along as text boxes click away at the bottom of the screen. It felt like there were fewer of them, but they’re still present. Regardless, they’re executed better whenever they do happen. The camera moves around in much more interesting ways. The characters are positioned much more naturally. It doesn’t feel quite so jarring and uncanny. No more are these extremely real looking characters standing perfectly still fifteen feet away from each other while only their lips move.

All the other scenes were incredible. At times, it really felt like I was just watching an episode of a very good crime drama. I got so into it that sometimes my controller would disconnect from inactivity.

Combat looked really good too. There’s a heavy use of particle effects like Yakuza 6, but this game took them in an even more stylish direction. The new heat moves are also heavy as hell, and feel more badass than ever thanks to the improved camera-work.

Audio#↑

I loved this soundtrack. In my Yakuza 5 review, I talked about how I loved that soundtrack, and there would probably never be one quite like it in the franchise again. This soundtrack is not quite like that one, but I like it just as much.

This OST is brimming with kickass electronic rock tracks.

Here’s a playlist to save you from clicking all the links, if you want.

Here are some standouts:

As usual, the best tracks are the battle themes for specific characters/groups. The best track in the game is the hilariously named Hyenas Wheezing. Unfortunately this only shows up a couple of times, but I was jamming so hard I couldn’t pay attention to the combat. Higashi’s theme is also extremely powerful in the story. It’s super fitting to the themes of his character, the tension and conflict in the fight, and the vibe of the story at the time. It’s also just an outright banger. Other boss themes shake up the tone of the game even more and let the character’s personality through. The final boss theme is hectic and intense, a perfect match for the story at the time.

The lower stakes content is also fantastic. We’ve got an excellent mid-boss theme, and another. We’ve got a high energy long battle theme and another which plays at the climax of the story. Also can’t forget about the song that tells you shit just got real.

There are dedicated themes for the two fighting styles: Tiger and Crane. Both are a bop in completely different ways. Super fitting for the very different fighting styles, which are both fun to play in completely different ways.

Some themes would even fit into a PS1-era Final Fantasy game.

It’s not all about heavy battle themes though. The game also has some really touching emotional and inspiring pieces. The titular Judgment plays in some really heartfelt moments in the story that made me tear up.

Overall, I really appreciate how many of these songs have multiple phases to them yet stay cohesive. It keeps the soundtrack from ever getting old, no matter how long any of the fights or scenes go on.

There are a few negatives though. Much like Yakuza 6, audio balancing was a struggle. The volume of some tracks that should have been quiet were boosted to give everything the same volume. For example, this track would play in really quiet serious moments, but the energy it picks up later would make it hard to hear anything else. Additionally, it was hard to keep the sounds of henchmen grunting in pain as I punched 5 of them at once from shattering my ears while also having the dialogue volume high enough to hear voices in cutscenes. Those pain sounds should have been on the sound effect channel instead.

As usual, the voice acting is top notch. Every single character is played so incredibly well. This is even more noticeable with how much more personality the characters have in this compared to previous entries. I have no real notes for this. It’s just excellent.

Story#↑

I said it before: This is Ryu Ga Gotoku’s storytelling at its peak.

This story is enthralling. However, I’m a huge sucker for noir and crime drama stuff. So of course I was going to be into this. However, even if I may like this more because of my personal tastes, I feel like my love for crime drama makes me a good judge of them. This is, without a doubt, a fantastic one. They could split all the gameplay out and repackage this as a TV show and it would be a hit.

For fear of spoiling anything, I’m going to be very vague and brief in this section. I’m not even going to talk about themes or overarching plot elements. Just go play it. I highly recommend it.

The Like a Dragon series loves to throw twists everywhere. It’s soap-opera writing. It can be entertaining, but not because the writing quality was just that good—more because it’s fun to see how wild it gets. In contrast, Judgment feels like it really earns its twists and turns. Things are foreshadowed nicely, if a bit bluntly at times. This is a noir mystery story, and they really made sure that the mystery was solid. I feel like I could replay this with the context I now have after finishing it, and I’d notice all kinds of details in a new light.

The Like a Dragon series also has a bit of a problem of most characters having very similar personalities. There are like 3-4 personalities that they all share, with some minor variations. You’ve got the stoic, the heart of gold, and the absolute bastard full of evil and betrayal. Maybe sometimes you can throw in someone whose entire personality is being crazy. Yakuza 6 (and to a lesser degree 5) improved this, but Judgment runs laps around them. Every character is either lovable or I love to hate them. They all have interesting motivations, personal arcs, beliefs, and importantly, flaws. They all feel so distinct. It really brings the story to life. The banter between characters is top notch, and the ways their relationships evolve over the story is really touching.

I also appreciated that the story didn’t make a big deal out of the main character never killing anyone, only for the gameplay to include 300 ways to kill people. That’s something I can ignore when it does happen. It’s a funny thing to say “Kiryu has never killed a man” while double-tapping someone with a pistol like you’re John Wick. It’s just nice to see this game stick to it. Yagami can beat people up, but he doesn’t use weapons that are made to kill, like guns and knives. Sure, beating someone unconscious on the street is still violence, and very illegal, but it feels in-line with the rest of Yagami’s shaky relationship with the law.

Unfortunately, it’s not all good. This game continues RGG’s tradition of writing women poorly. There are multiple occasions in this game in which it feels like a woman was written into the story only to raise the stakes for a man, “I took your girl to piss you off” type stuff. One woman feels like she was added to the story only to give a weakness to a man that could be targeted by his enemies. Another was only added to die, in order to cause guilt . Worse still, one of the main female cast members is repeatedly reduced to a sexual object. She’s used multiple times as sexual bait. Even while she’s doing that, the male characters will remark about how it looks like she’s really getting into it. They even have to tell her how to put on makeup correctly, because she’s a woman so clearly she can’t do anything herself. Sigh. It’s disgusting. It’s a shame, her personality had so much potential (even if there are a few needless stereotypes thrown in there), and she’s clearly extremely intelligent and interesting as a character. I can only hope RGG do better in the future.

Gameplay#↑

Best gameplay so far, hands down. It’s got everything I want in one of these games.

There are multiple fighting styles. Well, only 2, but it counts. I really appreciate how much this keeps the gameplay fresh. It also helps that the fighting styles are clearly good in certain circumstances. They have their own strengths and weaknesses. They’re also both so flashy and interesting in different ways.

Yagami’s fighting styles are so, so much more fun than any of the fighting styles in previous games. He’s not a huge dude covered in muscle who can tank through massive hits that would kill other men. He’s an agile, acrobatic fighter. You can vault over enemies and trigger unique moves off of that. You can parkour off of walls and trigger even more unique moves that way. You can dash and slide and flip and spin and every other flashy move you can imagine. Yagami’s fighting styles really put the emphasis on style.

I liked how Yagami’s gameplay was allowed to be a little more ridiculous. The series has always been ridiculous. Characters have shown off feats of strength and speed that are clearly beyond human limits, but they always attack with their fists and muscles. Yagami gets to be a little more interesting. He can do some classic Kung Fu movie stuff, like planting his palm on an enemy to explode their heart, catching multiple people on a single leg and sending them all flying, and jumping up in the air to catch someone he just launched and kick them towards the ground harder.

There are some neat Ace Attorney style segments where you submit evidence and choose the correct dialogue choices in order to support your argument with an NPC. It feels rewarding to have paid attention and have an understanding of what would make the most sense before the game even brings the options up on screen. None of these selections ever felt arbitrary or forced. They also weren’t used so often that I got tired of them.

There are also a few sections where the genre changes in interesting ways, like a sudden survival-horror section. I liked how these shook things up.

Yet another gameplay element is chase mechanics. I think this is the best iteration of them so far. Yagami doesn’t have stamina to track like Kiryu, so you just get to run at max speed, avoiding obstacles and inputting QTEs as directed. Sometimes the chases lead you into fun parkour sequences. They’re a great way to increase the tension, and decently fun. I wouldn’t want them to be the focus of the game, but they’re a nice change of pace every so often.

Combat is where the gameplay clearly shines. Unfortunately some of the other areas are a bit rough. There are tons of tailing missions, where you have to follow a character without being caught. I think I enjoyed these more than the average player, considering how much hate I see for them online, but even I felt like they were a drag—especially with the sheer number of them. It’s a bit much. Fortunately, I’ve heard Lost Judgment fixes this problem by including almost none of them. Additionally, there are some scenes where you are put in first person to look for clues. These aren’t terrible, but they’re very rigid. If you happen to notice something as a player too early, you won’t be able to click on it until you’ve found the other clues in the proper order. Some of the details can be hard to line the camera up with sometimes. You might see something that looks like a clue, but assume it isn’t because investigating it didn’t give you anything, only to come back later with a slightly different camera angle and it finally clicks. It’s frustrating. There are also these kinda annoying lock minigames that are annoying and needlessly slow things down. There are lockpicks, sure but there’s no danger of being caught, so they don’t add any tension. They’re just an annoyance. Even when you have the key to a door (even your own office door), you must do a minigame to select the correct key from the keychain. Another pointless annoyance.

The progression system is also a little rough. I vastly prefer it to the mess that Yakuza 6 and Kiwami 2 had, but this one is a little hard to navigate. It doesn’t always tell you what you need to unlock something, and often the thing you need to unlock is hidden until later in the story. There are also some typos in the gameplay instructions on some abilities, like, entirely incorrect button sequences shown. Strange that they never went back and patched those.

There’s also this kinda stupid “Mortal Wounds” mechanic. Certain enemy attacks like big telegraphed boss attacks will reduce the size of your health bar. This part is cool. It forces you to be a little more careful and defensive, respecting the bosses’ power. It makes bosses feel a lot more dangerous. You can also use EX mode (a temporary boost meter you build up in combat) to power through these attacks without taking moral wounds. That’s fantastic, because you see the boss charging up a special move, particle effects going crazy, and you activate your own strongest move in response. Then you both clash at full strength until the tank is empty and you both cool off in normal combat for a bit. Feels badass. Unfortunately, this mechanic is also used for things like bullets. A handful of enemies will just spam shots at you. There is no real counter to this. It feels like they threw this in there for the sake of “realism” or something but it just throws the whole combat flow off and feels very out of place in the otherwise over-the-top combat. This wouldn’t be such a big deal if mortal wounds were easier to remove, but you have to go to one specific NPC very far out of the way or use very expensive consumables (like, the most money I ever saved up at once could buy 3). Frustrating, pointless.

Fortunately, the combat really does make up for it. This is the smoothest Dragon Engine combat so far. It feels like they finally figured out what they wanted to do with it. Kiryu’s old fighting styles just didn’t mesh well with the Dragon Engine’s combat mechanics. On the other hand, Yagami’s fighting styles were designed specifically to take advantage of it. There are a few little things (that I’ve heard get improved in later games) like bouncing off of blocks that still interrupt the flow, but it’s so massively improved that I hardly notice.

This game is also extremely smooth to move around in. Yagami is so agile and fast that navigating the streets of Kamurocho is a breeze. Yagami will automatically vault over low barriers and obstacles, slip through crowds, and hook around tight corners. Everything just feels tighter and more precise, while also feeling very free and unrestrictive. They really dialed in the Dragon Engine with this one, and I’ve heard these improvements carry on to the future games.

Final Thoughts#↑

Rating: 9/10
Playtime: 26 hours

This game has flaws, but I love it. Easily the best Ryu ga Gotoku game I’ve played so far. I can’t wait for Lost Judgment, but I’m playing Like a Dragon 7 first. I’ve heard that’s the best way to avoid spoilers. Release order was my plan anyways, but I would have been tempted to jump ahead to Lost Judgment if it weren’t for that.

This game gets a very high recommendation from me. You don’t need to play the other Yakuza games first. It’s completely separate from them. It’s set in the same world, so you’ll recognize locations and some names being thrown around by playing the others. However, the story doesn’t touch on the major stories of the other games at all. You might hear “this family is part of the Tojo Clan”, but it is left at that. You don’t need to know who the Tojo Clan are, it isn’t important to the plot. More of an easter egg and world-consistency thing than anything. If it interests you, I suggest you go for it! I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.