Video game studios often go through different creative eras throughout their history. It is impossible for the same studio to always be “on the crest of the wave”, but these moments when everything launched on the market is at the top, it is sensational. There may currently be several studies on this state of grace, but I admit no argument if I say that any of them is Ryu ga Gotoku Studio, responsible for all of the Yakuza saga y sus spin-offs.
Exactly, the last two games from the studio were spin-offs, Like a Dragon and Lost Judgment, and I don’t think anyone can doubt their quality. Despite repeating mechanics and locations, both games had unique characters and stories, told with a lot of fun and in which it was very easy to sympathize with the protagonists. The novelty of the studio comes in the form of DLC for Lost Judgment, and with a new protagonist.
Kaito Files puts us in the shoes, as you can imagine, of Kaito, the friend and partner of Takayuki Yagami. This content comes in the form of a separate expansion of the story, so that we can enjoy it without having to start the game (which I do not recommend). What we’re going to find is a new “house brand” story from the studio, where sensitive topics like suicide are treated fantastically. But will it be worth it? We will see it.
technical part
Lost Judgment has a pretty notable technical section, and that, of course, counts for The Kaito Files as well. The DLC repeats most of the locations from the main game, so we will find streets full of life and where we will probably be attacked by thugs of all kinds with whom we will have to fight. The places of leisure, the restaurants or the shops are repeated, without us noticing any improvement (a logical thing, on the other hand).
Protagonist Kaito is going to be surrounded by old acquaintances from the main game at certain points in the DLC's story, but most of the time we're going to see new characters who are going to be placed at the center of the narrative. Without spoiler, those we will meet they have a design that belongs to Yagami and with facial expressions that will make us glued to cutscenes as if we were watching the last chapter of our favorite series.
Also worth mentioning is the studio's treatment of Kaito. This character has always had a very pronounced secondary role, and we have almost always seen him as a "thug" who has left the Yakuza. I think the studio was very smart in putting us in his shoes and showing us a lot more of the character, which means at certain points in the DLC we travel down memory lane and see him much younger, and with sequences that have scenarios that are also great.
Finally, it is not wrong to say that the soundtrack of this DLC is always magnificent, and of course we will again have the possibility of putting the voices in English and Japanese. The game is fully localized in Spanish like the base game and Yakuza: Like a Dragon, so we'll have no problem understanding the whole story.
gameplay
In the gameplay it will happen to us a bit like with the technical part, that is to say that we will see a certain "continuity". However, we can see in this The Kaito Files how some playable changes are introduced that make Kaito's control very different from Yagami's control. The story will place us in an investigation that will fully touch the past of the protagonist, since they will ask us to look for one of their old lovesalthough, as usual, we'll see more of a twist in the script that's a trademark of Ryu ga Gotoku Studio games.
This story is precisely one more component of the gameplay, since Kaito files have a strong narrative component. You can't compare the story of this DLC to the main game as it deals with different themes, but this aspect in particular seems to me to be the strong point of the expansion. Being developed in a DLC, this story is much more relevant, and this lack of "filler" suits it very well.
Already at the controls, we will see two substantial changes compared to the base game. The first is perhaps the most visible, and This is the combat system. Don't get me wrong, The Kaito Files still has active battles, no party with Like a Dragon and its turn-based battle system. The change is due to Kaito being a very different character from Yagami. While the latter is more delicate and agile, Kaito is more "disgusting"so their fighting styles will go in the same direction.
On the one hand we have Ryu ga Gotoku Studio, which will allow us to make faster blows with our fists, as well as some grabs. the other way, Ryu ga Gotoku Studio, has the main feature of allowing us to attack automatically with the objects we find on the street. Both styles are quite fun, but the truth is that during my adventure I "abused" the Bully style much more because it is something much more dynamic.
The other substantial change we will find upon investigation, something that is typical of derivative judgment. Yagami relied primarily on sight to find clues, but Saito, on the other hand, is much more "primitive" when it comes to looking for evidence. I say primitive because, in addition to the view, we need to use our sense of smell and hearing to find many more scenes.
duration
If you were looking for an experience about as long as the Yakuza, you might be a little disappointed. The Kaito Files is a DLC that's developed to be straight forward and to the point, losing a bit of all that original side content that the studio's games usually have. Complete all 4 chapters of this expansion It will take us about 5 or 6 hoursas long as we don't choke on the hard fights he has.
Leaving aside the main story and all that it offers us, the truth is that there is not much more to do in the DLC. Yes, we will be able to search for a series of objects in the streets using the senses I mentioned earlier, but there isn't all that secondary content you might expect.
Conclusions after completing Lost Judgment
If you follow the news in the world of video games, you will know that two key pieces from Ryu ga Gotoku Studio, Toshihiro Nagoshi and Daisuke Sato left the studio after many years of working on the Yakuza series. Personally, as a fan, it generated a lot of uncertainty with the future of the saga, since the studio lost both the creator of the Yakuza saga and its producer, so their successors had to show that they would be able to carry on with their "legacy".
The Kaito Files is the first thing the studio is launching after this talent leak, and given what has been seen, the future of the studio is in good hands. I think it's great to take a secondary character with as much charisma as Kaito and place him at the center of his own case to solve, telling us a story along the way that recounts normally taboo subjects with an ease worthy of a Hollywood movie.
It is true that we can blame it for the fact that it has a high price for the content it has (29.99 dollars), but it seems to me totally essential if you enjoyed the base game and want to know more on one of the best supporting characters in the entire Yakuza saga.
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