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.

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.

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.