I'm not a big fan of the Yakuza series, but I did have a surprisingly great time with Lost Judgment, a side series which follows a small detective agency in Kamurocho run by crazed worm collecting lunatic Takayuki Yagami and his muscle, Masaharu "drop kick you from off-screen" Kaito. It suffered from some of the same problems I usually assign to the larger Yakuza franchise, and it steeps itself deeply in subject matter that it doesn't always handle with grace, but by shifting away from the series' Yakuza pulp cinema roots to something closer to Japanese noir (which I generally prefer), it more than made up for its shortcomings.

But, like, Yagami is kind of a creep, right? I didn't get into this much before, but the way he interacts with other characters is needlessly abrasive and outright results in more death and violence. He's not a great protagonist, and although I too like shoving bugs and screws into my pockets and going on adventures with stray dogs I meet, I don't find him especially relatable. Thankfully (or unfortunately, depending on your perspective), issues between actor Takuya Kimura's agency and Sega have put Yagami's future in jeopardy, which essentially leaves Ryu Ga Gotoku two options: put Judgment on ice or make Kaito the protagonist.

I'm not sure if The Kaito Files was always planned or if it is actually Ryu Ga Gotoku doing a dry run with the character before determining whether to move forward with a third Judgment, but given Yagami's comical lack of presence in this expansion (he occasionally sends you texts saying he's in the woods looking for a divorcee) it certainly feels like the latter, and hey, you'll get no complaints from me there. I've always found him to be a more affable character, one who comfortably fits into that "dumbass with a heart of gold" archetype, but The Kaito Files puts in a respectable amount of work building this meathead up into someone who can lead a damn game. By the end of the expansion's ~8 hour runtime, I found that I was rooting for Kaito far more than I did Yagami after his own whopping 23 hour campaign, and was far more invested in his story and where it might possibly go. So if they are teeing him up, then hey, mission accomplished.

The case Kaito takes on is also a lot more compelling to me than that of the base game. While covering Yagami's desk, Kaito is approached by a wealthy businessman named Kyoya Sadamoto, who offers Kaito a ridiculous sum of money to look into the disappearance of his wife, Mikiko, who presumably died two years prior. Kaito turns down the money and attempts to wash his hands of the case, having been Mikiko's lover eight years earlier. However, after meeting her son, Jun, who insists that Kaito is actually his father, he's drawn into the search for Mikiko and uncovers a larger conspiracy involving the serial murders of Crimson Lotus gang members, who Mikiko appears to have some connection with. Kaito's personal ties to the case - his regret for choosing obligation to his criminal family over Mikiko, and grappling with the possibility of having a teenaged son - requires him to consider what kind of man he is, in turn building depth and forcing him into situations where he must hone his skills as a detective.

Not that he becomes some Hercule Poirot by the end of the game (he's much closer to Jacques Clouseau on the Detective Spectrum™), in fact when it comes time to piece the mystery together and reveal the culprit, he can posit that he committed the murders like some kind of sleeper agent. However, he's convincing enough as a sleuth that I never felt the same disparity I did with Yagami as a fighter, and it's also funny to me how he has far more composure when presenting incorrect evidence during cross examination-- like damn Yagami, sorry you're so bad at your job. Kaito is the full package and I wish he were my dad.

I also enjoyed all the side characters, with Jun being a standout. He's a bit dim but has a strong sense of justice and a good heart, which goes a long way towards convincing the player that he might actually be Kaito's kid. It's clear he looks up to him too, and Kaito assumes a fatherly role as though it were second nature, even if he is initially hesitant. If Jun didn't work, none of this would work. I also like that he is afraid of knives and passes out on the spot if he sees one, and sometimes just jumps out windows. Good kid. Mikiko's relationship to Kaito is equally as important, and her own willingness to protect others at personal cost really sold me on her being perfect for Kaito. Saving her isn't just about setting right a past wrong, but protecting someone Kaito still loves as passionately as he did eight years ago. Ryu Ga Gotoku doesn't fumble here the same way they did with Lost Judgment. It's starts as a smaller, more personal story that still blows up and goes in some wacky directions, but which remains tightly focused and consistently good throughout.

Gameplay is a known quantity, just more of the same from Lost Judgment. Combat is, was, and probably always will be my least favorite part of the Yakuza series. I just don't click with it, I don't think it feels good, and The Kaito Files is arguably a bit weaker here as it reduces the amount of available fighting styles to just two: brawler and tank. I mostly stuck with tank because the trade-off in speed makes you damn near unkillable, and being able to pick up weapons mid-attack has clear advantages when most areas are full of bikes, signs, and baseball bats. You still look for clues in first person, though Kaito - who is described as being an animal, a feral beast of a man - is able to employ his sense of hearing and smell to aide him in his search for evidence without the assistance of gadgets. Sometimes you'll be walking around and Kaito's sniffer picks up on something, so you just like, go smell a bag of garbage and get experience points.

A sore point for Yakuza fans might be the lack of side cases, which is a bummer, but given the intended scope of The Kaito Files as an expansion, I suppose it would be unreasonable to expect a large amount of side content. However, a smattering of additional cases would've been nice, at least in the sense that I like watching Kaito interact with the world around him. I enjoy observing him like a gorilla in its enclosure, and I want to introduce more variables to see what he'll do. Yet, despite these grievances, I still had more fun with this than the base game, and it makes me wish Yagami would be expunged from the series so we can just get more Kaito.

Hey, RGG, you can easily patch in a quick text exchange to explain it too. Look, you can have this free of charge:

Yagami: "Hey, my investigation is taking longer than I thought."

Kaito: "Oh yeah?"

Yagami: "I fell in a lake and got passed away, you're the star of Judgment now."

Kaito: "thank yuo ,bro"

Please just make it happen, and give Kaito a skateboard and bring back Ranpo.