Lost Judgment Review [SPOILERS]

The story of Lost Judgment begins in December 2021, three years after the original Judgment. In Isezaki Ijincho, Yokohama, police and firefighters arrive on the scene of red smoke coming out of an abandoned building. Two firefighters move in, and see that the smoke is coming from flares that form the shape of an arrow. The arrow points to a rotting corpse, tied to a chair. 

Later on, Takayuki Yagami and his detective partner, Masaharu Kaito, head to Isezaki Ijincho in Yokohama to help two of their friends, Fumiya Sugiura and Makoto Tsukumo, who have formed their own detective agency. Their agency, Yokohama 99, was inspired by the work of the Yagami Detective Agency. At the same time, Saori Shirosaki from the Genda Law Office is defending a man named Akihiro Ehara in court for sexual battery. At the end of the trial, Ehara is proven guilty, but afterwards he says that there is a dead body in Ijincho, that of Hiro Mikoshiba, a now student-teacher who bullied his son, Toshiro Ehara, in high school to the point he committed suicide. 

Back in Ijincho, Yokohama 99 is hired by the president of Seiryo High, a prestigious school in the area, to investigate claims of bullying. Yagami infiltrates the school and finds that members of the school’s basketball club are bullying one of their members, a girl named Mami Koda. After learning about the murder of Mikoshiba, who was working at Seiryo High at the time, Yagami seeks further information about him from Yoko Sawa, a teacher at the school who taught Mikoshiba as well as Toshiro Ehara. Sawa is very reluctant to speak on Mikoshiba and Toshiro, but Yagami ultimately learns that Sawa tried to tell the truth about Mikoshiba bullying Toshiro, but was silenced by the school. He also learns that she was in the same high school class as another bullying victim, Mitsuru Kusumoto, who jumped from his school’s roof in 2008 and is now in a coma.

Yagami intends to meet with Sawa to learn more, but is attacked by assassins from the Yokohama Liumang. He fights them off and is joined by Jin Kuwana, who calls himself a ‘handyman’ in Injicho’s underground. Yagami and Kaito then return to Kamurocho, where they encounter Daimu Akutsu, a top ranking member of RK, a criminal organization that has taken hold in Kamurocho after the dissolution of the Tojo Clan in Yakuza: Like a Dragon. Akutsu is looking for a man named Shinya Kawai, who Yagami later learns is primarily responsible for bullying Mitsuru Kusumoto.

In regards to the Ehara case, footage is posted online of Ehara straight up murdering Hiro Mikoshiba, in the same chair and building where he was found. The courts think the video is fake, since there is no way that he could have done both crimes at the same time, but Yagami believes otherwise. He investigates the groping crime scene and determines that it was set up to be an alibi for the murder, with someone standing in for Ehara and switching places with him before his arrest. He also finds out that the victim, Yui Mamiya, was also in on the conspiracy, and that she was part of the same class as Sawa, Kawai, and Mitsuru. 

Yagami goes back to Ijincho to ask Sawa about Mamiya and her connection to Ehara, but RK pursues him. At Sawa’s apartment, he encounters Kuwana again, and they fight off RK. After fighting Akutsu, Yagami sees RK’s leader, Kazuki Soma, holding Sawa hostage with an ice pick. The RK are defeated, Kuwana escapes, and Yagami rushes to the apartment to find Sawa dead. Determined to avenge Sawa, Yagami tries to find out why RK would go after Kuwana. He finds out that Kuwana is actually Yu Kitakata, the teacher who lost his job after being negligent to the bullying of Mitsuru Kusumoto. Since losing his job, Kuwana has been both working underground as a handyman and enacting vengeance upon bullies across Japan. He is responsible for both the murder of Shinya Kawai and the whole plot for Ehara to make fools of the law and get away with murdering Hiro Mikoshiba. 

Yagami also finds out that RK is secretly controlled by Japan’s Public Security Division, and that they want to capture and expose Kuwana in order to smear Reiko Kusumoto, the mother of Mitsuru and current Vice Minister of Health. When Kuwana came to her and offered to help avenge the death of her son, she agreed to it and ended up killing Shinya Kawai herself. Although Reiko is initially against Public Security finding Kuwana and exposing her, they later join forces after Mitsuru wakes up from his years-long coma. Not wanting her son to be branded as the offspring of a murderer, Reiko agrees to go along with Public Security. 

Back with the Ehara case, Yagami once again gets out his attorney’s badge as he and Saori are set to appeal Ehara’s conviction and prove his guilt for Mikoshiba’s murder. Although the murder footage is unable to be used as evidence, Yagami uses the original copy of the footage from the camera that recorded it as well as his findings on the groping being staged to prove that Ehara killed Mikoshiba. Ehara breaks down and admits to it, stating his plan to prove that the law doesn’t work. 

Meanwhile, RK is still hunting Kuwana in order to find and destroy the corpse of Shinya Kawai, the final piece of evidence that proves Reiko Kusumoto killed him. Yagami, Kaito, Sugiura, and Toru Higashi converge on the warehouse that Kawai’s body is located in and battle the hordes of RK members occupying the building. Yagami finds Kuwana and persuades him to turn himself in rather than continue to be hunted as a fugitive forever. Kuwana responds, saying that he was justified in helping to kill Kawai and Mikoshiba, and that he was enacting the justice that the legal system failed to. Yagami has a final battle with Kazuki Soma, and he is ultimately captured. Afterwards, Reiko Kusumoto arrives and tells Kuwana that she is going to turn herself in. Kuwana goes back into hiding as to not be silenced by Public Security before the truth can get out. By the end of it all, Soma and Public Security coordinator Hidemi Bando are arrested, and Ehara and Reiko are sentenced for their murders. Kuwana then anonymously tips the police about the other murders.

Lost Judgment’s story presents a number of ideological dilemmas to think about. For starters, there is a gray area between whether or not Kuwana was right to do what he did. On one hand, the legal system essentially let Shinya Kawai and Hiro Mikoshiba get away with murder through driving their bullying victims to the point of suicide. Yagami’s counterpoint to this is that a vicious campaign of retribution only stands to create more victims that had nothing to do with the initial transgression such as the needless killing of Yoko Sawa. This creates a debate within the game as to the nature of justice, and how the law needs to evolve in order to prevent cases such as bullying from slipping through the cracks. 

To conclude, I thought Lost Judgment was a great game and worthy sequel to the original. The story doesn’t have quite as many twists and turns, especially after the nature of Kuwana and his operation are revealed, but it definitely still has its moments and does a great job of presenting philosophical questions through the lens of Yagami. The gameplay is also very good, with exceptional combat and two cities to explore. I would highly recommend Lost Judgment to anyone who enjoyed the first game.