Gaiden is not a bad game but it's honestly the most mediocre game in the series. The story doesn't really do anything cool or interesting enough that makes you go ohhh so that's why kiryu was in 7. The side content also feels lacking it's not bad but sub stories being marked and you not just stumbling into them removes a lot of charm. To be fair it has probably the best arena so far but considering they are usually not very good dosen't mean too much. The Agent style is cool i guess but not good. The dragon style will work better in most cases but considering if you upgrade enough you'll two shot like every grunt both feel lacking. Its really easy to just kill bosses before they do stuff too even though you have like 3 heat moves you can actually use on bosses. The final boss is also super lame it should've been Kiryus perspective of the Ichiban fight in 7. The ending was nice its the only part of the story that actually hit me but with this game making the ending of 6 feel more and more pointless i just feel frustrated that we got yet another kiryu game.

To sum it up to me Gaiden feels like a lacking game to me made for people that don't like the ichiban rpg direction and dosen't even come close to the fun and content lost judgment offered making it. Please let my man kiryu rest please use someone else if you want to keep going in the brawling direction KAITO AND ALL OF KIRYUS FRIENDS (minus my dude akiyama i miss him...) ARE LITREALLY IN THIS GAME