Operation Backlog Completion 2025
Sep 302024
 

Back in 2021 when Lost Judgment was announced, I was ecstatic.

I absolutely loved Judgment, so I was planning to play its sequel day one.

So how did it end up taking me this long to do so?

Once Lost Judgment came out, I learned that it contained spoilers for Yakuza: Like a Dragon. Because of that, I decided to catch up on the Yakuza series first… which took me until the very end of last year. At that point, I was ready to continue on with Gaiden and Infinite Wealth first.

But the winner of my last contest picked the game review prize and chose Lost Judgment, so it got priority over Infinite Wealth after all.

Like its predecessor, Lost Judgment is a spin-off of the Yakuza series starring an ex-lawyer-turned-private-detective named Yagami. This time, he’s hired to investigate a case of high school bullying in Yokohama but soon finds himself looking into a murder case as well.

It’s set after Yakuza: Like a Dragon, so yes, it unavoidably spoils a major plot point from near the end of that game, so I’d recommend playing Yakuza first if you intend to play them both.

One thing that stood out to me when I played Judgment was that its story is darker than those of the main Yakuza series. Yakuza games can have quite dark stories and be very emotional, but they rarely feel as heavy as Judgment did. The same is true here, as Lost Judgment deals with a lot of heavy, upsetting topics as Yagami begins to unravel the mystery.

It still balances that out with a plethora of a heartwarming and/or hilarious side content, however, so don’t worry about that. While I didn’t find Lost Judgment’s side cases as funny as the original’s, there were still a lot of great ones, along with some other fun side content (including interacting with cats, which is always a plus for me). It also has an entire separate type of side stories called “school stories,” in which Yagami investigates high school clubs that appear to be connected to illegal activity. The school stories introduce several new mini-games and are linked through their own overarching story that has a fun Holmes-versus-Moriarty parallel, and overall they ended up being one of the best additions.

(The school stories also involve the Keihin Gang, now back as the Neo Keihin Gang. Fortunately, they only came back as characters and didn’t bring their annoying gameplay mechanic with them.)

Lost Judgment largely plays a like a more polished, improved version of Judgment, but there are also a handful of gameplay additions. Parkour has been added in certain spots, although it’s used so infrequently it barely feels worth it. Stealth is another new mechanic, but I quickly grew to dread these sections. They gave me a new appreciation for the now-reduced tailing sections.

Another new mechanic lets you listen in on conversations around the city to learn about potential side cases. I loved this, because it really made it feel more like detective work. I only wish it had been used more often.

Meanwhile, the investigation sections felt reduced and most of the time came down to finding the specific areas to start a parkour section, which was a little disappointing. In some ways, Lost Judgment feels like more of a detective game than its predecessor, so I wish that had been carried through in investigation sections too.

Now when it comes to the story, I have mixed feelings. It lacks the immediate intensity and thrills of Judgment’s story, and I found I ultimately enjoyed Judgment’s story more. Some aspects of the writing are also… odd. One returning character seems to have lost all his character development from the previous game to be treated like comic relief instead. Part of the plot also hinges on a character acting against their own best interests.

Click for Lost Judgment spoilers
And by that I mean Ehara agreeing to the appeal. Even after he agrees, his plan is still to serve out his time and then reveal the truth about the murder afterwards. Since he didn’t intend to cooperate, the argument that he wanted to humiliate the court system further through the appeal falls flat. You can stretch your disbelief to come up with reasons, but ultimately it ends up feeling like Ehara agreed to the appeal because the plot needed him to.

On the other hand, the story is filled with great moments, the mystery is the sort you really want to sit down and think about to try to put the pieces together even as the characters do, and the main antagonist is arguably the best in the entire series. No one else gets fans sitting down to debate in quite the same way.

My thoughts on the story really went up and down as I played. The early parts feel even slower than usual for the series, but once it got going, I was fully invested. Then it hit some of those snags I mentioned, and my opinion started to go downhill – yet the final hours were incredible enough that once I took some time to think about it, I realized my overall feelings toward the game had ended up much more positive again.

Click for major Lost Judgment spoilers
I also loved how there were several points where Yagami and Kuwana worked together after the reveal. It really fit with his nature as a morally gray antagonist. Plus I’m just a sucker for the hero and villain teaming up.

I will say I wish they had gone into depth with Yagami’s arguments a bit more. Fans joke about Yagami’s answer to everything being “Sawa-sensei,” but its major problem is that it starts to feel like if Sawa hadn’t died, he wouldn’t oppose Kuwana. Which isn’t what the game is going for; it clearly intends Yagami to be against vigilantism. If he had spent more time, especially in the later scenes, arguing against Kuwana’s methods for reasons beyond one innocent person dying, I think it would have been a lot stronger.

Also, I was amazed that Kuwana actually got to walk away. They almost never do that; sympathetic main antagonists always either sacrifice themselves or get killed in the eleventh hour by another villain. Kuwana actually walking away is wild, but also very fitting.

It has a top-notch soundtrack, too. Both the final boss theme and the major secondary antagonist’s theme are incredible.

Despite my mixed feelings about Lost Judgment’s DLC, I did end up buying it, since I wanted to get the Kaito Files and the season pass was on sale for only a little bit more. I enjoyed the extra content, although I still dislike the decision to include side cases as day-one DLC. That stuff should have just been in the main game.

Anyway, I haven’t played the Kaito Files yet – I’m planning to take a break for some of my October spooky games and then get back to that afterwards – but having finished the main game, I’m happy I finally played Lost Judgment.

Sep 272024
 

Is it finally happening?

Edit: They have confirmed it is in fact not happening.

Yesterday was Capcom’s TGS show, and it was basically just a quick overview of their recently-released games (including the Ace Attorney Investigations Collection) followed by a ton of Monster Hunter Wilds information.

But near the end of the presentation, after talking about their current sales, they moved on to “an announcement from the Ace Attorney series,” and I had a moment of shock realizing we might actually be getting a new game announced at TGS after all. Instead, they announced a “product introduction trailer” for September 29.

Now, the way it’s described, it sounds like it could just be an overview of the series to let everyone know what games are available and how to play them.

But if that’s all it is, this is a very strange way to do it.

Why would you announce and schedule a simple overview video instead of showing it at the end of the TGS show? It’s also been announced that it will go live on September 28 at 11 PM PT / September 29 at 2 AM ET. That means this video is premiering at the same time in all regions. For regular videos, they have no problem uploading a Japanese video first and then an English trailer hours later.

Moreover, don’t forget how Dragon’s Dogma 2 was announced. Fans’ hopes were crushed when Capcom’s 2022 showcase brought up Dragon’s Dogma only to announce a “10 Years of Dragon’s Dogma” video instead of a sequel, but then the video a few days later ended with Dragon’s Dogma 2 being announced.

It feels like this means something.

Now, I remember the “unmissable” TGS showcase. I remember the Ace Attorney social media accounts changing their profile pictures. I remember the out-of-context Earth screenshot. Yes, I remember all the times we’ve gotten our hopes up for no reason, but that’s not going to stop me from doing it again.

What will be announced this Sunday? Will it be the long-awaited Ace Attorney 7? The Great Ace Attorney Investigations to explain the mysterious misplaced Van Zieks captions? A new anime? Or will there be no announcement at all and it’s simply a scheduled series overview trailer?

I know what I’m hoping for, but what do you think?

Sep 252024
 

Yesterday was the Level-5 Vision 2024 showcase, and it was a mix of highs and lows.

They started with Fantasy Life i. We already knew it had been delayed from its October 10 release date, and it sounds like that was done to make it even bigger (and hopefully better). I have mixed feelings about that, but fortunately the game looks great!

I do find it amusing that they’re marketing it as having “the largest open world in the history of Fantasy Life,” considering that as far as most people are concerned, this is only the second game. It’s technically the third, because of the mobile game, but still.

Anyway, Fantasy Life i has been delayed all the way to April 2025. Well, at least that gives me time to catch up (hah) on my backlog.

The next game they showed was Professor Layton and the New World of Steam.

As a huge Professor Layton fan, this is the one I’m the most excited about, and I loved what I saw. The town being menaced by a ghostly gunslinger named Gunman King Joe is the sort of insanity I look for in my Professor Layton plots. On top of that, the gameplay looks like exactly what I’d expect from the series – with even a glimpse of the map used for traversal – now in a 3D world.

Some of the characters looked a little off to me, especially Luke, but overall I’m really excited for New World of Steam.

It still only has a general 2025 release window, but at least it hasn’t been delayed yet.

The next trailer was for Decapolice, showing off the theme song and several of the characters (why are these characters named things like Harvard and Cambridge?), and it all looks pretty neat. I started to think that maybe Decapolice wasn’t delayed even farther out after all.

But it is. Decapolice is now set for 2026.

They didn’t give specific reasons for the delay, only that they’re evolving it into a better experience, which has that same “bigger and better” impression I got from Fantasy Life i.

After that, they finally showcased Megaton Musashi W: Wired, to announce a new mode and other additional content being added in November.

Next up was the long-delayed Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road. The new trailer introduced a ton of stuff, such as a new mode with a customizable character and town-building, and ended by saying it “will evolve into a game that can be played infinitely.” It’s now set for June 2025.

This speaks to the same thing that has me worried about Fantasy Life i and Decapolice. It’s good that they want their games to have a lot of content, but it feels like they’re pushing that so hard that they can’t actually finish them.

After that, they revealed a remake of the first Inazuma Eleven, set for 2026. That was the first of their two new games.

The second was, as expected, the Yokai Watch spiritual successor that was teased last year. Now, this is the game behind the “Ghost Craft RPG” trademark, but apparently that is actually what they’re calling the genre. The game itself is called Holy Horror Mansion, which I’m not crazy about as a title.

You use a camera to interact with ghosts, and while there is definitely some Yokai Watch DNA here, it looks very different. Its release date is “Who knows?” so at least they’re self-aware when it comes to the delays.

The announcement of Holy Horror Mansion made a lot of Yokai Watch fans lose their minds. With the game being teased as the next concept for Yokai Watch, a lot of people expected it to look and play like a new Yokai Watch. I don’t share those complaints. While I’d love to see more Yokai Watch, Holy Horror Mansion looks like it could be a fun game in its own right.

Unfortunately, my impressions were tarnished by the concerns that the backgrounds used in the teaser trailer were made with generative AI. I don’t support the use of generative AI in creative works, so that was disheartening to see. Now, I can’t actually tell if art is AI or not unless there’s something blatantly wrong with it. Maybe it’s just concept art with some oddities. But you can take a look at the evidence and see what you think.

The more concerning part is that this controversy led to people bringing up a report from Level-5 last year about how they were using AI in their work, which includes using ChatGPT to come up with concepts/details for side quests in Decapolice. Now that’s disheartening. Experiencing stories thought up by AI just isn’t what I want to do. At all. Even aside from all the other AI concerns, that makes it feel like those side quests are just filler, nothing that really matters to the world, since their concepts could just be generated.

So yes. I love Level-5’s games, and I think their upcoming games look great, but between the constant delays, the apparent scope creep, and now the AI concerns, I ended up with mixed feelings about the whole thing. Maybe the long delay to 2026 is enough time for them to change their minds about using AI?

How do you feel about the games shown in yesterday’s Level-5 showcase?