When it was revealed that Judgment, a spin off from the Yakuza series, was going to cast the main character as a private investigator based in Tokyo's red-light district, I had wondered if it would break with Yakuza tradition and focus more on actual detective work. An L.A. Noire to Yakuza's GTA, if you will.
As it turns out Judgment is not that game. It's sprinkling of detective-oriented gameplay mechanics are mostly superficial and fairly repetitive.
But the good news is that Judgment succeeds in more traditional ways with its free-flowing combat, entertaining diversions, and an absorbing serial killer hunting plot, that all combine to make for a better Yakuza game.
With the exception of a few side character cameos from the Yakuza series, Judgment features an entirely new cast of heroes and villains and its plot is completely self-contained.
Making it a no strings attached entry point into the Yakuza series for newcomers.
Further, if you're a non-Japanese speaker who's been previously turned off at the idea of playing through dozens of hours of a dialogue heavy Yakuza game with subtitles only, you'll be pleased to hear that Judgment's English voice dubbing is excellent.
Although it seems odd that the lip syncing is being altered to suit the English voices in some cutscenes but not all.
Main character Takayuki Yagami has a number of detective-oriented tools and skills at his disposal in order to solve both the main mission, which revolves around a serial killer stalking high ranking underworld figures, and side cases.
Some of these methods are quite enjoyable, like piloting Yagami's camera drone to peer through the windows of a multi-story office block in search of a suspect.
Others are less inspired, such as the quick time event heavy chase sequences and tedious tailing missions, each of which are employed by Judgment far too often without every varying the formula to any significant degree.
The bigger problem here is that despite the fact the game is called Judgment, there's surprisingly little room given to make your own decisions.
You can brute force your way through the conversation trees during a suspect interrogation because there's no fail state.
And searching for clues at a crime scene is as simple as dragging the cursor around and pressing on anything that makes the controller rumble.
Only on a handful of occasions during my 35-hour playthrough was I left to properly deduce anything on my own.
The rest of the time I was allowed to trample along a linear investigation path without any fear of ever arriving at the wrong conclusion.
Yagami may be a detective but just because he's a gumshoe doesn't mean he can't still kick some ass. Yagami's two switchable fighting styles, Crane and Tiger, offer enough flexibility between them to suit any scrapping situation.
But it's his more acrobatic abilities that give Judgment's fisticuffs a freedom of movement not found in any Yakuza game.
Allowing him to vault off objects and enemies in order to continually change his angle of attack.
It's effectively impossible for enemies to back Yagami into a corner which is not to say that the combat in Judgment is too easy, and indeed certain strong or well-armed enemies can deal mortal wounds to Yagami, shattering fragments off end of his health bar that can't be replenished by consuming heath drinks or food.
Mortal wounds can however be treated with medical kits but these are both expensive and only found in one specific area of the map.
Rather than risk the inconvenience of having to treat my wounds I found myself employing blocks and quick step dodges more often in Judgment than I have in the Yakuza games and I felt more engaged in fight as a result.
Judgment isn't all cracking cases and smacking faces though. And as is typical of Yakuza games there's no shortage of entertaining diversions to tackle when you need a break from the main story.
You can play the pinball machine in Yagami's office, hit the local arcades for a number of classic Sega games, customize your drone and race it through the Kamurocho streets, befriend and date NPCs, win money in a bizarre VR board game, spend it all on crowd funded products via the Quickstarter app on Yagami's phone and more.
Although I was surprised to find the hilarious karaoke mini games traditionally found in the Yakuza series is absent in Judgment, especially since the Japanese actor who plays Yagami is Takuya Kimura, a formal vocalist in one of Japan's most popular boy bands of all time.
Although I do wish its detective work had more depth, Judgement's smooth and spectacular street fighting, eclectic array of side activities, and suspenseful serial killer-based plot, makes for the best original Yakuza game of this console generation.
With its high-quality English language dub and all new cast of characters it's also the most approachable for newcomers.
Provided you're happy to serve justice with the swing of a sledgehammer rather than the knock of a gavel, Judgment is well worth investigating.
