Promise Mascot Company has the vitality of a long-forgotten, experimental PS2 sport which will have solely been performed by 12 folks, however these 12 folks would defend with their lives. Its mixture of story and design is unorthodox to say the least, however by some means, this open world crime drama administration sim makes all of it work.
You play the function of Michizane Sugawara, a yakuza lieutenant who’s exiled after an important inter-clan transaction goes pear-shaped. Together with his household in hassle, his loss of life is faked and he is despatched to Kaso-Machi, an underfunded backwater city that is residence to the household’s closing hope — a mascot company. With a view to redeem himself and repay the large monetary loss, Michi should restore the company, make some money, and hold his yakuza household afloat. Two different fast issues: the city has a curse that kills any yakuza males that enter it; and on this world, mascots will not be folks in costumes — they’re sentient beings.
Very similar to Paradise Killer — the developer’s earlier sport — quite a lot of this data is front-loaded, and it may be so much to take onboard. Nonetheless, when you wrap your head round all of it, there is a complicated and well-told crime drama story to unravel over the course of about 20 hours.
In that point, you will have loads to do. After you are previous the prologue and preliminary tutorial, you are free to discover the surprisingly giant open world of Kaso-Machi. The island city, constructed across the foot of a mountain, is filled with characters to fulfill, duties to finish, and crucially, mascots to recruit. Ever-bound to your trusty pick-up truck, you may drive the size and breadth of the city many occasions as you comply with the story and discover the run-down setting, trying to find collectibles and upgrades.
The whole lot you do feeds again into the titular company; cleansing shrines across the city gives you with buffs that enhance incrementally, whereas smashing into pink trash luggage or indicators for the corrupt mayor’s electoral marketing campaign will earn you extra followers. As you progress, the island populates with new mascots to seek out and characters to fulfill, a few of which can give you extra potential jobs on your company.
So, there’s loads to maintain you busy within the open world, however what in regards to the company itself? To begin earning money, it’s essential recruit mascots after which ship them out on jobs. These jobs are broadly passive, and can run within the background in line with the in-game time. Nonetheless, your mascots will usually run into issues, and also you’re inspired to assist them which, if you happen to do, results in a minigame wherein you do battle in opposition to the difficulty — getting caught in a door, or knocking over a pile of containers, for instance. Utilizing various hero playing cards you accumulate all through the sport, you whittle down a well being bar in a quite simple fight state of affairs. It is fairly amusing and finally turns into a little bit harder, however finally these sequences develop fairly repetitive.
Whether or not you select to interact with these or not, your mascots will full their jobs and usher in some money. Whenever you recruit a mascot, it’s essential sweeten the cope with varied perks, like a bigger reduce of income, a bonus, or day without work after a sure variety of jobs. The higher the perks you select, the happier and extra motivated they will be. These additionally have an effect on the sum of money you usher in, which is essential since you’ll use it to speculate not solely in upgrades on your company, but additionally redeveloping key components of the city, in flip resulting in extra work on your mascots and extra avenues for making a revenue.
On paper, quite a lot of this sounds prefer it does not match collectively, however in follow it really works somewhat properly. The circulate of sending out mascots to work, talking with the townsfolk, buying upgrades, and exploring the island is compelling; seeing your funds steadily develop is satisfying, and watching your affect in town and the company as you reinvest gives a rewarding sense of development.
There’s all the time one thing new to work in direction of. Possibly it is the sub-contracting, the place you purchase out-of-town companies and make use of mascots to characterize them, incomes you passive earnings. It could possibly be throwing cash at redeveloping key components of Kaso-Machi, just like the marina or recycling centre, once more rewarding you over time. Ultimately you should utilize crane video games dotted across the city to realize merchandise, which might then be bought in varied locations for but extra profiteering. After which there’s the story, which saved us hooked as we slowly peeled again its many layers.
Mysterious glowing foxes can be operating across the open world, and if you happen to hit them, you may unlock upgrades on your truck, starting from elevated velocity to a much bigger enhance bar, and even the power to glide by the air. These extras fill out the traversal properly and mean you can attain extra secluded components of the map. When it comes to management, there is a diploma of awkwardness in regards to the driving; it is troublesome to be very exact, particularly once you go off-road.
Mainly all the assorted mechanics and options we have described have been finished earlier than many occasions, in some instances higher, however Promise Mascot Company combines them in such a manner that all of it feels fairly recent. Once more, the best way it meters out new concepts, and drip-feeds story particulars from almost all character interactions, means your time is never wasted, giving the sport a pleasant momentum.
Conclusion
Regardless of its disparate parts you’ve got most likely seen earlier than, you’ve got by no means performed a sport fairly like Promise Mascot Company, a sport that smashes collectively against the law drama story, administration sim mechanics, and open world exploration. Whereas there are some tough edges and repetitive features, this hangs collectively due to an engrossing story, compelling development, and weird however likeable characters. Better than the sum of its components, this distinctive sport has cult hit written throughout it.
