First and foremost, I’m extremely happy with the activity we had in the sub over the past month. Not only am I happy with the amount of new posts every day but how some of you find the time to discuss other’s 12in12 lists and their progress posts. I hope we can all keep the activity going and make this an even greater sub to talk about our favorite hobby.
For the first time in about half a year, I had a ton of time in my hands. This might change over the coming months but for at least for one month I had 2+ hours available almost every day to spend on whatever I wanted to. In January, that was mostly games, so I have made a lot of progress and played a few great games to report on. Here it goes.
----------
Games I've Added - 3

• The Division
• What Remains of Edith Finch
• Yakuza 0

What Remains of Edith Finch was free on the Epic Store for two weeks, hope you didn’t miss it. Well, unless you don’t care for the Epic Store of course. Or maybe you haven’t heard the news at all that Epic is challenging Steam for the #1 PC gaming storefront. What’s the difference? The Epic Store allow devs to keep 88 % of the income, while Steam only allows for 70 % (just like Sony with the PS Store for example). Also, Steam is full of shitty games, the Epic Store is not (yet).
Anyway, enough of the Epic Store. I’ve purchased Yakuza 0 and The Division as the early unlocks for January’s Monthly Humble Bundle. By the way, The Division 2 will be available on the Epic Store but not on Steam. OK, now it’s enough.
After playing Yakuza Kiwami, I had to get the next game in the series, which is actually the prequel to the original, which Kiwami is the remaster of. If you haven’t played any game in this series yet, give Yakuza 0 a try. It costs a measly $12 (I got it for 10 on a discount) and you get 5+ more games, including The Division.
Also, the Jackbox Party Pack is currently free on the Epic Store. God bless the Epic Store. Or something. DISCLAIMER: This is not an endorsement for Epic. Please don't get offended by miniscule things like this, I was trying to make a joke. :)
------------
Games I’ve Quit/Abandoned – 2
The 12in12 “veterans” know about this section already but for anyone reading my style of progress update for the first time: These are the games I do not count towards my total completion. Maybe I got bored of them, maybe there were too many technical issues, sometimes I will realize that I don’t even own the games that I thought I did and sometimes a thing like the “Koch Media-gate” will happen like in last January (maybe someone still remembers that :D).

• 2Dark

This was free on IndieGala in late December. I’ve had this on my wishlist since it was released actually, it looked interesting enough. You play a man whose children were kidnapped and who, since then, made it his task to rescue other kidnapped children. It’s an indie stealth game and does have a few interesting ideas but at the end I was left unimpressed and too uninterested to continue.

• Little Nightmares

I wanted to like this game. I did like the art style a lot. The enemy design a lot. The soundtrack a lot. That’s about it though. The enemy AI is just horrible. Run past a guy? He sees you, of course. Walk past a guy? He sees you again. Fine. Sneak past an enemy? You still get caught. I’m guessing this is by design and maybe they can just smell you or whatever but retrying 10 times with a sub par checkpoint system got very annoying, even for a game of this length. Though I gotta admit, this game had one of the more memorable moments in recent games I’ve played between the main character and a rat. If you’ve played this, you might know what I’m talking about.
----------------------
Games I've Beaten - 6
​

• DmC: Devil May Cry

Platform: PC
Playtime: 9.5 hours
I’m one of the guys who never played a Devil May Cry game before. Now you might think “That’s horrible!” but let me be the one to tell you that the only way you won’t have a grudge against DmC: Devil May Cry is, if you’ve never played a prior version of the game. So it all worked out in my advantage in the end. Most of us know Dante. Red jacket, gray hair, fights demons with a sword. I first saw him in SMT: Nocturne actually.
Because I didn’t play a DmC game before and didn’t have any prior opinion on Dante, I didn’t mind the switch to black hair in the reboot, DmC: Devil May Cry. So I didn’t focus on the game in the big picture of how it fits in with the rest of the series or what it had changed. I focused on the game itself and I had a great time.
Almost every hack and slash game I’ve played recently has been great. I’d put Metal Gear Rising in my Top 10 all time. DmC: Devil May Cry is no different. Slashing your way through dozens of demons is tons of fun and with the metal soundtrack blasting through your ear you feel hyped to destroy anything that dares to stand in your way. You get a ranking after each mission, the best you can get is SSS I believe. To do this, you need to use different moves to get the maximum amount of points. This forces you to switch things up, if you want a good grade, which is pretty good game design in my opinion.
The story revolves around Mundus, a demon prince, who rules over “Limbo City” by brainwashing its’ inhabitants. How? Through an energy drink. Yep, read that right. Dante is not affected by this because he is a Nephilim (half-demon, half-angel) and not a filthy casual human. Dante’s goal is to kill Mundus with the help of his brother Vergil, who Mundus doesn’t know about and Kat, a girl who joined Vergil in his mission. Dante’s mother was actually killed by Mundus, so that’s why Dante is very keen on getting revenge. It’s a solid story with a bunch of cool moments. In one scene near the end of the game, Mundus kidnapped Kat. In turn, Dante kidnapped Lilith, the carrier of Mundus’ son. During the exchange of the two, Vergil actually shoots Lilith in the stomach and kills the baby. Crazy and epic moment.
I started the game in German and just hate the voice acting. In movies and series, German voice actors are pretty good but it’s rare to find good voice actors in video games. The switch to English made such a huge difference 1/3 of the way through.
The game made me a fan for sure. I own Devil May Cry HD and will definitely play it this year. Pretty excited for DMC V now, even though I probably won’t buy it until at least 2020.
Rating: 9/10
​

• Jazzpunk: Director’s Cut

Platform: PC
Playtime: 3 hours
On my wishlist for a few years. I bought it in December after realizing that some Steam functions were blocked because I hadn’t bought a game on Steam in over 12 months. I got it for a few euros on sale.
You’re working for an espionage agency and are given a bunch of weird infiltration missions. The game plays in multiple, short levels with a bunch of extra random things and side quests to do. For example talking to a wrestling champion on top of a random roof triggers a scene where you are in a wrestling cage. You just throw the guy on the tables nearby and win. There also was a robot prostitute in a different level. If you give her a coin that you can steal off a street musician, the game triggers one of the weirdest scenes ever. There’s an overarching story connected to all of this as well.
The game is full of movie and internet meme references and to be honest, they were just so unfunny most of the time. This made the game get tedious pretty fast, even if it only took 3 hours to beat. Apart from a few fun mini games like the wrestling match and the overall somewhat charming effect of this game, I wasn’t too fascinated by it.
Rating: 5/10
​

• Mortal Kombat XL

Platform: Xbox One S
Playtime: About 10 hours (+- 2 hours)
The playtime divides itself into the story mode and a few fights against my brother + a few "tower" playthroughs. The tower is basically a mode in which you fight against 10 fighters in order with a fighter that you can select.
The story of Mortal Kombat X is what you'd expect out of a fighting game, I guess? I'm not very experienced in fighting game stories but this is what I expected going in. This being a basic hero's story and just a bunch of fights in between. This is my first Mortal Kombat game, so I don't know anything about each character's back story. But tell me, is it good storytelling to have all the characters talk like they've just read each other's Wikipedia page? "You are Raiden, the guy who stands for XYZ. How could you do the horrible thing you di?" - "Well, that's because of the one thing that happened 4 Mortal Kombat games ago. That's why I had to do what I had to do!" Of course, the dialogue didn't go exactly like that but that's the gist of it. :D Overexplaining everything.
The writers thought about all the newcomers coming in and that's not a good thing to do, if you want realistic dialogue. I'd have been totally fine with being kept in the dark somewhat because at some point, I'd know enough about the characters and their intentions to give a damn anyway. Especially since the pace of the plot started picking up after all the introductory Wikipedia bull crap ended and shit started happening.
Let me tell you though, Johnny Cage is such a horrible character. Like laughably bad. He easily has the worst one liners of any video game character ever and that's basically all that is coming out of his mouth. This guy makes fun of any situation, while everyone is busy fighting for their lives.>! In one scene, Johnny is bleeding and as his daughter comes to help him, he says "Blood...is supposed to be inside the body" or whatever, I played with german dubbing, so the translation might be a bit off.!< At some point I just started laughing every time he said something because I knew it would be stupid and that's what it always was. I gotta tell you though, I had to use him against my friends just to see how stupid his pre-fight interactions with the other characters would be. Didn't disappoint.
The fighting is extremely enjoyable, with a ton of combos to master and a bunch of fatalities and "X-Ray" moves to enjoy. X-Ray moves build up as you get hit more and more often to give you the chance to get back into the fight and show bones breaking. Pretty brutal. Fatalities are just 10 times more brutal and looking at a new one has always been fun. I'll definitely get back to this game at some point. Also, I don't know how I haven't mentioned this yet but this game has QTEs done so poorly. I've purposefully messed up many times. There is no penalty for failing. The ensuing scenes just don't make any sense anymore because even though your character gets hit all the time, the next scene shows you standing over your enemy victorious. This was really bad.
Rating: 6/10
​

• What Remains of Edith Finch

Platform: PC
Playtime: 2 hours
What remains of her indeed. A terrible curse has befallen the Finch family. Everyone dies in terrible circumstances. A lot of them at a pretty young age even. When you go into the pause menu, you’ll see a family tree that shows a lot of the members in the Finch family die at a pretty young age. Only great grandma Edie has done a great job avoiding her fate.
You play as, surprise, Edith Finch, who revisits her childhood home. By going through each room, you read about the deaths of your relatives. These are always presented in such a clever, unique and engaging way, in a comic book style for example. I also got one of my favorite quotes of the year out of this game. “And suddenly, I was a shark.” That part is probably the only time where I thought “Are you kidding me, game?”, especially with what ensued after that sentence. Other than that, I had a great afternoon spent on something I haven’t experienced in this way before.
I’m not an advocate for walking simulators, far from it actually but I can easily recommend this to anyone. I still don’t like the walking around parts in these games all that much but it was actually not that big of an issue here. The story was engaging enough to keep me motivated throughout but I still like more fleshed out gameplay mechanics in the games I play.
Rating: 7/10
​

• Yakuza Kiwami

Platform: PlayStation 4
Playtime: 25 hours
Depending on which subreddits you’re subbed to, you’ll have heard a few things here and there about the Yakuza series. If you’re subbed here, which I’m guessing you are, you’ll have heard of this a goddamn billion times. This game is definitely sharing the #1 spot with The Witcher 3 for “Game with most appearance in 12in12 lists". Everyone and their mother plans to play this game this year… and I love it. All the praise you’ve heard about the series this year is warranted in my opinion.
Kiryu Kazuma is the main character of the series. He is a member of the Yakuza and is on his way to a promotion to lead his own small family within the Yakuza when the game begins. He grew up in an orphanage, having lost his parents at a young age. His best childhood friend, Nishikiyama, grew up in the same orphanage as well.
The story really picks up a couple hours in, as Nishikiyama kills a family patriarch. Kiryu sacrifices himself for his friend and goes into prison for 10 years, while Nishikiyama gets promoted in Kiryu's place.
So at this point, I'm already completely engaged in the story already. The characters are all very interestingly presented, Kiryu is already likeable due to his calm, composed personality and THE DRAMA, oh THE DRAMA. Everything you'd like is packed into the first few hours, leaving you confused but fascinated. Through the duration of the story, there are so many well executed twists and turns to the plot. Each character's motivations are well explained and have a point in the grand scheme of the story. This leaves a ton of option for how the story could unfold and leaves you guessing as a player. Really checks all the boxes for me, though the "japanese trademark cringiness" is present here as well from time to time.
What I particularly love about this game is its' setting. Kamurocho is not the most beautiful and special place I've seen a game play in (it's not even the best setting in the games I've played this month :D) but I love how small it is. In a world where gaming marketing boils down to "this games map is 10x larger than XY's map" sometimes, this is a nice change to that. Kamurocho becomes recognizable fast and each little shop is part of at least a few missions. Every corner of the map has something for you to do.
You can either play through the story, do a total of 78 substories or play some mini games. The substories are hit and miss, some of them are hilarious but some just very basic "go here, do this" style missions. Each substory is supposed to act as a life lesson, like "don't fall for phone scams" or "don't fall for F cup breasts scams" (yes really). The mini games can range from basic casino games to a rock-paper-scissiors styled wrestling game (in which two women dressed in insect costumes fight each other) called "MesuKing". There is also Karaoke, Bowling and Darts for example.
The game manages to switch between serious and funny sections very well, which is something I was particularly impressed by. Going in, I expected this game to be something I'd like but it definietly exceeded my expectations. Such a fun game. Oh yeah, brawling and kicking ass was also a lot of fun.
Rating: 10/10
LAST MINUTE COMPLETION: Red Dead Redemption 2
Platform: PlayStation 4
Playtime: About 70 hours
(Just beaten this game. Not even updated my backloggery page, so this is a very special surprising completion I guess.)
I don't think anything that I'll write could do this game justice. This was such an emotional rollercoaster. A story as epic as any other in gaming. As someone who was disappointed when beating the original 2 years ago, I was completely blown away by Red Dead Redemption 2.
The character of John Marston didn't click with me that much in the original but I've found myself connecting with Arthur Morgan pretty quickly. The story of this game is about the Dutch van der Linde and his gang of outlaws after a failed robbery on a train in Blackwater. John Marston and Arthur Morgan are part of the gang, so this is basically taking place a few years before the original.
I don't really want to touch on the story too much, so that you can go into it as blind as possible but it really was amazing. Every single character is unique and so well written. You learn more and more about them as the story progresses and build up relationships with each of them. Some you will like, some you will hate. You all live in camps together. Whenever you return to the camp, you'll be able to listen to conversations between the characters. Characters will approach you and talk to you, reacting to recent events. Sometimes you'll have parties together. You can talk while playing poker together. You can have little talk sessions with the women, where Arthur just lets out what is bothering him. There is hours and hours and hours of this side content where you can just learn more about Arthur and the other gang members.
Their clearly went a ton of time into animations, as each one is as detailed as possible. Filling a plate with food, pouring coffee into a cup or chopping wood. Thanks in part to small details like this, this is easily the most immersive game I've played. AI daily routines contribute to this as well. Each NPC has a realistic routine that they follow, which breathes so much life into each of the games towns.
What else is there in this game content wise? You can spend hours fishing, hunting, playing games, doing chores around camp, being a bounty hunter, robbing coaches, looking for treasure, beating all the 90 challenges, collecting cards and a lot of other random things. There are so called random events in the game, which pop up when you're riding around randomly. These can be as simple as helping out someone who got poisoned by a snake to giving an injured woman a ride home. Even in these simple moments, Arthur will engage in interesting dialogue with the NPCs and give these short sequences extra meaning. All of this just helped immensely with the development of Arthur's character and led to me loving everything about his story.
Can't forget about the stranger missions, which are side missions where you meet random people. These are almost as detailed as the main story, as they use cut scenes as well. You'll meet colorful personalities and will be asked to do a bunch of random tasks for them. As you progress through the main story, you'll find out that even these side missions carry a big weight in the progression of Arthur's character and story.
Of course, other things to do include reading through all of Arthur's diary entries after every mission, reading through the dozens of newspapers that are released as you play, reading notes that you randomly find or reading through the shop's catalogs. These contain detailed entries an all outfits, food and guns that you can purchase. These will be overlooked by 99 % of the players but probably took 100s of hours to fully create. Also there is a compendium with 500+ entries on animals, guns, plants and bandit gangs. It's just amazing.
So yeah, that's the world of Red Dead Redemption 2. I haven't even told you the half of it yet. You got a shit ton to experience here. Well worth the $60 entry price and can be purchased a bit cheaper these days. I will 100 % go back to this game and replay the story, take my time to do all the little things and really delve into the lore of this. Also. there is one point in the story that was just incredibly shocking to me. When you ride into Saint Denis to do a Sadie Adler mission, Arthur just collapses all of a sudden without you having triggered the mission yet. So surprising and well done. There were a few parts where I got really emotional, especially thanks to an incredible soundtrack. May I? Stand Unshaken is probably my favorite song of the year. Also, did you like the Mexico ride in the original? Well, there are at least 2 rides with a way bigger effect on you for sure. Such good use of the music. Such a good game.
Rating: 10/10
​
-----------------
What I'm Playing in February
6 games beaten. I'm extremely happy. as I managed to beat RDR 2 after three months, found two series that are right up my alley in Yakuza and Devil May Cry and have a bunch of great games lined up for February and beyond.
PC

• Beyond Good and Evil - Next up on my 12in12 list. I got this back in 2016 I think, so it's time to play this finally. I'm worried about potential technical issues with this one. We'll see.
• Football Manager 2019 - Should maybe mention this, as I've spent 60 hours (!) with this in a month. I'm in my fourth season currently and not looking to stop. So much fun.
• Resident Evil 5 - Started this almost a year ago. On Chapter 4-2, so I'm guessing it'll take my brother and me another 6 months to finish this. :D

Playstation 4

• Persona 5 - Only game left to play on my Playstation 4 currently. Finally time to get back into this.

Xbox One S

• Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice - Next game on console after beating RDR 2. Has potential to be great.

------------------
12in12 original list - Progress: (3/12)

• Batman Arkham City
• Beyond Good & Evil
• Bioshock Infinite
• Deponia Doomsday
• DmC: Devil May Cry - DONE
• Orwell: Ignorance is Strength
• Persona 5
• Red Dead Redemption 2 - DONE
• Resident Evil 5
• SOMA
• The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine
• Yakuza Kiwami - DONE

------------------
My Yearly Stats:

• Games Added: 3
• Total Price: 9 €
• Games Removed: 2
• Games Finished: 6
• Games Left in the Backlog: 55

So far at +5 for the year. The goal was to be done with the backlog at the end of the year but that doesn't seem very likely to be honest. What would we do without a backlog anyway, right?
Best of luck to all of you for February, keep them posts coming. And if you've read all of this, you're obviously mental.. but thank you!

Hey everyone. I've been using Proton to play some Steam games like Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved and Galaga, but today I decided to try out one of my favourite games: Yakuza 0. I did a bit of testing to see what worked, what didn't, and thought I'd share my findings here! Be warned, this post may contain some spoilers for Yakuza 0 substories. This post is pretty long, so I've included a very brief tl;dr at the end as well as an Imgur gallery to visually show what the game looks like under Linux.
Setup:

• CPU: Intel i5-6500 3.2Ghz
• GPU: AMD RX 480 8GB GDDR5
• RAM: 16GB DDR4 2400Mhz
• Drive: Samsung 850 EVO SSD
• OS: Manjaro Linux w/ KDE Plasma 5.14.1
• Kernel: 4.18.15
• Drivers: Mesa 18.2.3
• Resolution: 1920x1080

The Good - What Works

Yakuza 0 at lowest settings runs with inconsistent but almost-playable framerates. The lowest I experienced outside of loading screens was 15fps, and the highest I experienced was around the 50fps mark. Usually it stayed somewhere in-between the 25-35fps mark. Inside buildings with low detail it ran much better, staying around the 45-50fps mark. Sotenbori seems to have slightly better framerates, but I didn't explore it as much as Kamurocho. Karaoke runs fine in terms of performance, if you can get used to keyboard controls (more on that below). Same goes for battles. Temperatures also weren't too high, with my CPU staying around the 35C mark and my GPU staying around 80C. BioShock Infinite running native has higher temperatures for me. Tabbing out of the game didn't seem to affect performance or stability in any way. I experienced no crashes while playing, but I did experience a softlock with the SEGA HI-TEC LAND minigames. While I tried to cover a broad range of areas, I also didn't go into too much depth with everything. I didn't check Catfight or Pocket Circuit, but I can't see why they wouldn't work. I also didn't try any of the minigames in the Sotenbori Casino, Kamurocho West Park or Pool. But, again, I don't see a reason why they shouldn't work, provided you're comfortable using a keyboard for this game (see below).

The Bad - Inconveniences

No controller support with Steam Play. I tried my Steam Controller and an old Mat Catz controller I have. Launching through Big Picture, or setting the controller configuration to Keyboard/Mouse doesn't help. Even if the latter did work, you'd still get keyboard/mouse button prompts most likely since it's emulating a controller. Connecting a controller and using it will display the appropriate button prompts, but no input will be registered. Switching back to the keyboard reverts back to the keyboard/mouse button prompts. However, a controller needs to be connected, which you'll see in the next section. As mentioned earlier, framerates were pretty inconsistent. But, assuming the base game is playable from start to finish, you could probably do it provided you can tolerate not being a real yakuza. But for me, this is a drawback. Trying to play Settings also have to be set to the lowest to get any kind of decent performance. At each startup, the game also has to run the DirectX Initial Setup. It doesn't take very long though. Also, the initial "SEGA" splash screen has no sound effect. Loading screens are a lot more prominent, however they usually don't last more than about 5-10 seconds. Karaoke is pretty damn hard with the keyboard as opposed to the controller button prompts. But that's not to say all minigames work.

The Ugly - Roadblocks

Out Run, Space Harrier, Super Hang On and Fantasy Zone don't seem to load. Trying to play them takes you to a black screen. I waited for about a minute and nothing happened. That could cause major issues if you're trying to play the Kamurocho Real Estate Royale, which requires you to play Out Run when fighting the Electronics King. It also prevents you from completing the SEGA Girl substories which is also required for a 100% completed save. A controller of some description needs to be connected in order for the game to be playable. Otherwise, the game pushes the mouse to the top-left hand corner all the time. On the main menu, this keeps "New Game" selected and you're unable to click any of the other options. They'll highlight for a second before moving back up to the top. On the map, your pointer will move to the top-left. This prevents you from controlling your character as well. If you connect a controller at any time before launching or while playing the game, this will fix itself. Turning the controller off will revert back to the broken behaviour. Finally, for those who are unaware, the Yakuza 0 PC port is abysmal in terms of performance. I can just about run the game at max settings under Windows at an inconsistent 60fps. There are no loading screens in the main game, but there are during Climax Battles. With this in mind, Yakuza 0 should not be expected to run at a perfect 60fps even with improvements to Proton. I also think the fact that the game runs, and runs the way it does, should be a credit to the WINE team and Valve.

Conclusion

tl;dr - Yakuza 0 runs at 15-40fps at lowest settings, has no controller support, SEGA HI-TEC LAND minigames don't work, you need to have a controller connected for the game to be playable, and you cannot get 100% on your completion list under Proton 3.16-3.
Imgur Gallery: https://imgur.com/a/OcvRQjY
Happy gaming!
EDIT 26-10-18: I tested the game with an Nvidia GTX 980Ti 6GB GDDR5, and the game ran exactly the same. I used the Nvidia proprietary drivers, and didn't bother testing with Nouveau. Most native games also ran comparably so this was not a surprise to me. Just in case anyone out there is running under Nvidia.

With how much Judgment tries to differentiate itself from Yakuza games, with its supposedly new 'legal genre' (that plays awfully similar to its street brawling counterparts), it would have been a big help if the studio had at least set it in a different location.
I'd have loved to see Judgment take place in Shibuya, where our boy band member would have fit right in. Or even Akihabara, since Yagami is so into drones and such. An electronics district like Akihabara would've been fitting with all the photo snapping, server hacking and drone investigating you do in Judgment. Would've also lent it a more futuristic feel now that the Yakuza timeline is in the modern era instead of the 80s or mid 2000s, even more than Yakuza 6 did. Especially with the slightly different color tones, it could have been a really cool aesthetic with a color palette that accentuates colder hues more to reinforce that electronics-filled environment. Could've been an awesome new feel for an RGG game that would differentiate from Yakuza games.
Alas, as we know, that didn't happen. My guess is that the studio is focusing the asset creation on Shin Yakuza, that was confirmed to have at least one extra location besides Kamurocho. And considering the year before Judge Eyes came out we got a Dragon Engine version of Sotenbori in Kiwami 2, and that same year that Judge Eyes came out (2018) they also put out Hokuto ga Gotoku (FotNS) which had its own brand new hub and wasteland that had to be built from scratch, it appears Judge Eyes got stuck between a rock and a hard place when it came to (asset creating) manpower.
I suppose we did get a completed version of modern day Kamurocho for the first time (as Kiwami 2 was a 2006 version) and we get to briefly walk around places like the ADDC and such, so I can't say that the Kamurocho from Y6 was completely reused. We can enter a few new rooms and areas like Koi Bride and the casino it houses, and roam around the upper parts of Kamurocho, with Kamurocho Hills completely built now although, hilariously, still inaccessible.
Still, it would've done wonders to the feel of Judgment had it been set, well, basically anywhere but Kamurocho. The story does involve yakuza, but as we've seen in other games, yakuza are pretty much everywhere in Japan, even in Okinawa so that shouldn't be an obstacle. Hell, the Matsugane goons and the Kyorei and Keihin gangs did feel a bit different from the usual Tojo goons that you regularly fight in Yakuza games, so that would have been a nice tool to further differentiate from Yakuza if it were set somewhere else. It really can't be understated that if the setting was different, then it would have been much easier to take Judgment as its own thing, since we would associate that setting, let's say Akihabara for example, as Judgment's "turf".
Hell, if the location was different and a few things in the game were better handled, like having far fewer tailing missions in side quests, and some tweaks to further deepen the detective mechanics and some gameplay adjustments like the mandatory greetings from allies being removed, we'd probably be having a very different discussion about Judgment and Yakuza games. Many probably would've preferred Judgment over Yakuza games if it kept that type of refreshing content up. Would you really be so excited to return to Kamurocho for Shin Yakuza for the umpteenth time, if you just experienced a completely fresh city for the first time with a new protagonist and cast and brand new set of detective mechanics that were actually fun to interact with? I'd probably have some cautious optimism for Shin to say the least.
Finally, on a somewhat related note, the fact that Judgment "borrowed" Kamurocho for its setting does raise some questions. Do the events of the game affect a Shin Yakuza Kamurocho where Ichiban is going to be the new city wrecker? If I go to Koi Bride in Shin Yakuza, will that be inexplicably locked? Am I going to find that underground casino again or will it be somewhere else for some mysterious reason? Is Yagami's detective agency even gonna be there when I walk by in Shin or will it all of a sudden be a random building again?
There are clear consequences to using Kamurocho for a different IP that takes place in the same time frame as Yakuza does. Are these two potential franchises just going to awkwardly ignore each other? I suppose we'll find out soon enough, but these are all things that could have been sidestepped if Judgment took place in a different part of Japan altogether. Seems like a lot of narrative gymnastics are awaiting the writers for future games as Kamurocho no doubt gets used for many more entries. Again highlighting that a new location for Judgment probably would've been a better move.

25 years ago The Tojo Clan and Ueno Seiwa Clan are rivals for control of the Tokyo UnderWorld. The Tojo Clan learning that Yoshiharu Ueno (boss of the ueno seiwa) is going to have a party with his top men at a small ramen shop after his release from jail decide to put a hit on him. They select 2 young promising soldiers from some of their smaller families, Saejima Taiga of the Sasai Family and Majima Goro of the Shimano Family.
On the morning of the Hit Majima is called to a warehouse at the docks by Shibata Kazuo who tells him that Sasai (Saejima's Boss) is a traitor that fed the information about Yoshiharu Ueno to the Tojo so they would try to kill him and start a war, Sasai would then intervene in the conflict and use his Connection in the Ueno Seiwa to make peace and boost his clan up in the Tojo Clan Hierarchy.
Shibata urges Majima to not go and that if he does he will just end up dying for nothing but Majima says he can't betray Saejima because he is his sworn brother so Shibata has his men restrain him which leads to Majima Getting Stabbed in the eye after beating up most of them.
Saejima waiting for Majima to arrive sees Ueno and his men arrive and since this is his only chance to do his job he decides to perform the Hit alone. BUT it turns out the guns he was given were all loaded with newly developed rubber bullets so none of the Ueno Seiwa were killed by Saejima. The whole thing a scheme by Isao Katsuragi , who then proceeds to shoot all the knocked out Ueno Seiwa top brass except Yoshiharu Ueno so he can become the top lieutenant of the Clan.
Katsuragi then has his sworn brother and secret mole in the Tokyo Police force inspector Junji Sugiuchi (also the one that stole the rubber bullets for the hit from the Police Labs) fake a report saying Saejima really did killed the 18 Ueno Seiwa men. BUT Sugiuchi's superior Seishiro Munakata sees right through his botched report and tells him he wants to work with Katsuragi. Munakata then has Sugiuchi murder his partner inspector Tanimura Taigi while he was going to meet Saejima's step Sister Yasuko because he was getting close to uncovering the truth behind the Ueno Seiwa hit, leaving Tanimura's adoptive (learned from substory) 1/4 thai son Masayoshi an orphan to be raised by Zhao(chinese restaurant guy).
Saejima then gets the Death Penalty and is sent to jail to wait for his sentence to be carried out.
5 years ago Kazuma Kiryu is released from jail Saejima is still in jail 10 billion yen are stolen from Tojo Clan Events from Yakuza 1 happen Kiryu Beats the Shit out of The Tojo Clan. Kiryu becomes 4th chairman of the Tojo Clan Money explodes on top of Millennium tower and is sent raining down into kamurocho and a homeless man named Shun Akiyama picks up about 1 million yen from it all. he is later attacked by a group of punks and his money is stolen until a young yakuza named Hiroaki Arai who belongs to Kanemura enterprise (a group under the Shibata Family) comes and saves him. BUT it turns out the money stolen from the Tojo Clan was actually used to fund Okinawa penitentiary n. 2 (Super Jail for yakuzas) and that the money that blew up that night was NOT actually the 10 billion yen! (rewrites). Kiryu steps down from Being the 4th Chairman of the Tojo Clan 2 Years Ago Events from Yakuza 3 Happen Kiryu beats the shit out of all the Top Families of the Tojo Clan AGAIN Goh Hamazaki leader of the Hamazaki Family that was crushed by Kiryu, stabs him and is subsequently sent to jail.
Present day Akiyama is now a billionaire Philanthropist and expert face stomper who owns amongst other things a money lending business (sky finance), lends 100 million yen to A mysterious woman calling herself Lily(Saejima's sister Yasuko). Akiyama has a fight in a bar with 2 men of the Ueno Seiwa Clan (Ihara and Mishima) before Arai arrives and shit goes bad when Ihara pulls out a gun and shoots Arai then escapes, Arai later finds Ihara and shoots him in the face infront of Akiyama then runs away. Akiyama is arrested then questioned by Sugiuchi, then Akiyama meets Majima. Saejima Yasuko trying to get her brother released from jail made a deal with Katsuragi she either worked as an assassin for him going around killing people from the Shibata family or she paid him 100 million Yen. Saejima Taiga is transferred to Okinawa Penitentiary n.2 , there he meets with Goh Hamazaki who makes him take part in his escape plan. During their escape Hamazaki steals a file from the warden's office. Hamazaki and Saejima are just about to complete their escape when Hamazaki is shot several times by one of the prison Guard (Saito is a dirt bag) and they all jump into the Okinawan sea. Saejima washes up on the that's right infront of Kiryu's house(convenient). Kiryu and him have a manly tussle and then Kiryu helps him get to Kamurocho. In Kamurocho, Saejima meets Takeshi Kido who worked for Kanemura enterprises before Yasuko killed his boss. Saejima looks for his old boss (Sasai), but he can't find any traces of him so he has to enter a Fight to the death in Purgatory(underground casino) to get information from Kage the florist. He then goes to meet Majima have a fist vs knife fight in a batting cage. After the fight Majima explains what happened 25 years ago (see above).
Tanimura Masayoshi grew up to be a corrupted cop, still looking for the person who killed his father, he finds Yasuko Saejima but she is kidnapped by the Shibata Family and is taken to the docks. Tanimura goes to save her and there he finds Arai and Shibata Kazuo, we then discover that Shibata was the real traitor that was working with Katsuragi 25 years ago and that he has been blackmailing katsuragi with that information since then. BUT it turns out all this time Arai was really working for Katsuragi, and since Katsuragi didn't need Shibata anymore Arai had to dispose of him, so he murders Shibata as Tanimura watches from behind a door like a true hero. Tanimura then frees Yasuko and they go talk at Zhao's restaurant. Yasuko then tells tanimura about everything she has done to get Saejima out of jail and then decides to leave for okinawa where learned saejima is imprisoned (they don't know he escaped yet). Tanimura uses the 100 million borrowed by Yasuko to try and negotiate with Katsuragi but it turns out to be a trap, Katsuragi then reveals he killed the 18 Ueno men 25 years ago. Tanimura is saved when Sugiuchi arrives, he then escapes by fighting a bunch of dudes using the briefcase full of money. Tanimura goes to look up the files about the Ueno Seiwa men murder his father was investigating 25 years ago at the police HQ he then discovers that the one that did the investigation with his father was Sugiuchi. Tanimura returns the money and talks to Akiyama, he decides to lure out the traitor in the force by meeting with Mishima (guy who was with Ihara before he got shot in the face by Arai) BUT THEN Sugiuchi shows up and Kills Mishima, then other cops show up to arrest Sugiuchi but they can't because he is protected by somebody Important in the Force (Assistant commissioner Munakata) As Sugiuchi is about to leave Tanimura tries to stop him and follows a speed boat chase, then a Sugiuchi fights Tanimura. After losing Sugiuchi reveals that he was actually a yakuza all along and was katsuragi's sworn brother, as he is about to be taken in by Tanimura somebody shoots him and he dies, revealing there is another dirty cop on the force (who turns out to be Tanimura's Friend and Mentor, who commits suicide after lying to his boss about killing both Sugiuchi and Tanimura).
After a couple of days at sea Hamazaki ends up washing up on Kiryu's Beach just like Saejima (what luck!). After being patched up by Kiryu , He ask him to go back to Kamurocho to Help the Tojo Clan revealing he stole a file showing that the 10 Billion Yen stolen from the Tojo clan 5 years ago had really been given to build the Prison he escaped from! But Kiryu says he doesn't want help Hamazaki, unless he want's to turn himself in which Hamazaki decides to do but then they both meet Yasuko Saejima and decide to go talk to her about her first, then Saito comes to catch Hamazaki but Kiryu kicks his ass then escapes with Yasuko, then Hamazaki collapses from his gunshot wounds reopening.
Kiryu goes to Kamurocho with Yasuko to try and find Saejima, he meets up with Date leaving her with him while he goes to meet Majima. Majima is arrested by the Police. Saejima is captured by Katsuragi and its revealed Kido was working for him all along! Kiryu goes back to Yasuko but she ran away with Tanimura and Akiyama. Kiryu Fights Tanimura AND Akiyama. Yasuko is captured by Katsuragi and is taken away with Saejima.
Now you are up to date with everything that has happened in the Story. You can post questions if you want. sorry about the typos.