The Kaito Files is a story expansion to the fabulous Lost Judgement game. This story expansion was not needed in the slightest but the fact that it is a thing is amazing! Following the story of Masaharu Kaito, ex-yakuza turned detective & sidekick of Takayuki Yagami, he finds himself alone in Kamurucho whilst Yagami runs errands elsewhere and gets wrapped up in a huge case regarding his ex partner, morals and abuse. Saying any more story would be saying ‘too’ much… But believe me, it’s amazing and absolutely essential you have played both Judgement games prior.
The gameplay here is outstanding, playing as Kaito he has 2 fighting styles which act in a similar way to Yagami’s Tiger and Crane styles, they are built to tackle different hoards of enemies and are both extremely fun to use, especially when the skill trees have been upgraded. When you reach max completion on all the skills it becomes a whole other game, I must say this definitely has my favourite action combat in any game ever, the next Judgement game (if there is one) will top it even further if it includes Yagami’s 4 styles and Kaito’s 2 styles.
Side content wise, there is no side cases, but it makes sense, this is a story expansion focused on a singular large case, though there are other forms of side content. Namely in Kaito’s forms of discovery with his Primal senses, these are Sight, Smell and Hearing and have challenges scattered round Kamurucho to interact with and hence building skills and bonds further. I really enjoyed going for the 100% here.
The final act of The Kaito Files is phenomenal, the last dungeon and fight was really an execution of how well everything culminated across this short-ish adventure with a runtime of just 5 hours for the average player just going for the story. The final few cutscenes in Ijincho really gave me goosebumps, it was extremely intense… OH and that secret fight for completing the skill tree is perhaps the best fight i’ve done in any game!
This was a relatively short review but believe me I could go on much much further, I thoroughly enjoyed this and in my opinion it’s flawless, peak Ryu Go Gotaku right here. I hope Judgement goes on to the level of the main Yakuza series.
The gameplay here is outstanding, playing as Kaito he has 2 fighting styles which act in a similar way to Yagami’s Tiger and Crane styles, they are built to tackle different hoards of enemies and are both extremely fun to use, especially when the skill trees have been upgraded. When you reach max completion on all the skills it becomes a whole other game, I must say this definitely has my favourite action combat in any game ever, the next Judgement game (if there is one) will top it even further if it includes Yagami’s 4 styles and Kaito’s 2 styles.
Side content wise, there is no side cases, but it makes sense, this is a story expansion focused on a singular large case, though there are other forms of side content. Namely in Kaito’s forms of discovery with his Primal senses, these are Sight, Smell and Hearing and have challenges scattered round Kamurucho to interact with and hence building skills and bonds further. I really enjoyed going for the 100% here.
The final act of The Kaito Files is phenomenal, the last dungeon and fight was really an execution of how well everything culminated across this short-ish adventure with a runtime of just 5 hours for the average player just going for the story. The final few cutscenes in Ijincho really gave me goosebumps, it was extremely intense… OH and that secret fight for completing the skill tree is perhaps the best fight i’ve done in any game!
This was a relatively short review but believe me I could go on much much further, I thoroughly enjoyed this and in my opinion it’s flawless, peak Ryu Go Gotaku right here. I hope Judgement goes on to the level of the main Yakuza series.