Judgment is the street fighting stress-reliever you need right now

For many years the Yakusa collection of games has let players take to the dark side of Tokyo. Now there’s a new spin-off in town: Judgment, that mixes a well-plotted mystery with the wild and wacky-as-ever street combat fans love with series.

If you’re a fan of the Yakuza games, there’s a new spin-off in town: Judgment.

It follows much of the same street-brawling combo-action of the main franchise, just following a different storyline and characters.

I often find the storylines a little tricky to get my head around in most Japanese narrative games and this one was no different.

You play as Takayuki Yagami, a lawyer who gets an accused murderer, who is claiming innocence, acquitted. When the accused then goes on to murder another girl in cold blood — Takayuki loses his faith in the law and his will to practice it.

So he dons a cool leather jacket and messes up his hair — taking to the streets as a kind of private detective for hire.

The implication is that he no longer trusts the law, so more-or-less works outside it as a kind of vigilante seeking justice for those who need it (or those who can pay).

Judgment has all the same elements you love from the Yakuza games.

Oddly enough Taka still deems it fit to take on jobs from his old law firm, however — getting involved in a case regarding a Yakuza criminal accused of murdering another gangster.

It seems strange that he’d deem this case worthy of his efforts as a detective but not as a lawyer — but I guess now he’s focusing on “seeking the truth” rather than helping a client get off “scot-free”.

Gameplay-wise I was pretty excited to see this take on a more LA Noir-style approach to investigating (what can I say, I love aggressively interrogating people) — but the mechanic for seeking out relevant information is pretty basic and won’t provide you with much opportunity to put pieces together.

At best, you get bonus points for asking questions in the right order — but that’s about the extent of it.

In saying that — it almost doesn’t matter — because the story itself is gripping enough to keep you hooked, and the game is padded out with all of the great street-fights, distractions and city delights to keep you fully-immersed in Tokyo’s excitement while you follow each lead.

To be clear; if you’re going to play Judgment (or any Yakuza game), you have to be prepared to sit through a lot of dialogue. 70 per cent of these games is just having conversations with people.

Each character in Judgment is fleshed out and unique.

But each character is unique; thought has been put into them, their background, their personality.

Both the Japanese and English-dub voice work is excellent and you’ll fall right into that familiar rhythm of hunting-out dingy bars, odd characters in internet cafes, conversations with street thugs and run-ins with gang-members.

It’s perhaps not as rich and fleshed-out a world as a main game in the Yakuza franchise, but you’ll stay for the who-dunnit factor.

A pet peeve I do have with these games that is ever present in Judgment is the way the game deals with no-go areas.

Fair enough they can’t build-out every tiny alley and building or allow you to travel around every corner — this isn’t GTA.

But the way you’re forced away from certain zones with invisible walls and big red lines is just so obtrusive.

Surely by now they could have a more elegant why of guiding you around the city without having to throw an odd-looking digital barrier in your face.

It just kills the immersion and somewhat messes-up all the hard work they’ve put into making the city feel alive.

There are a few interesting mechanics here to help you with your investigations — one is the use of a drone, which — ignoring the fact that it would be horribly noisy and not stealthy at all — helps you identify suspects from above.

You also are able to seek out persons of interest by identifying distinguishing features and matching them to passers-by within a specific area.

While these approaches seem cool — you really are only invited to use them on the odd occasion, relying primarily on long cut-scenes and talking to people — something you’ll be used to if you play games like this fairly regularly.

Judgment emerses you in the city of Tokyo and it feels alive.

Really, though — as much as you can get caught up in the story and its well-plotted mystery, it would be remiss of me not to take a moment to celebrate in the wild and wacky-as-ever street combat which you’ll be dragged-into pretty much any time you set foot outside. It’s fantastic.

Groups of thugs roam the streets looking for action, if you bump into someone they’ll fight you — heck, early on a group of unsavoury characters picked a fight with me because I bought the last box of sweets from the corner store!

Takayuki has access to two distinct fighting styles: Tiger and Crane. One is more suited to groups — whereas the other will serve you better in one-on-one combat. Regardless, which ever fight style you employ, you’ll still be pummelling your opponents with an endless-slew of button-mashing combos.

And let’s not forget about the props. Just about any item in the street can be picked up and used in a fight — be it traffic cones, garbage bins or bicycles. I love this. It is absolutely hilarious. High-level absurdity that cuts through the seriousness of the plot, and it’s so welcome that I practically shout for joy any time I get dragged into fisticuffs with another gang of louts.

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As you advance through the story, your opponents get more difficult — but you’ll also skill up with a broader range of moves, and the combat remains consistently fun as the challenge increases

Ultimately, Judgment feels and plays just like a Yakuza game, with all the quirkiness and fun — but arguably a cooler, more involved storyline.

And if you’re a newcomer, you don’t have to stress about catching up on thirteen games worth of plot — you can just dive right in.

And you should — because whacking a bad guy over the head with a traffic cone could be the stress-relief you need right now.