I just finished the main story (but still have lots of side content to clear, will probably do a more complete run at a later date). As there is no OT, I'll post my ramblings about the game here instead. "Reviewed" on PS5. And I will be calling (Lost) Judgment Yakuza games because, let's be real, they are in all but name. "First game"/"original" refers to Judgement.
Story/writing: This will be on a very general level as not to spoil anything. I liked the story of the first game more (even if it goes a bit off the rails towards the end), but this is not bad either. A couple of interesting new characters (and conversely some that are not fleshed out at all), suitable amounts of melodrama, many variations of "Nanda.../Nanda!/Nandato!" on a regular basis. When it comes to the recurring cast from the first game, very little is done to establish them as characters or to describe their relationships with each other, it's pretty much assumed you played it or read a synopsis at the very least. The pacing is at times all over the place though, this is a very slow burner even by Yakuza standards. So at the beginning the plot moves at a glacial pace for quite a while (it could be argued for too long). And after that I feel much of the mystery is revealed way too early, I expected more misdirection and some later twists. Still, all in all an enjoyable ride. Regarding side content, I realize the mainline Yakuza games are more wacky (especially now with Ichiban as the lead) and this is the more serious series - I still would have liked more weird stuff as well. But as said, there's plenty of side content that I haven't done, so maybe the weird is there and I just haven't found it yet.
Gameplay: the combat is what you'd expect. There's now a third fighting style (I ended up mostly using just Tiger), no major changes otherwise. But then there are the detective mechanics. First the good news: compared to the first game the tailing missions suck slightly less and there's only one lock picking minigame instead of three. There are also stealth sections (basically completely linear with instafail) and climbing/platforming (again very linear and the controls are a bit clunky) - whether either was needed or wanted is debatable, but they're there now. Some new detective gadgets, although using them can be annoying. For example, the "signal detector". Of course the player moves very slowly when using it and it also picks up signals from quite far away. Ideally you'd be able to dismiss it temporarily, walk/run to a new location and then start scanning again. But pressing L3 doesn't take you back to the gadget you were using, it defaults to the investigation mode. So you'll have to select the gadget with L1/R1 and there seems to be occasional lag in that particular UI, so it's easy to accidentally go past the selection you were after. Sounds minor, and it is, but even small things can get annoying with enough repetition. The detective dog is a fun addition though.
But the largest issue for me is something carried over from the first game, the basic investigations. So you'll be moving the cursor across the screen, optionally also moving around your surroundings, hoping to find something to click (which may be quite obvious, or really not that obvious). There could be a simple way to make this a bit more tolerable - define some items in an investigation as essential, rest as optional. And that the player can end the investigation once all essential items have been examined. As it is, you have to find everything to proceed. In the final mission as you're fighting hordes of enemies in a suitably bombastic fashion and with an awesome soundtrack, there are not one but two investigations (with the same background loop you've heard too many times at that point) that completely break the flow of the mission. And you have to investigate... a path to climb. That's immediately obvious. But you must examine each part of that path, and also find/examine all the other parts in the room that aren't helpful. (Seriously, who thought including that in the final mission was a good idea?)
I get it, this series must differ somehow from mainline and as the main character is a detective, some kind of detective mechanics are an obvious choice. Just that the implementation leaves a lot to be desired. I was hoping for some major improvements over the original, but sadly it's more like there are some new features with their own issues, and the same issues the original had. For me this is a fun Yakuza game, but not that fun detective game. If there will be a third game in this series RGG really should rethink/rework much of the detective stuff, now it seems more to detract from the experience rather than contribute to it.
But not to sound too negative, the core gameplay is still as enjoyable as ever (or if you didn't like it before, this probably won't change your opinion). The skateboard is a welcome new feature - constantly fighting random street thugs gets tiresome quite quickly, it's great that you can just skate past them without triggering combat. Or alternatively, get completely shitfaced and go on a drunken skateboarding rampage, bumping into everything/everyone and causing general mayhem (there really should be a "get off the skateboard and smash someone with it" special move).
Presentation: there's a fidelity mode - didn't try it even once, 60fps is where it's at especially in a brawler like this. Runs well enough for my taste, didn't notice any major performance issues. The loading times, while not necessarily the fastest out there, are completely reasonable. I ended up using taxis very often, whereas playing previous Yakuzas on PS4 I did so quite sparingly. The Dragon Engine continues to be a bit of a mixed bag. It can look amazing at times and rather bland on others (perhaps this is more due to the assets than the engine itself). But for the love of $DEITY, please finally add some decent TAA or other post-processing to get rid of the shimmering. I think it's especially noticeable/distracting in cutscenes, which is a shame as they can look otherwise very nice. Solid soundtrack as always, the ambient/environmental sounds continue to be exceptional. No complaints about the VAs either - I don't understand Japanese, but the voices seem to fit the characters very well (didn't try the English dub).
TL;DR: on a scale of 1 to 10, for me the first game was 9-, this is 8- or maybe 7 and a half (using the full scale, so 5 would be an average game). The first game tried something new, so I'm more willing to forgive shortcomings when it comes to some of the gameplay mechanics. Here I would have expected a more refined version of the new mechanics, but that didn't happen, hence the lower score (and generally I just liked the first game a bit more). Recommendations: if you're a devoted devourer of Yakuza, you probably already bought this or will at some point. If you've played the first game and liked it, sure why not. If you haven't played the first one, start from there instead. Although if you're a complete newcomer to the Yakuza series, just get Yakuza 0 and work your way up from there if you get into it.
