Promise Mascot Agency review

Once a respected member of the Shimazu clan, it’s time for the exiled Michi to make amends in the town of Kaso-Machi, a place where ex-yakuza like him are supposedly struck down by a curse. Before that happens, however, he’s determined to make amends, reviving the local mascot agency and making it profitable so that he can replace the money he lost and protect his former clan. And so begins Promise Mascot Agency, the latest game from Kaizen Game Works, the creators of Paradise Killer.

After starting Promise Mascot Agency, it won’t take long for you to realise that it’s quite the unique experience. Essentially an open-world adventure game, there’s no travelling on foot here for one; a small, battered truck is your sole means of exploration, and you’ll upgrade it over time so that it can eventually even fly. Needless to say, you’ll soon grow attached to this little truck, as well as Pinky, the mascot at the helm of the Promise Mascot Agency who travels with you pretty much everywhere.

As soon as you arrive in Kaso-Machi, it’s clear that it’s a place that has seen better days. And so, if you want to achieve your goal of making the Promise Mascot Agency a success and raking in the dough, you’re going to want to make it more attractive to visitors. What’s more, as you explore the town, meeting its eclectic mix of locals, there’s a good chance you’ll soon find it feeling like your true home, providing even more impetus for you to restore it to its former glory.

It’s just a shame that it’s a process mostly achieved by simply collecting things. Earning money is your primary concern here, and there are many ways to do that. One of them is to simply drive around and look for discarded piles of coins on the floor. And after meeting a certain NPC, you can also smash into piles of trash to clean them up and earn a monetary reward. Other activities to engage in out in the open world, such as destroying boards and cleansing sins provide other rewards, such as increasing your number of fans. Ultimately, they all feed into your other primary method of gaining money: managing your mascot agency.

At any time you can pull up a list of jobs available, and then easily assign the mascots you’ve employed to them. There are things to consider: each job requires a set amount of stamina, for example, and so a mascot that’s completed another job recently might not be a good fit. Each job is also suited to mascots with certain personalities. You generally don’t need to worry about things too much, though; providing you can send a mascot on a job, there’s a good chance it will be completed.

In any case, you can increase the chances of a mascot’s success by sending them off to a job along with a hero item. These even have a chance to restore their stamina after a job, too. And if a mascot still encounters some trouble, you can step in to help. An amusing scene will play out, demonstrating their unfortunate predicament, and then a basic card battle will begin. With a limited number of actions available, you’ll need to select the best hero cards from a random selection of those you own in order to deplete the health bar of the problem you’ve encountered. Complete your task and the job will be completed without a hiccup. Fail, and the job won’t prove to be quite as fruitful.

On the whole, though, helping your mascots is very easy. And as you play the game, helping the locals with their quests and exploring, you’ll upgrade your Hero cards, making failure truly rare. The knock-on effect of this is that it makes the times you need to help your mascots simply a hindrance, which isn’t ideal at all.

Still, while the core gameplay of Promise Mascot Agency revolves around repeating simple tasks and collecting things, it still somehow remains compelling for the most part. It’s genuinely fun driving around its world, especially once you’ve unlocked upgrades such as being able to fire Pinky at collectibles to grab them. It’s also the type of game that keeps adding new elements to keep you on your, such as being able to manage mascot agencies outside of Kaso-Machi that bring in a daily income, and having to send money to the Shimazu clan to keep its enemies at bay.

The bottom line is this: Promise Mascot Agency isn’t a game for everyone. Those who don’t like scouring maps for items likely won’t get on with it even if they’re drawn in by its premise. And for those who do enjoy driving around, while its mascot agency shenanigans initially seem fun, they soon become nothing more than a hindrance. Thanks to its kooky nature, intriguing narrative and utterly outrageous characters, though, some players will absolutely love Promise Mascot Agency despite its flaws.