Promise Mascot Company has the power of a long-forgotten, experimental PS2 recreation 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 a significant inter-clan transaction goes pear-shaped. Together with his household in hassle, his demise is faked and he is despatched to Kaso-Machi, an underfunded backwater city that is residence to the household’s remaining hope — a mascot company. In an effort 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 should not folks in costumes — they’re sentient beings.
Very like Paradise Killer — the developer’s earlier recreation — loads of this info 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 could have a lot 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 satisfy, 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 occasions as you comply with the story and discover the run-down setting, looking for 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 baggage 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 satisfy, a few of which can offer you extra potential jobs to your company.
So, there’s a lot to maintain you busy within the open world, however what concerning the company itself? To start out being profitable, it’s essential to 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 typically run into issues, and also you’re inspired to assist them which, if you happen to do, results in a minigame during which you do battle towards the problem — getting caught in a door, or knocking over a pile of containers, for instance. Utilizing quite a lot of 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 somewhat harder, however in the end 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. If you recruit a mascot, it’s essential to sweeten the cope with numerous perks, like a bigger lower of earnings, a bonus, or day off 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 herald, which is essential since you’ll use it to speculate not solely in upgrades to your company, but in addition redeveloping key elements of the city, in flip resulting in extra work to your mascots and extra avenues for making a revenue.
On paper, loads of this sounds prefer it does not match collectively, however in follow it really works reasonably nicely. The stream of sending out mascots to work, talking with the townsfolk, buying upgrades, and exploring the island is compelling; seeing your funds regularly 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 direction of. Perhaps it is the sub-contracting, the place you purchase out-of-town companies and make use of mascots to signify them, incomes you passive earnings. It may very well be throwing cash at redeveloping key elements of Kaso-Machi, just like the marina or recycling centre, once more rewarding you over time. Finally you should utilize crane video games dotted across the city to achieve merchandise, which may then be offered in numerous 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 shall be operating across the open world, and if you happen to hit them, you will unlock upgrades to your truck, starting from elevated velocity to a much bigger increase bar, and even the flexibility to glide by means of the air. These extras fill out the traversal properly and can help you attain extra secluded elements of the map. When it comes to management, there is a diploma of awkwardness concerning the driving; it is troublesome to be very exact, particularly while you go off-road.
Principally all the assorted mechanics and options we have described have been completed earlier than many occasions, in some circumstances higher, however Promise Mascot Company combines them in such a method that all of it feels fairly recent. Once more, the way in which it meters out new concepts, and drip-feeds story particulars from almost all character interactions, means your time isn’t 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 recreation fairly like Promise Mascot Company, a recreation that smashes collectively a criminal offense drama story, administration sim mechanics, and open world exploration. Whereas there are some tough edges and repetitive elements, this hangs collectively due to an engrossing story, compelling development, and strange however likeable characters. Better than the sum of its elements, this distinctive recreation has cult hit written throughout it.
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