Welcome to our review of Judgment, a detective story set in the lore of a Yakuza loaded redlight district.
A lawyer pulls off a miracle, only to have the verdict cost him everything. Now, as a string of murders casts a shroud over the city and the law begins to fail, justice cannot afford to be blind. The son of a murdered lawyer, Takayuki Yagami was raised on the streets of Kamurocho by a yakuza patriarch who paves the way for Yagami to follow in his real father’s footsteps. Taking a job at the Genda Law Office, Yagami accepts a high-profile case: Proving Shinpei Okubo, a man suspected of murder, innocent.
Against all odds, Yagami succeeds and is hailed as a hero, but his prolific career is short-lived. Only months later, Okubo brutally murders his girlfriend, stabbing her over ten times with a kitchen knife before setting their apartment on fire. Yagami becomes the lawyer who let a murderer walk – and everything he had worked for comes crashing down.
Three years later, Yagami has taken off his lawyer’s badge to run a small detective agency in the red-light district of Kamurocho, scraping by on odd jobs and evidence collection.
But even a city as seedy as this is shaken by a string of serial murders, where the victims’ bodies are discovered with their eyes gouged out. Yagami is drawn into the case by his old law firm, where he discovers that in order to bring this killer to light, he must seek the truth that slipped from his grasp three years ago. But can a man haunted by his failures prevail over his own past?
Judgment is proof that great games still exist and even though the detective side of the game is rather small portioned compared to the action side, it still provides an incredibly strong storyline in a bustling red light district. The city you are in, it is so lifelike to an actual Japanese red light district, the same feeling of what shops to expect, the face masks people wear, somewhat refreshing in a rather morbid way really. I loved the Yoshinoya style restaurants where I could buy beef bowls and the vending machines selling the Wonda brand. It makes me want to go to Japan again.
The story all unfolds when you are drawn back into your old life in a way, needing to investigate all aspects of a suspicious framing of the Captain of the local Yakuza family called Hamura. He is not very cooperative for someone claiming to be innocent, so you set out to investigate all the possible clues. As I prefer avoiding spoilers, sadly this review is no exception, I will stop here which was around 100 minutes into the game already. Prior to this, you take back money from a fellow detective who owed the Yakuza money and this is, for the most part, the tutorial too.
The game itself presents itself gorgeously. The city looks so alive, the characters are quite lifelike and feel warmer than anything. The storyline does help a lot here as this gives true depth to the characters. Once you get to run through the city, you encounter thugs at the occasion, sure, you can engage them, earning rewards along the way. My best experience here, none other than jumping on top of a car instead of running into it.
Fighting off thugs and other enemies is the main dish for the action side, allowing you to even pick up a baseball bat or a bike from the streets to bash in your enemies. While some fights might feel over the top or a tad too extravagant, this is in my humble opinion the appeal of games like these. What use would it be to just use fists and kicks when a traffic cone can be used to pummel a thug, right?
Having previously mentioned the smaller aspect of the detective mechanic, once you get to play, you will notice what I mean. It is not small in time spent getting clues or talking to a suspect or a person of interest. It is small in the way that it does not do much to get you to do more than the basics. Like when you want to talk to suspects, they get highlighted by default. Sure this is easy but a random person walking down the street and clearly not in the story, he just mindlessly walks by or even bumps into you.
It is the smaller details that might get you riled up at times, but I am merely nitpicking here. I probably walked into one too many closed doors, haha, I know right… But again, should be noticed that the lack of variety is overshadowed by the intensity of the story. To give you an idea, I live in Belgium and it is currently 30 degrees Celsius the entire time. I am in dire need of a decent few hours of sleep, yet I was playing till 2 am easy because the story kept me hooked. I just had to see what was going to happen next.
And that is the main power of this game, you keep trying to go deeper and deeper into the story. Taking the decision if you want to take a taxi instead of running to your next location and so on. I often just wandered around, admiring this gorgeous city I was in, mesmerized by its appeal. Who knew I’d want to walk around a red light district myself?
Another weird thing to mention, the game guides you properly to the places you need to be, but most smaller locations may have their signage up in Japanese, which makes total sense as the studio behind Judgment is Japanese, but most people do not read and write Japanese. Early on in the game, I was trying to find a place called Mijore, I think it was, I saw the sign even before glancing at the map. A small detail that I thought was important enough to mention. Not a downside, just an advantage if you are fluent in Japanese…
In conclusion, Judgment is one mighty fine game. Sporting a definite Yakuza game feeling but not being an official title in the lore, it does a great trick to incorporate some of its characters and brings us a great story driven detective game that deserves to be played. I had tons of fun and am heading straight back in after finishing this review!
