Played from – to: (2023-03-06 – 2023-03-11) – PS5.
‣ 7/10 – Here we go again… Pussy drives men to do crazy things.
‣ Thoughts: Kaito Files is an expansion that explores, well… Kaitos past that has caught up with him in the present. Overall, the story is pretty basic, and the villain has no interesting motives, however the supporting cast is pretty entertaining, and I found Kaito to be an amusing protagonist. I just wish we had more of him in the main game. On the other hand, when I say the villain is boring, I mean his main drive for doing bad things is power and money. However, I won’t deny the way he wriggles his way into power is pretty fucked up and twisted. Sadly, as a person, he appears to be very generic, and everyone around him gives off basic ass bitch vibes, with money and booze being their only motivation for action. I’d say this expansions story faces the same problems the prequels story had, where villains are bland, but the protagonist’s supporting cast is great. Unsurprisingly, you get to play as Kaito and in turn, fight as him. His fighting styles are pretty slow and heavy, being closest in comparison to Kiryu’s Beast style. In terms of gameplay, there’s not much to do besides pushing through the main plotline. There’re a few optional dialogue scenes you can experience, but for the most part, the game is just a narrow chapter-to-chapter story. For a 6-to-7-hour campaign, I’d say a 30 $ price tag is pretty steep, considering the main game is four times longer. However, if you love Lost Judgment and want to experience everything getting this in a deluxe edition on sale is a good deal.

I don't have much to say about this, to be honest. It's short, it's pretty fun, Kaito was fun character in the base game and he is here as well, showing that he can definitely carry his own story. Still, this does have quite a few flaws despite being a good time. Kaito's battle styles, that are basically Kiryu's Brawler and Beast, are decent, but don't really come close to the fun I had with Yagami's styles, and the mystery is basically explained through two extremely long exposition dumps (think that entire, awful chapter with the senator in Yakuza 3, but slightly better handled and more than once), and the main villain turns out to be not only "Soma, but much less hot", but he's also so 11/10 evil that it's impossible to take him seriously in any way (though he does get some cool villain moments), which is strange since his main lackey, Kenmochi, is a layered and really interesting character whose archetype has never been seen in any RGG game as far as I can remember. Also really unfortunate that the final boss ends up being so dumb, and basically an incel power fantasy, but it is what it is.

So yeah, it's certainly not fantastic, but also don't think that it's really bad just because I spent an entire paragraph complaining about. It's got a nice, short length with a story that suits the runtime, and has some very good moments and a couple of fun new characters (that may stick around for future games even!). I also do want to stress that Kaito not being as fun to play as Yagami does not mean his combat is bad or even boring. It's just a bit more basic and to the point.

An interesting experiment, as the Yakuza series hasn't had a DLC expansion like this before. It also feels like the setup for a contingency plan, in case they would have to abandon Yagami due to Talent Agency shenanigans and focus on Kaito instead. The counter-argument to that would be that this side-story (a Gaiden, if you will) wraps up Kaito's story. The counter-counter-argument to that is that Kiryu has had at least 3 endings to his story so far, and he's still around.

I found this a little underwhelming, partly because Judgment has its own identity, while The Kaito Files feels like a standard Yakuza game. Kaito's fighting styles are just Kiryu's Brawler and Beast modes from Y0 with a few new moves, and the plot contains almost all of the Yakuza stalwarts: shady CEOs involved in real estate fraud, running around Kamurocho with the child of a woman from your past, and climactic duels where both men cast off their shirts dramatically. The writer of this also definitely watched Breaking Bad.

It's still good, and the shorter length isn't really a detriment, though it does feel a bit less immersive as a result. It should have had its own business minigame about running Higashi's arcades.

8/10