It's actually kind of insane how good this is despite its position as a post-launch DLC. RGG took Kaito, a fan favorite character who deserved more time in the spotlight, and wrote an immensely compelling personal story for him. I wouldn't call any of the mainline Yakuza games bloated (maybe 5, but personally I don't feel like it's a bad thing), but trimming the usual fat and instead writing a no-nonsense 7 hour campaign was genius.

Purely by chance, I replayed the ending to the Majima Saga last week, and it's night and day when comparing the quality of these two releases. MS was lacking in unique content with only a couple fights, no real side objectives, and no fighting styles, making it feel pretty blatantly like reused content. Kaito Files, on the other hand, gives Kaito two unique styles with a large skill tree to upgrade through, some pretty funny side content in the form of his primal senses, and an absolute BOATLOAD of fights. In fact, the Kenmochi fight is maybe one of the best in the series.

The story itself is paced to perfection, jumping from beat to beat at a solid chop. For only 4 chapters and about 6-7.5 hours, it covered way more than I expected. The antagonist's motives aren't that shocking if you're familiar with the series, but the lengths he goes to end up being way darker than I expected, resulting in a pretty original tonal structure for the series. The finale is quite good. The epilogue after it, however, is hilarious. The mix of current and past Kaito is really interesting, Mikiko is a strong contender for best female in the series, and Jun's storyline is grounded and hits the mark 9 times out of 10. Special points for all the fanservice, like the constant Higashi gags and funny interactions with other series regulars. Yagami's texts explaining his absence are a treat.

On the gameplay side, Kaito's moveset is fantastically fun, adapting parts of Kiryu (some literally canonically taken from what Kaito has heard of Kiryu) but adding unique animations and new options to make it feel very fresh and fun. There are actually a few DMC-esque button + stick motion input moves, which are pretty rare for this series. I think 0 has a few? There are some pretty funny QoL things too, like Kaito getting an upgrade to wear his disguises freely around Kamurocho, something Yagami couldn't do in either game. The boss fights are fantastic, with some really good choreography and setpieces. The overall presentation here is slick as hell. Also, KF might actually make better use of the detective sequences than the main game does, there's some cool stuff in here.

I wasn't really sure what to expect with Kaito Files, especially for the $30 price point, but it delivered way more than I expected. This is essentially a mini Yakuza game with a surprisingly tight and impactful storyline, fantastic character moments, and the usual addictive gameplay. Highly recommended.

Short and sweet DLC story that gave the spotlight to a character who really deserved it. $30 is a bit steep for how short the campaign is but I still enjoyed it a lot. I hope in future, if we get another Judgment game, they make both Yagami and Kaito playable in the story like Yakuza 0. Or if they really want to, a Yakuza 4/5 styled game to include Sugiura and Higashi in the playable roster would be cool too. Whatever RGG decides to do, I just want this series to continue alongside mainline Yakuza.

i was deadset on 3.5 stars for ages again but GOD that finale got me...kaito is so fun to play as, the characters are wonderful in their own way (esp w one character who was basically "what if velvet crowe was a yakuza character" which is my jam exactly)

this is the current chronological end of the ryu ga gotoku franchise as of the time of writing (late april 2022) so it's a little bittersweet but i feel good having played this

that being said, £25 (compared to lost judgment's price of £60) is a little much for what this is imo, and there's still a few pieces in the writing i take issue with but this was nice

It goes without saying that if you enjoyed Lost Judgment, fancy a bit more and like the character Kaito you'll fancy playing this.

Nothing I can or will say about that will make the above false and you will not be disappointed coming from that.
I enjoyed this idea for a DLC, it was nice to give Kaito some spotlight alone, more back story and unique things to slightly change up the formula.

The main mechanical differences are that Kaito has his own 2 fighting styles, I don't want to give too much away but as you can imagine he's a lot more "strength based" but still has his own riposte style mechanics.

The other difference is in his detective work, sadly tailing is still here as is stealth (although a bit better) but his crime scene investigation Kaito uses his "feral instincts" basically you can flick between looking, listening or sniffing out clues and whilst this isn't a huge innovation it's a nice change.

Kaito doesn't directly get sub stories but some of his skill unlocks are behind missions as such, mostly though this is doing moves or searching Kamurocho with feral instincts, mostly listening for stray cats oddly.
This isn't the worst collectathon but that doesn't mean it's fun, where it feels most egregious is the item you need to use_eyes for as there's no map hint, sound indication and they're easy to miss.

Still 100% his skills is only necessary if you're a completionist or a nutter like me. There is one bonus fight (sorry spoilers) but it's not all that exciting really.

You're mostly playing this DLC for the story and that it does deliver.
Overall it's a great, quite personal tale for Kaito which delves into his past, introduces new folk including one of RGG's strongest female characters (not the highest bar sadly) and is a satisfying tale with a satisfying conclusion.

Story wise there are a couple of small issues I have, there's a level of predictability but more so a certain friendly character that although played for laughs seems really off to me (but I don't want to spoil).

TLDR? I liked this, but the price it wants for what you get is a lot and although the differences from Kaito to Yagami are fun I found Tak more fun to be.

Really good if not massively overpriced expansion on Kaito as a character, who isn't just more charismatic than Yagami but also gets a deeper dive into his backstory within 8h of content than Yagami did over two entire games.

A must for people who liked Kaito in the main games. Noticeably cheap in a couple of places, especially apparent from the lack of properly directed cutscenes over a certain stretch of the story. Could have used five to even ten substories and a very simple completion list to really stand out in its own right.