Operation Backlog Completion 2026

The Kaito Files is a Great DLC

 Reviews, Video games  No Responses »  Tagged with: ,
Nov 112024
 

When I finished Lost Judgment, I mentioned that I would get around to its DLC story The Kaito Files after taking a break for October’s spooky games.

Well, November is here and I’ve now played The Kaito Files.

The Kaito Files is a short DLC episode in which you play as Kaito.

While Yagami is away, Kaito is asked to investigate the disappearance of a woman believed to be dead until recently. What’s more is that Kaito knew her years ago – and almost married her.

It’s an intriguing detective story in its own right, but the emotional aspect due to its connection with Kaito’s past makes it even better. I can’t say I had strong feelings toward Kaito either way before this, but it sold me on him as a protagonist.

Click for Kaito Files spoilers
Although, my original idea on how future Judgment games could handle the Yagami romance issue is now dashed. I think they won’t commit to a Yagami/Mafuyu romance because they want to keep him canonically single for the girlfriend stuff, so I thought the best solution was to make a Judgment game with multiple characters and give all the girlfriend/dating content to the other character.

But Kaito got his happy ending being reunited with Mikiko, and breaking that up would feel even worse! So I no longer want Kaito dating mechanics in a future game.

(This DLC also claims Hoshino and Saori are at a point where marriage is on the table… which has me even more baffled by the portrayal of their romance in the main game. That aside, I guess my idea would have to fall to Higashi now.)

There are no side cases in this DLC and only the standard Kamurocho mini-games. That’s my only disappointment with it, because I would have loved to see Kaito getting mixed up in some wacky antics.

Instead, there’s a small amount of side content in the form of collectibles, which you can find using Kaito’s “primal senses.” Yes, instead of getting detective gadgets like Yagami does in the main game, Kaito simply has super senses, so you’ll be walking down the street when he starts sniffing, and that means you should activate “primal nose” to find a hidden collectible. The goofiness of Kaito sniffing out collectibles (and sometimes plot-relevant clues) like he’s a dog is so bizarre it’s hilarious. I have no idea why they went this route, but it certainly made me smile.

Kaito has two different combat styles and levels up by gaining SP just like Yagami does in the main game. I found him enjoyable enough to play as and even unlocked all his skills and fought the bonus boss.

Now when The Kaito Files was announced, I was skeptical of it being half the price of the main game considering they said it would be around 10 hours long. Indeed, it only took me 9 hours to complete. On the other hand, I bought the Season Pass on sale, so it’s not as bad.

More importantly, they were a great 9 hours! The Kaito Files is excellent, with a good story, several fun moments, and a villain who’s twisted even by Judgment standards. Substories or side cases would have made it perfect, but as it is, I can’t complain.

Finishing The Kaito Files only made me want one thing – more Judgment games.

Celebrating All Things Spooky: 99 Spirits

 Celebrating All Things Spooky, Reviews, Video games  8 Responses »  Tagged with:
Oct 112024
 

Now for something completely different, let’s talk about 99 Spirits.

I’ve had this one in my backlog for a long time, probably since around the time of my yokai craze, and I decided the emphasis on spirits and demons made it a good choice to finally play this October.

And what an unusual experience it was.

99 Spirits is part JRPG, part… vocabulary game?

You play a young woman who wields a sacred sword in order to defeat Tsukumogami, inanimate objects that have become yokai or spirits. It has a simple presentation, with a grid-like screen used to explore the hub city and dungeons. Markers on the green indicate shops, conversations, items to pick up, etc., and enemies are marked as well. When you come into contact with an enemy, a battle begins.

Combat controls are fairly simple. On your turn, you choose whether to attack or defend. However, when the enemy attacks, you have a brief window in which you can press the defend button to shield yourself and counterattack. The result is a system that feels a step more active than turn-based combat.

But Tsukumogami can’t be defeated unless you know their true forms, and that’s where the twist to combat comes in. As you attack, you build a gauge that lets you use a special skill to gain clues about the spirit’s identity. Defending, meanwhile, builds a gauge that lets you call out its name – by typing the name of the object it used to be.

For example, you might give you the clues “OO” and “eating.” Using the gauge again might get you “S” and “food.” Then you use the other skill, type in “spoon,” and the spirit takes on its spoon form and can be fought normally.

It’s such a strange combination of ideas… and I love it.

Throughout the game, you can buy or find spirit indexes, which give you a list of Tsukumogami. That simplifies things, since instead of wracking your brain to figure out what word fits the description, there’s a chance you have it on the list. (The spirit index also lets you click the name instead of typing it every time.)

As you progress, you’ll unlock new skills for your sword. Did I mention this game is also partly a monster collecting RPG?

Once you unlock the third skill, you can capture Tsukumogami while fighting them in order to use special skills. These are both field skills, such as using a weapon-type Tsukumogami to cut down a tree blocking you from a bonus area, and combat skills that serve as special abilities in battle.

I would not say the story is especially in-depth, but it’s a fine story about fighting yokai with some cute/funny character interactions alongside more serious moments. It’s not especially spooky despite its subject matter, so we’ll mark this down as one of the more lighthearted games for this year’s celebration.

Overall, it’s a unique blend of ideas that ends up being a lot of fun. My only real criticism is that it’s buggy – the game crashed enough times that I started saving after every few battles, just in case.

There are some secrets I didn’t get on my playthrough, including an alternate ending, but I don’t think I’ll go back through it to try to get everything. I probably won’t get the DLC, either. Nevertheless, I’m happy I finally got around to playing 99 Spirits.

(On a side note, email subscriptions have halted again, so here’s hoping I find a lasting solution.)

Lost Judgment Is a Great (Though Flawed) Sequel

 Reviews, Video games  8 Responses »  Tagged with: ,
Sep 302024
 

Back in 2021 when Lost Judgment was announced, I was ecstatic.

I absolutely loved Judgment, so I was planning to play its sequel day one.

So how did it end up taking me this long to do so?

Once Lost Judgment came out, I learned that it contained spoilers for Yakuza: Like a Dragon. Because of that, I decided to catch up on the Yakuza series first… which took me until the very end of last year. At that point, I was ready to continue on with Gaiden and Infinite Wealth first.

But the winner of my last contest picked the game review prize and chose Lost Judgment, so it got priority over Infinite Wealth after all.

Like its predecessor, Lost Judgment is a spin-off of the Yakuza series starring an ex-lawyer-turned-private-detective named Yagami. This time, he’s hired to investigate a case of high school bullying in Yokohama but soon finds himself looking into a murder case as well.

It’s set after Yakuza: Like a Dragon, so yes, it unavoidably spoils a major plot point from near the end of that game, so I’d recommend playing Yakuza first if you intend to play them both.

One thing that stood out to me when I played Judgment was that its story is darker than those of the main Yakuza series. Yakuza games can have quite dark stories and be very emotional, but they rarely feel as heavy as Judgment did. The same is true here, as Lost Judgment deals with a lot of heavy, upsetting topics as Yagami begins to unravel the mystery.

It still balances that out with a plethora of a heartwarming and/or hilarious side content, however, so don’t worry about that. While I didn’t find Lost Judgment’s side cases as funny as the original’s, there were still a lot of great ones, along with some other fun side content (including interacting with cats, which is always a plus for me). It also has an entire separate type of side stories called “school stories,” in which Yagami investigates high school clubs that appear to be connected to illegal activity. The school stories introduce several new mini-games and are linked through their own overarching story that has a fun Holmes-versus-Moriarty parallel, and overall they ended up being one of the best additions.

(The school stories also involve the Keihin Gang, now back as the Neo Keihin Gang. Fortunately, they only came back as characters and didn’t bring their annoying gameplay mechanic with them.)

Lost Judgment largely plays a like a more polished, improved version of Judgment, but there are also a handful of gameplay additions. Parkour has been added in certain spots, although it’s used so infrequently it barely feels worth it. Stealth is another new mechanic, but I quickly grew to dread these sections. They gave me a new appreciation for the now-reduced tailing sections.

Another new mechanic lets you listen in on conversations around the city to learn about potential side cases. I loved this, because it really made it feel more like detective work. I only wish it had been used more often.

Meanwhile, the investigation sections felt reduced and most of the time came down to finding the specific areas to start a parkour section, which was a little disappointing. In some ways, Lost Judgment feels like more of a detective game than its predecessor, so I wish that had been carried through in investigation sections too.

Now when it comes to the story, I have mixed feelings. It lacks the immediate intensity and thrills of Judgment’s story, and I found I ultimately enjoyed Judgment’s story more. Some aspects of the writing are also… odd. One returning character seems to have lost all his character development from the previous game to be treated like comic relief instead. Part of the plot also hinges on a character acting against their own best interests.

Click for Lost Judgment spoilers
And by that I mean Ehara agreeing to the appeal. Even after he agrees, his plan is still to serve out his time and then reveal the truth about the murder afterwards. Since he didn’t intend to cooperate, the argument that he wanted to humiliate the court system further through the appeal falls flat. You can stretch your disbelief to come up with reasons, but ultimately it ends up feeling like Ehara agreed to the appeal because the plot needed him to.

On the other hand, the story is filled with great moments, the mystery is the sort you really want to sit down and think about to try to put the pieces together even as the characters do, and the main antagonist is arguably the best in the entire series. No one else gets fans sitting down to debate in quite the same way.

My thoughts on the story really went up and down as I played. The early parts feel even slower than usual for the series, but once it got going, I was fully invested. Then it hit some of those snags I mentioned, and my opinion started to go downhill – yet the final hours were incredible enough that once I took some time to think about it, I realized my overall feelings toward the game had ended up much more positive again.

Click for major Lost Judgment spoilers
I also loved how there were several points where Yagami and Kuwana worked together after the reveal. It really fit with his nature as a morally gray antagonist. Plus I’m just a sucker for the hero and villain teaming up.

I will say I wish they had gone into depth with Yagami’s arguments a bit more. Fans joke about Yagami’s answer to everything being “Sawa-sensei,” but its major problem is that it starts to feel like if Sawa hadn’t died, he wouldn’t oppose Kuwana. Which isn’t what the game is going for; it clearly intends Yagami to be against vigilantism. If he had spent more time, especially in the later scenes, arguing against Kuwana’s methods for reasons beyond one innocent person dying, I think it would have been a lot stronger.

Also, I was amazed that Kuwana actually got to walk away. They almost never do that; sympathetic main antagonists always either sacrifice themselves or get killed in the eleventh hour by another villain. Kuwana actually walking away is wild, but also very fitting.

It has a top-notch soundtrack, too. Both the final boss theme and the major secondary antagonist’s theme are incredible.

Despite my mixed feelings about Lost Judgment’s DLC, I did end up buying it, since I wanted to get the Kaito Files and the season pass was on sale for only a little bit more. I enjoyed the extra content, although I still dislike the decision to include side cases as day-one DLC. That stuff should have just been in the main game.

Anyway, I haven’t played the Kaito Files yet – I’m planning to take a break for some of my October spooky games and then get back to that afterwards – but having finished the main game, I’m happy I finally played Lost Judgment.

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