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Lost Judgment has the Worst RNG I’ve Ever Seen
I’m sure you’ve seen the term “RNG” floating around the internet now and then, but not everyone knows what it means. It stands for “Random Number Generation” and basically it means anything that happens at random in a videogame. Monster encounters in an RPG and critical hits are two examples of RNG. So what does RNG have to do with a game about a skateboarding kung fu detective investigating a school bullying case in the port town of Isezaki Ijincho?
As part of Yagami’s investigation in Lost Judgment, he’s asked to join several school clubs. While boxing does rely on a certain amount of RNG, this can be mitigated somewhat by lowering the difficulty level. You have to win a game of poker, which by its very nature is always going to be heavily RNG and super annoying — but understandably so as it’s a game of chance (and bluffing) in real life too. I thought that a quest line had broken because it turned out that whether or not the characters are there each time is RNG, and you have to pay a ¥2,000 entry fee each time just to find out!
Button mashing generally works
But no, what this rant is mainly about is the Robotics Club. I imagine that people who’ve played Lost Judgment just started nodding at their screens, because they know what I’m talking about. The club wants to win a tournament, which requires a team of three robots to capture squares on a field, with two AI-driven and one human-controlled. Your job is to control that one, as well as decide on how to upgrade all of them, and research said upgrades. You also have to find or purchase materials to create them, or of course you can farm them by playing practice matches against defeated opponents.
To capture squares on the field, you or your AI pals need to grab glowing tetromino shapes, then place them next to squares you already own. To win your team must either capture more squares by the end of the match, or manage to place a tetromino inside the opponent’s base. Where the shapes spawn on the board is random, so if they keep appearing near the opponent there’s nothing you can do about it. Similarly, which tetromino the shapes are is also random. Yet another piece of RNG is what your AI buddies will do at any given moment, will they attack the enemy, block them, get in your way, accidentally blunder into a shape for you to place… You can research AI chips which give them specific commands, but those are mere suggestions in my experience…
Those upgrade materials I mentioned earlier? Pure RNG. The ones you can’t buy, anyway, but some materials cost thousands of yen each, and take it from me you won’t have a lot of walking around money until late in the game. You could think about obtaining cheat items and taking yourself to the blackjack table, but the cheat item is available via random drop, or by spending skill points that you get from fights. Guess how fight spawns are calculated? RNG! And then at best you’ve got about 10 fights before you can even afford a cheat item.
The drill is useless, replace it with a hammer
“What about the Dice & Cube mini-game?” you might ask. “There’s tons of money to be made from that!” True enough, and I myself made about ¥15 million from that alone. But not until I had obtained the six Free Pass tickets. Each visit to Dice & Cube requires multiple tickets that you can’t buy using money, only skill points, skateboarding points, or randomly dropped by enemies. And the skateboarding points don’t rack up very quickly.
So, I saved up, sold a bunch of stuff I’d obtained through fights, spent over ¥1 million, gambled, skateboarded, fed cats, and located squirrels to get all six Free Pass tickets. None of that was directly RNG, but most of the money was reliant on it. Will one of the tough enemies spawn? Will they drop 50k or 100k? Will they have a sledgehammer and require me spending money to refill my health because Yagami can’t block a sledgehammer? Will they drop an item I can sell? YES I want to sell you another plate made out of solid silver, what of it Ebisu Pawn?!
In all I spent hours more on the latter half of the Robotics Club quest line than the first half, thanks to grinding for materials or money to buy said materials required for upgrades. Especially if you factor in my rage quitting. Oh, the enemy decided to attack me so much I was pinned in one spot while they collected and placed five pieces? Quit. I had too many bad piece spawns because of the shape of the arena? Quit. My AI buddies kept getting in my way? Quit!
Like this, but I'm Yagami and the other guy is my controller
Why did I force myself through all of this damned RNG when I could have just stopped playing the optional club? I needed to know who The Professor was! I put myself through multiple Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown fights, I wasn’t going to let some bad RNG stop me from finishing the Mystery Research Club side story. It had a really good storyline that was well worth the effort and stress. However, if there had been an extended gambling storyline, I’d have given up like I gave up gathering all of the friends in Judgment… Screw grinding Mahjong, and screw RNG.
COMMENTS
Nerd E1 - 05:23pm, 7th April 2023
When I was a kid I knew a guy who would blame his inability to play the game on "collision detection". It wasn't that he was too far away to hit the enemy or anything of the sort, it was that the game wasn't detecting that he hit them. I guess RNG is the new collision detection.
While there might be some merit to your article, have you considered another approach? I didn't actually start the school stories until end game, which left me plenty of money and skill points to acquire the things I need.
I haven't gone too far into the robotics quest so I can't say how well I'm covered for that, but I've got plenty for the boxing, skateboarding, etc. Also, stop thinking you have to play a game on hardcore to impress a bunch of nerds with your mad skills.
Acelister - 06:25pm, 7th April 2023 Author
I generally stop playing a game once I reach the end of the main story, so I delay as much as possible by doing every side quest I can before that, so unfortunately waiting to do the Robotics Club would have meant missing out on the great resolution to the storyline.
I've written before about how I always go for Easy (or Very Easy) mode, and about how I use cheats in single player games, so rest assured I'm not trying to "impress" anyone. Unfortunately, there are no cheats for the Xbox versions of Lost Judgment.
Nerd E1 - 01:29am, 10th April 2023
This is my first time reading anything from you so I wasn't aware of what difficulty level you normally choose. I just know there are a bunch of people with no life who tell people to "git gud" and I thought you might be one or one trying to impress them.
I don't know that I would be doing all these side quests if it weren't for the fact I want to unlock Secret Commando for the Master System, so I understand if others aren't interested. Do you know the best way to succeed at the robot games is to work straight toward the other team's base? I had no clue when I started.
Acelister - 01:01pm, 10th April 2023 Author
Oh yeah, I worked that out pretty quickly, luckily! It just says "Capture more squares than your opponent" or something, right? It's a lot more challenging on the arenas that have gaps in them, though, not helped by the randomness of your AI teammates, and where the blocks spawn.
When Robotics Club works for you, it's great. When it works against you, it's horrible.
Nerd E1 - 09:51pm, 14th April 2023
I've gotten to the 2nd round of the Nationals and I'm having issues with that, so I understand your frustration. The biggest problem with this game is major padding in the school stories. Any one of them alone is lengthy enough on its own but then they pile one after another on top of it.
My area of irritation comes from the skateboarding mini games. Yagami is wobbly enough standing on his own two feet but he apparently hits the Sake hard when he decides to board.