Dengeki Online published a lengthy interview with Judgment‘s Game Director Kouji Yoshida and Planning Supervisor Masao Kinosaki. The interview covers nearly every aspect of Yakuza Studio’s detective game, with multiple major spoilers. As such I’ve only given it a speed read for now, and should definitely read it more extensively after actually playing the game.
Yoshida and Kinosaki spoke about how they wrote the main story, the side missions, and characters. They also mentioned the game’s graphics and its usage of the Dragon Engine, and multiple anecdotes regarding Judgment’s development. They explained why and how Judgment is quite different from Yakuza games, and how they’d like newcomers who played Judgment try out the Yakuza series as well.
Lastly, they momentarily spoke about the upcoming western version of Judgment, with the reporter from Dengeki asking Yoshida if it’ll be any different from the Japanese version. This is Yoshida’s answer:
There are no changes to the game’s content in the western version. The only differences are how we’re recording an English dub, and all of the lip synchronization is being remade to fit it.
For those wondering, this pretty much means the game won’t be changed or censored is the west. I don’t own a PlayStation 4 so sadly I haven’t played the game’s Japanese version myself yet, but Judgment features things like butt naked men or women in sexy maid or bunny girls outfits. In short, despite being a PlayStation 4 exclusive released long after the “Sony censors Japanese games” incident started, it has the usual kind of sexual fanservice you’d expect in most Japanese games. Same for other Japanese games which released at the end of 2018 exclusively on PlayStation 4, such as The Legend of Heroes Trails of Cold Steel IV or God Eater 3, who have their share of sexy costumes and female characters with big fat anime breasts bouncing at every movement. While there have been multiple cases of games changed or censored seemingly because of Sony these past months, including games only releasing in Japan, every single Japanese game is far from being affected. Claiming Sony became trigger happy with censorship when it comes to sexual fanservice in Japanese games couldn’t be more wrong. Same with claiming that some Japanese games on PlayStation 4 have recently been delayed because of this. Games get delayed all the time.
As such, I don’t find this piece of news surprising and I wasn’t expecting Judgment to be changed in the west. When I have the time in the following weeks, I’ll probably expand my point of view on this controversy in an editorial.
As already reported when the game’s first English trailer was released, the western version of Judgment will add an English dub along with the original Japanese dub. Nice to know Sega’s putting real effort in it, and those choosing to play with the English dub won’t be stuck with bad lip synchronization.
We’ve covered Judgment extensively until the game released in Japan on December 13. You can read about the multiple characters in the game, read our translation of the cast video interviews and making-of videos for the game’s motion and facial capture, and read about some of the game’s systems like the friends and girlfriend system.
Judgment, known in Japan officially as Judge Eyes Shinigami no Yuigon and unofficially as KimuTaku ga Gotoku, releases in the west sometime in Summer 2019, exclusively on Sony’s PlayStation 4.
The post Director Kouji Yoshida: “Judgment Will Have No Changes in Content in the West” by Iyane Agossah appeared first on DualShockers.