I hated the first game for these reasons, is Lost Judgement the same or better?

[GarlicIsLife]

1. Walking through the whole city back and forth an unreasonable amount of time.
2. Excessive amount of talking, lots of topics were repeated over and over
3. Stiff fighting - yes you could become very adept towards the end with all thosem moves but still if felt stiff, the camera, the enemy locking, the movement ...
4. Stiff semi-cutscenes where just the head and mouth of the people moved - I felt there should have been far more "real" cutscenes with full animations.
5. Key selecting, perma health damage. Seriously, these were one of the worst mechanics I've ever seen. Also, trailing missions. I could watch a movie during those.

Are those things improved? If not, is there another new fun stuff added? And how is the graphics? Judgement 1 looked fine but very immersion breaking in many parts (bad textures, lazy geometries, few real light sources)

[Zer0Klay]

1- Yes and no. The new area is bigger than kamurocho but you can use a skate or take a taxi via phone.
2 - I think it's better than the first game
3 - The combat is greatly improved compared with the first game, plus 2 new combat stances.
4 - Worst since they put some scenes like some cheap 3D visual novel.
5 - No perma damage this time. Enemies still have the "powerful aura attack" but they added a dodge/counter mechanic to it. Trailing quest still exist they are much less

The bigger addition to this game are the school stories minigames and quests. Also some parkour and stealth added.

[ultimachi]

3. Fighting isn't stiff at all anymore and it almost on par with other action games. I'd recommend turning on always sprint in battle in the options.

4. No spoilers but there is a pretty big moment in the game that didnt get a full cutscene and was really stiff instead. It was only really one moment from what I remember and the presentation is way better than Yakuza 7 which had it the worst. Some of the cutscenes look substantially better than in Judgment and are a real treat to watch.

I'd say the graphics are great and a nice improvement from Judgment.

[GarlicIsLife]

Thank you both! Last questions: is it better than the first over all? Are 60€ worth it?

[GarlicIsLife]

Okay nevermind I bought it. I guess Judgement 1 was for me the worst among the Yakuza Franchise so war. So it can only go uphill from here.

[Fwha]

Originally posted by GarlicIsLife:

Okay nevermind I bought it. I guess Judgement 1 was for me the worst among the Yakuza Franchise so war. So it can only go uphill from here.

You've got some wack taste if Judgement 1 is somehow worse than 1/Kiwami 1. I had zero issue with Judgement 1 and your first through fourth points are literally every single Yakuza game so I don't know why you list those as a negative particular to this game. Your fifth point, and well all of them, are entirely subjective aside from key selecting. The perma health damage didn't matter at all in the first game unless you were really bad at the game.

[GarlicIsLife]

Ok big boy 👍

[Skeeka]

The combat gameplay is somewhat better than the first game, you also don't have the gang stuff anymore and I think there was only one tailing section in the game.

That being said, obviously there is still lots of talking and low budget cutscenes like there's always in the RGG franchise and Lost Judgment's story is a lot worse than the first game. (Which makes LJ overall way worse than the first game for me.) Like, if stuff getting repeated irks you than Lost Judgment will drive you up the wall.

It reuses the city from Yakuza 7 but most of the interesting side content is within the school building so the city feels empty and lifeless and way too big for it's own good.

[Z2k1]

The combat here is much more fluid and I've seen high level play where Yagami was juggling like he was in a proper fighting game. It helps that you have all the speed ups in the original game from the start.

[GarlicIsLife]

Thank y'all, I like it so far. Feels more natural and fluid. Yagami doesn't move like a rock anymore and combats are over more quickly.

[a passerby]

I thought Judgement was mediocre. Crane style was just so weak, and there weren't a whole lot of combat variations on Tiger. And yeah, mortal wounds was a really silly mechanic, which is now thankfully removed from Lost Judgement.

I'm now in the middle of Lost Judgement and I think it's one of the best games in the franchise. Combat in this one is buttery smooth and extremely enjoyable with 3 different styles. Skateboarding around the cities is also very fun. Story is considerably darker than the other games as well.

[K2]

Comparing Judgment to Lost Judgment, I'd say is a huge upgrade for sure in all areas. The mortal wound mechanic was something that made me play more cautiously instead of just spamming attacks at an enemy, spiced up the combat but it's not a mechanic everyone will like.
And to say you don't like "walking" to places repeatedly, sounds like you haven't touched a Yakuza game before. It's just how it is. If you've played the series for a while now, it ain't anything major to complain over. Taxis exist BTW.
The stuff about the "semi-cutscenes" is normal for Yakuza games. They ain't going to go crazy for a ton of dialogue scenes.
The tailing missions were quite repetitive and not my favourite thing about the game I'd say. It happened quite a lot depending on how you play the game and I'm glad it's upgraded in Lost Judgment.
Graphics for Judgment are actually pretty good for a remaster. Maybe your settings are low enough for it to look bad whereas I played on max settings and it looks good, not including the FSR bs.

[BerzerkSlayer]

Lost Judgement is better as a game for sure compared to the first one, which I wouldn't say is the worst one, but it, along with LJ, has issues when they're adding in features/gameplay ideas from other games that come off more as checking a box *coughs in stealth sections that you have to toss a roc-sorry, coins, and parkour sections that you can't do unless the story/substory directs you to*. Basically, everything that they've polished in the previous few games on the DE is at its zenith here when it comes to real-time combat.

As for the main plot and the substories that come in various stripes? I'll let you, ahem...find your own judgement! ;)

[GarlicIsLife]

I noticed that they made the irises of peoples eyes twich in random directions which makes dialogues feel much more natural.

My biggest complain so far would be that the lighting of the Dragon Engine is really simple. There are almost no shadows anywhere. But that's about it, rest looks really nice.

And Lord, praise the Skateboard!

[ValentB]

Tailing is fun in both Judgment games and LA Noire. If you're playing detective game then expect to tail.

[GarlicIsLife]

Originally posted by ValentB:

Tailing is fun in both Judgment games and LA Noire. If you're playing detective game then expect to tail.

Yeah but at least make it fun or more challenging instead of wasting my time for 5 minutes.
It's mostly just entering the blue block, waiting, blue block, waiting, blue block, waiting, orange block. Wow.

At least J2 made it a little more interesting.