Promise Mascot Agency PC review — A finger(tip) on the pulse

I don’t care for management-style games for the most part. So when I realised that Kaizen Game Works’ follow-up to its absolutely stellar Paradise Killer would partially be one, I was a bit trepidatious. However, I still trusted that the end result would be well worth it, as few devs do open worlds and zany characters better. It seems that faith was very well-founded, as Promise Mascot Agency is another dazzling game with a ridiculous amount of character and heart that I greatly enjoyed.

You play as a yakuza named Michizane, who has to travel to the small Japanese town of Kaso-machi after losing 12 billion yen to an incredibly poor lapse of judgment on the part of both him and his yakuza family. The family matriarch has commanded him to make the money back by running a mascot agency, which is a particularly unhinged plot set-up. Michi travels to a love hotel and meets up with Pinky, a sentient severed fingertip mascot, to get things set up and start sending money back to the family.

When I say that Pinky is a severed fingertip mascot, I don’t mean that she wears a severed fingertip costume. All of the mascots in Promise Mascot Agency are actually what they appear to be and are never just people in suits. The cast of characters here is insane, from a living grave marker to an eel with exposed bones and organs in his chest. I’ve never seen such an absolutely bonkers cast in one place before, so this game even gives Paradise Killer a run for its money in that regard.

The main gameplay focus is on driving around to recruit new mascots and find job opportunities to send them on. Each mascot can be levelled up by having them do jobs, increasing their stamina, popularity, or motivation. When out on jobs, they can end up screwing it up, so you’ll need to use the game’s Hero Cards to stop mascots from losing out on money and fans acquired on the job. These cards are purchased or obtained via the game’s many side quests.

As for using the cards, the aspects that cause the mascots to screw up have a health bar and cards bring it down. Each hero does damage to various kinds of obstacles. It’s more in-depth than it needs to be, which is unfortunate in the sense that the game isn’t challenging on this front, even if it is possible to lose solely because of the cards that get shuffled into your deck. You get money from jobs, but you can also set up daily passive income opportunities by selling merchandise that you’ll get from crane games.

Running the agency costs money too, so you’ll need to pay your daily bills and, in the mid-game, send cash off to your family to keep them safe. But the real meat of Promise Mascot Agency is exploring its open world. You control Michi as he drives around in his old truck and grabs collectibles and the like. The world feels lived-in and is packed with personality, so exploring is a joy. You’ll even find upgrades for the car that are abnormal, such as giving it wings that let you fly around. Much like with Paradise Killer, I felt compelled to do almost everything, which took me about 20 hours, making the game’s price tag more than worth it.

But there’s a big problem. In the end, the money just doesn’t matter. It’s incredibly easy to start making so much money that you never need to worry and, after a while, you’ll be able to buy absolutely everything. The whole debt repayment angle is really just a narrative hook, so the central focus of making cash and growing the business eventually became a thing I did just because I enjoyed playing the game so much. Also, the game seemed like it could actually get kind of dicey, at first, as my first night ended up with me going into the red. I wish there was actually some real pressure that made it so you really needed to make serious cash and spend it wisely.

I love Promise Mascot Agency, but it’s the sort of game that needs to be played for the love of its world, exploration, and story. The story itself is pretty terrific, with lots of voiced cutscenes and excellent dialogue (Pinky is an especially wonderful character that is voiced to perfection.) There’s a central mystery to Kaso-machi that you’ll learn about as you progress the story by going to icons and watching visual novel-esque cutscenes play out, which really kept me engaged (even if I was able to figure out one of the biggest twists literally in the first five minutes, surprisingly.)

If all of that sounds good to you, you’d be doing yourself a disservice by not picking this game up, but anyone who actually wants a real management sim will find those elements underwhelming. With some better stakes and more of a follow-through, Promise Mascot Agency would have been pretty perfect. Regardless, this is a rich, colourful experience that’s well worth it just for its world and story elements.

Check out our previous review:

Rusty Rabbit PC review — “Rusty” is in the movement and game design |