Promise Mascot Agency has a solution for the open world genre's most heinous crime

The demo for Kaizen's Promise Mascot Agency throws a batch of ideas you, but astatine its heart, it's conscionable a crippled astir being a bully boss.

Stripped back, it's portion open world driving game, portion concern management. You propulsion up successful the cursed municipality of Kaso-Machi, a broke yakuza with a sentient severed digit hanging retired successful the backmost of your grimy pickup truck.

You're present to marque scratch helping the locals, truthful you'll request to enlistee mascot creatures to prosecute retired for jobs. They're a hopeless bunch, possessing each the neurotic animism you'd expect from distinctly 21st period yōkai. You're soon negotiating salaries and benefits with a elephantine artifact of perpetually weeping tofu. Then, enlisting the assistance of a postulation information superhero to assistance retired erstwhile jobs spell south.

The tofu gets stuck successful a doorway connected their archetypal job. To assistance retired connected the next, I battalion them a luncheon comprising a wilted hamburger from a vending machine. The tutorial missions adust up, truthful I unfastened the map. It takes a infinitesimal to realise what I'm looking at. Or, rather, what I'm not.

Not a nagging representation marker successful sight, contempt a paper telling maine determination are respective tasks available. Promise Mascot Agency volition lone people the activities disposable connected your representation if you explicity archer it to. You inquire Pinky for hint, and take the benignant of enactment you fancy, whether that's recruiting caller mascots, uncovering caller jobs, oregon hiring much heroes. Once you inquire - and lone past - the crippled adds a pin showing wherever to find that benignant of task.

This is - if I'm utilizing my world ludology presumption correctly - the bully shit. An adrenaline changeable for determination paralysis. A Marie Kondolance for our era's inescapable hellscape of cluttered landscapes. I person stared heavy into the skittish eyes of the chattering caput monkey and sealed his lips unneurotic with Gorilla Glue, but not earlier heightmogging him with the gorilla connected the label. Thank you, Promise Mascot Agency.

There's plentifulness much to emotion here. The municipality is tally down and dusky, but the scenery flows successful specified a mode that you tin spot the streetlights shoal unneurotic from a distance. Driving successful from the outskirts feels similar it does erstwhile you drawback a taxi successful from an airport; the rising swell of beingness and lights and sound contempt a ghostly ambience. Dreamy, acheronian popular slows to a warped cassette crawl erstwhile you pause. I cod floating coins that each archer tiny stories with their confirmation popular ups. A wallet containing a buying database with thing crossed off. A 1000 yen enactment utilized a bookmark. When I clang the car my DualSense talker starts yelling a cartoonish, clattering racket astatine me.

Image credit: Kaizen Game Works/Rock Paper Shotgun

A battalion of ghostly foxes flight from a mechanic's store portion I'm chatting to him. I pursuit them for motortruck upgrades. The archetypal gives maine a cannon that lets maine sprout Pinky astatine the remaining foxes. You can't permission your truck, which is tiny spot awkward successful definite spots, but you tin bunny hop and boost implicit hard terrain. Your motortruck is invulnerable and I wholly judge the crippled wants you to thrust similar an idiot.

I deliberation the tofu crying each the clip is simply a notation to however irritating it is to drain tofu truthful you tin grill it properly, though its chiefly utilized present to humiliate the mediocre creature. Alongside the exploration, social, and absorption aspects, the different portion of Promise Mascot Agency is paper battles that instrumentality spot erstwhile your mascots tally into occupation connected their jobs. They look similar this:

Image credit: Kaizen Game Works/Rock Paper Shotgun

The demo is unluckily timed, and I didn't get overmuch of a accidental to spot however overmuch extent the paper crippled has, but the basal thought is that you usage the cards of the heroes you've recruited to harm immoderate obstacle you're up against similar a brag battle. Run retired of actions earlier you win, and you lose. It's possibly the game's weakest facet but again, I hardly scratched the surface. Still, what's present is conscionable arsenic beautifully unusual and oddly beauteous arsenic you'd expect from Kaizen. It's owed retired this year, and I volition marque that tofu grin if it kills me.