I'm not gonna say avoid a game that I spent close to 100 hours playing. The combat is fun and engaging, the main plot is fine, the school investigations and side quests are zany. Also, the game works great on Steam Deck: No freeze issues carried over from Judgment, no slowdowns even in huge 20+ character fights.

THAT SAID, Earlier this year, I bounced off of Infinite Wealth because of the choice paralysis-inducingly huge amount of content it offers. I pivoted to Lost Judgment thinking it would be a more focused side story, kind of like LAD Gaiden. That was incorrect! Judgment games are just as long and overfilled with stuff to do as the mainline LAD games.

I wouldn't let myself put the game down until I beat Amon, so this is totally self-inflicted. I could have called it quits 20-30 hours earlier if I had been willing to settle for a lower achievement score, but that just wasn't in the cards!

• The boxing, robotics and biker gang storylines are slogs; I think they could have been cut down by half with no impact to the stories they told.
  
• The scrounging around and crafting for extracts, robotics, drone, etc. is insane.
  
• Having access to all of Kamurocho was unnecessary; quick cordoned off stops to important locations (Genda Law, Yagami's office, etc.) would have been more than enough.
  
• Having squirrel graffiti all over Kamurocho made no narrative sense, and again was just more padding.

By all accounts Sega and RGG Studios want to keep up with the breakneck 1 game/year pace. I hope that this comes with a producer/editor who's willing to tighten up the content bloat that has been getting more and more out of hand.

I was hesitant to play Judgement and Lost Judgement after I finished the Yakuza games because the detective genre and protagonist initially didn't interest me, but I gave them a chance and they were great.
Lost Judgement in particular is actually a masterpiece and is now one of my favourite games of all time. Exceptional storytelling, writing, combat, characters, things to do, and content. Easily the best game in the whole yakuza canon. Even better than Yakuza 0, Gaiden, Infinite wealth, and Pirate time.

everyone’s like oh by the way this is the best game they’ve ever made and I’m like Yeah Right. And then I play this game and I completely Understand the hype