Promise Mascot Company has the vitality of a long-forgotten, experimental PS2 sport that will have solely been performed by 12 individuals, however these 12 individuals would defend with their lives. Its mixture of story and design is unorthodox to say the least, however in some way, this open world crime drama administration sim makes all of it work.
You play the position of Michizane Sugawara, a yakuza lieutenant who’s exiled after a significant inter-clan transaction goes pear-shaped. Along with his household in hassle, his loss of life is faked and he is despatched to Kaso-Machi, an underfunded backwater city that is house to the household’s ultimate hope — a mascot company. With a purpose to redeem himself and repay the big 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 usually are not individuals in costumes — they’re sentient beings.
Very like Paradise Killer — the developer’s earlier sport — a number of this info is front-loaded, and it may be rather a lot to take onboard. Nevertheless, 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 may have lots 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 full of characters to fulfill, duties to finish, and crucially, mascots to recruit. Ever-bound to your trusty pick-up truck, you will drive the size and breadth of the city many instances as you comply with the story and discover the run-down setting, looking for collectibles and upgrades.
Every thing you do feeds again into the titular company; cleansing shrines across the city gives you with buffs that improve 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 search out and characters to fulfill, a few of which is able to give you extra potential jobs on your company.
So, there’s lots to maintain you busy within the open world, however what in regards to the company itself? To start out getting cash, it is advisable 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. Nevertheless, your mascots will usually run into issues, and also you’re inspired to assist them which, should you do, results in a minigame through which you do battle towards the problem — getting caught in a door, or knocking over a pile of bins, for instance. Utilizing quite a few hero playing cards you accumulate all through the sport, you whittle down a well being bar in a quite simple fight situation. It is fairly amusing and finally turns into slightly more durable, 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 herald some money. While you recruit a mascot, it is advisable sweeten the cope with numerous perks, like a bigger reduce of income, a bonus, or break day 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 amount of cash you herald, which is essential since you’ll use it to speculate not solely in upgrades on your company, but in addition redeveloping key elements of the city, in flip resulting in extra work on your mascots and extra avenues for making a revenue.
On paper, a number of this sounds prefer it does not match collectively, however in follow it really works moderately properly. The circulation of sending out mascots to work, talking with the townsfolk, buying upgrades, and exploring the island is compelling; seeing your funds progressively develop is satisfying, and watching your affect in town and the company as you reinvest gives a rewarding sense of development.
There’s at all times one thing new to work in the direction of. Possibly it is the sub-contracting, the place you purchase out-of-town companies and make use of mascots to symbolize them, incomes you passive earnings. It might be throwing cash at redeveloping key elements of Kaso-Machi, just like the marina or recycling centre, once more rewarding you over time. Ultimately you need to use crane video games dotted across the city to realize merchandise, which might then be offered in numerous locations for but extra profiteering. After which there’s the story, which stored us hooked as we slowly peeled again its many layers.
Mysterious glowing foxes might be operating across the open world, and should you hit them, you will unlock upgrades on your truck, starting from elevated velocity to an even bigger increase bar, and even the power to glide by way of the air. These extras fill out the traversal properly and help you attain extra secluded elements of the map. When it comes to management, there is a diploma of awkwardness in regards to the driving; it is tough to be very exact, particularly once you go off-road.
Principally all the assorted mechanics and options we have described have been carried out earlier than many instances, in some circumstances 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 practically all character interactions, means your time isn’t wasted, giving the sport a pleasant momentum.
Conclusion
Regardless of its disparate components you’ve got in all probability 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 points, this hangs collectively due to an engrossing story, compelling development, and weird however likeable characters. Larger than the sum of its elements, this distinctive sport has cult hit written throughout it.
