Basic Combat

Learn the basics of combat in Judgment, including the UI, EX Meter, combat styles, and essential moves like Weak Attack, Strong Attack, EX Actions, and Grabs.

Judgment operates on combat mechanics very similar to the Yakuza series, but it does add its own flourish of personality to make it distinctly its own.

Combat Display

This section covers the meters and things you should be monitoring as you battle.

The main thing to focus on is the upper-left corner, which has the colored style markers. The style you're currently using is the more prominent, with the other sitting off to the left and translucent. To the right of that is the green Health Bar. As you may expect, the Health bar is depleted as you are struck, and when it empties, it's game over. Your health will flash as it gets really low. You can restore health using food and energy drinks, and you can increase maximum health by purchasing upgrades in the Skills menu.

Around the style marker are six white bars. This is Yagami's EX Meter, and bars will light up progressively as Yagami strikes enemies. This meter can then be spent on various moves, most commonly EX Actions or entering EX Boost state. Managing the EX Meter is important to fighting effectively.

Other things to look out for are your minimap in the lower-left. It will point out enemies in the area relative to you as red arrows. Also, enemy health bars are visible above each enemy's head so you can monitor who has how much health left.

Encounters

There are essentially two types of encounters in this game: Scripted and Random. Scripted encounters occur as a result of something you've initiated as part of a story, whether it's the main story, a side case, or a minigame.

Random encounters are those that are placed around the city. They're represented as red arrows and there are usually three to five walking around as a group. If you want to avoid fights, then avoid the group entirely, because once they spot you, they'll charge at you to initiate combat. They can also be "seen" as red markers on the side of the screen if you're not looking directly at them. When they notice you, you'll hear a small noise alert and hear them gruffly call out to you. If they get close enough, combat begins.

Once the encounter begins, your controls will switch to combat. Defeat the enemy to the best of your ability. If defeated yourself, you'll be allowed to try again at the beginning of the battle, or return to the title screen and reload your last save.

It's worth pointing out that you can actually run away from combat, even after it begins. Just get some distance between yourself and your foes and try to hide behind corners. It's not easy to do, but it is an option.

Once you win the fight, your foes will mysteriously vanish and you'll be back to just walking around. Watch out for enemies to drop something, because you can find items or cash on the ground.

Lastly, if you spend too much time during a fight, the police will show up and you'll have to make a break for it. After about 90 seconds of a fight, a siren will appear in the upper-right corner of the screen. About twenty seconds after that appears, two police officers will show up. Your enemies will run off and you should do the same. The police aren't hard to shake, but they persist on the map for some time. If you do get caught, you'll have to pay a fine of 10,000 yen.

Basic Moveset

Yagami has trained in two styles: the Crane Style, suitable for crowds, and the Tiger Style, suitable for single opponents. While the styles differ in specific moves (which I'll get into below), both styles share the same basic moveset, documented here:

• Weak Attack - Also known as a "Rush Combo". Press the button up to four times. These are fast and weak attacks. Very useful as openers to combos or quick jabs against enemies that are tougher. Rush Combos can also strike enemies that are on the ground.
• Strong Attack - Press the Strong Attack button. This is a single blow that's useful for causing slightly more damage than a weak one. You can also use this against enemies that are prone on the ground to strike them.
• Finishing Blow - Press Strong Attack up to two times (three times with an unlockable skill) after a series of weak attacks. This will change depending on when in the Rush Combo you use it. For example, Weak-Strong is different from Weak-Weak-Weak-Strong. This typically causes really good damage and usually results in a knockdown.
• EX Action - Once your EX Meter gets at least one bar, you can press Strong Attack to perform an EX Action as long as there's a green button prompt in the middle of the screen. There are a bunch of different EX Actions in the game, and you can see a full list if you access the game's Help menu. Beyond that, you can also see more EX Actions available for unlock in the Abilities menu, but for the most part, they aren't tracked. NOTE: If you want to preserve your meter, hold down L2/LT and you can press Strong Attack without risking using an EX Action.
• Grab - Press the Grab button to grab an enemy and hold them in front of you. Once you grab an enemy, you can move them around if you wish. Careful, because while grabs cannot be blocked, everyone has a grab "limit", and some enemies can bust out of grabs much easier than others. To reverse your grab to the enemy's back (or front), press L1/LB. Once you've grabbed an enemy, you have other options:
  • Pummel - Press Weak Attack a few times to smack y