Is Judgement a Yakuza Clone?

Yakuza has been a huge franchise in Japan for generations. The last few years has seen that popularity come west and, for the first time in years, Ryu Ga Gotoku, the studio behind Yakuza, has a new IP.

Set in the same universe as Yakuza, Judgement finds the player on the other side of the law. You’ll play as detective Takayuki Yagami investigating a serial murder case.

In our demo you start out undercover disguised as a homeless man on the streets of Kamurocho… yes, the same city made familiar to western players in the Yakuza games. It’s easy to see the setting and think this is a clone of the studio’s main franchise, but after the combat portion of the demo is complete it is easy to see that this is so much more.

Combat is familiar to anyone that has played any of the Yakuza games. You’ll string together combos and defensive maneuvers in order to take out groups of baddies at once. As a detective this time around, it’s unclear how much combat you’ll take part in as it would seem a member of the force would be less inclined to fight street thugs than an ex-member of a Yakuza family. Hopefully we’ll see a fair share of it because it felt incredibly smooth.

Where the game differentiates itself from Yakuza is in the detective work. You’ll need to carefully investigate people and evidence in order to find clues and ultimately solve the case. In our playthrough we spent a large portion of our time tailing another detective that is potentially dirty. Get too close and he’ll make you, but stay too far back and you’ll lose him. As he becomes suspicious, you’ll need to hide behind various objects until his bar that measures how suspicious he is goes down, allowing you to continue following him.

This is where the demo ended for us, but one thing is very clear after about 15-20 minutes with the game. This is a completely new game and not just a rehash of Yakuza. You won’t have long to wait because Judgement releases in the west on June 25th on PS4.