You probably won’t be surprised to hear this.
When it comes to promise a mascot agency, it’s a game about a psychotic finger mascot and a man with a broom, trying to unlock the secrets of the Yakuza in a cursed, devastated town. case.
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After playing the first few hours of the game that developer Kaizen Game Works released as a demo before it was released, I felt it would be. Now, I’ve run through the whole thing on a Kei truck with its wings sprouted towards the end, so I can clearly tell you that it’s true. Strangeness is a thingand if you’re going to fall in love with this indie mascot management game, it’s the part that seduces you. You started spitting junk everywhere, like you were an evil vending machine.
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There are a few points when pretending that PMA is normal. The set up of that story (aside from spinning around a crew featuring a grizzling finger mascot smoking a cigar forever) is very serious and surprisingly lore. The main character, Michugawara – called the admin for being good at cleaning – is an important cog in the Shimizu family and, along with his vows brother Tokihira, is tasked with delivering a large amount of cash to another Yakuza Syndicate as part of a deal to ensure peace forever and ever between three of Japan’s biggest collaborations.
Naturally, we can’t have great things, so that works. Mishi’s boss, Matriel Shimaz, killing him to save his skin, instead sly ships him to the box to make money through a secret business controlled by a family that no one knows. It is the abolished mascot agency of the promising mascot agency, the country town of Casomachi, when Michi repeats it again with the aforementioned non-cigar smoking psychofinger-Pinky.
From here you are in the mascot management business. Your job is to build an agency by establishing the talent of your mascots and chatting with people who know the town locations and businesses that may want to hire them for events, and ensuring that those jobs are accomplished. Various mascots are suitable for different jobs depending on their characteristics. Events at the restaurant are a good place to send food-themed mascots, like cat-like matcha rolls. Meanwhile, events at the cemetery are ideal places to send mascots in the shape of a funeral. However, if you need money, you can send it anywhere as long as you have enough stamina.
If they leave, things may not go well. At that point, you’ll get an alert to respond via the job menu of a very simple mascot, although the game’s initials are intimidating, in fact. You usually have at least a few times to respond in-game, and when you do, you are frothed into the live stream of events. There, after a quick intro, seeing a mascot host vaguely reminded of Michael McIntyre (Read: A slightly annoying hack), he says, “Top-class love absolutely has it *******.” It is drafted to save the mascot by expanding the “Mascot Hero Card” and exhausting the health bar of the problem/hostile entities. If you succeed, you get a full reward for the job, and if you fail, you can simply get a base rate.
So, you do the basic cycle on the management side, but once you explore the Casomachi and grow your agency, you’ll have a lot of extra layers added to the mix, keeping your toes pretty enthusiastic, assuming you’re trying to increase complexity and maximize revenue. It certainly gives you the driving force for the game to do right out of the gate. In addition to paying your own bills regularly, you must visit the ATM and send cash to Matriark Shimazu to help you stay one step ahead of the ow Yakuza Knife Yakuza Knife.
The result is that your business running has a pretty strong sense of urgency, especially when you have your feet under you. You spend your money and grow and keep your boss alive as quickly as you earn it. At that stage, the game’s management side may feel a bit more atmosphere along with the other side of the Promise Mascot Agency. Explore the sleepy, stylishly devastated towns of Kasomachi and the generally rather mountainous environment of Michi and Pinky Kaytruck.
It’s about exploring, not just exceeding the goals of the main story. Michi and Pinky unravel the mysteries surrounding the legendary yakuza-killing curse of Kaso Machi and the misuse of the rejuvenating fund that has been recognized by the comically corrupt mayor’s government. They also turn off tasks to discover a variety of items and help the agency run. Some townspeople use it as mascot hero cards. You can then upgrade by completing the Shining Quest. This usually involves running around towns where you collect five or six pickups of a particular item (such as a new type of mascot item).
To persuade them to join the mascot, you need to negotiate with them. As I proceeded, I found that actually offering a good package from the gate seems like paying a dividend. Lowering them won’t cut it completely. Welcome to the real world, kids.
All mascots have statistics such as popularity, motivation, and stamina. Sending mascots with more work will naturally boost these, but making them happier from the start means starting a further journey along the path. Plus, offering perks like holidays proved to be quite suitable for the ideal cadence of the game. Rather than being left on the sidelines until they recover, the mascot is taking a 24-hour break that actually boosts the stamina recharge.
However, there is this. Above all, you’ll want to treat your staff band well because of its strange and wonderful personality. There’s a lovely amount of variety in that it’s all put together by the cast of the mascot, Kaizen and their collaborators. All of these are tailored to the diverse personality of each mascot, but they all unfold roughly around you and help the mascot achieve its life-improving goals.
For example, my favorite mascot, Karoushi, has a terrifying black cowl with a face that lives in a haunted tunnel – serves as a burnout paraphor and speaks only in the epic all-talk passages that belong to Italo Calvino’s novel. Their story was to overcome the trauma of working so hard and help some locals form a union.
To match the game’s theme of keeping the promise to help people achieve their dreams, most of the towns you meet have an arc like this through their town quests. Kaso Machi is an interesting place to explore, with a devastated country feel and a bit of cartoonish eerieness, and a bit of cartoonish eerieness in the form of a ghostly tunnel-like place.
Like mascots, you can say that almost every realm and person pays a lot of thought and attention to shaping them and their backstory. Furthermore, Kaizen did a good job ensuring that the town would be visually transformed to renovate various neglected areas to establish a new mascot event spot.
One small hang-up is that the game’s map shows where by default you can find all the useful items and people in the world. This makes sense from a major character/landmark perspective, but for example, trekking to one of the islands surrounding Kasomachi will give you a bit of a sting from the exploration knowing you will be found accurately. 1 item. You still enjoy revealing what exactly the item is, but the mystery elements are a bit diluted.
Another aspect that I didn’t mechanically fascinate was the mini-game that brought mascot products to various shops in town. Essentially, when you find a product item in the world, it will be added as a toy to a giant arcade claw machine around the map. You will then need to pick it up using painful, slow nails to distribute the cargo.
It’s a cool concept that in theory fits perfectly with the game’s theme, but in reality, I was the most monotonous element of gameplay. Meanwhile, subcontractor mascots in other cities – the third member of PMA’s “Big Bucks Come Here” trio – will be far more stripped. You buy access to the place, find mascot business cards and make them people, and the boom is a decent chunk of passive income.
There are some points throughout the game. There, there is a lot to do there, from doing a lot to do, and from having a constant need for that money, but there is far more money than what you spend it on. By that point, the main story is kicking high gear so it’s nice that you don’t have to worry about shattering that much.
As for that main story, how much you enjoy it depends on what I mentioned first. It helps to be interested in Yakuza stories that are not afraid to be a bit ridiculous, but the strangeness is thing It will probably determine where PMA will land on the spectral of the great game from OK for you. For some, the array of truly interesting and moving moments surrounding everything, from minor interactions to major plot beats, makes this appropriate cult classic material. For others, the quirkyness of your face may not match your sense of humor, or it may leave their verdict in the realm of fines.
Mascot agency is a fun time. It’s so attractive that it doesn’t fall into the trap that’s as dry as Michi’s ideal Saturday night.
Promise Mascot Agency was released on April 10th for PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, Microsoft Windows, Xbox Series X, and Series S. This review was written using PC code provided by the developer.