Promise Mascot Agency

It speaks to the quality of the writing how much I ended up loving Pinky, a Mascot styled after the severed pinky finger of a Yakuza. The same goes for pretty much all of the very silly Mascots, as well as many of the supporting cast and of course the main character Michi. The voice acting is also all around fantastic, but Pinky's VA especially really killed it! Gameplay is pretty chill all around, explore and island full of stuff to collect and some minigames to play. There's technically speaking a timer ticking down, which can be stressful for some people, but it's so slow and you can regularly stock up your timer that it was pretty much a non-issue on normal difficulty. For those that really don't want to deal with that though, I saw that you can change the timer in the accessability options :) (To-Fu, my beloved <3)

Loved driving around in the little truck!! It's very much a collect-a-thon but the characters are cute and the voice acting is great. I loved the juxtaposition of the cosy Yakuza theme. The end of the game does drag a bit as the characters info dump a lot of the details you might have missed (or forgotten) when doing all the side quests but despite that, the story is still fairly solid and the characters are loveable. I would have loved some post-game quests to do. Pinkie looks gross as heck, but don't let that put you off. She grows on you, trust me!

Saw this game mentioned in YT by a reviewer calling it interesting and unique and tried it. Driving on the open-world was fun as heck, esp with upgrades that allows your truck do some some funky ♥♥♥♥. Characters are unique and memorable, the jankiness contributes to the charm. The card-game seems fun but it's just a stat-check, easy as heck once you get them upgraded to the point mascots needing help becomes a slog. There's not much reward in engaging with it, you just get extra money and that's it - which brings me to the next point. I wish there were more ways to use up money. Another problem is with the early game main quest where we need to deposit money regularly. I actually game over-ed a few times because I started the main quest too early without a good source of income yet. Starting over the day before was a pain in the ass so I just CE and gave myself 150k yen to buy myself time. Not long after I was able to sustain it regularly. Overall good indie game, would rec for the story and gameplay.

Incredible little game. Loved the story. Love the diversity of the VA's Having a british-japanese accented character was really unique, I wish more games/anime did that.

This game is a work of art. Pinky is best girl. Although the game is about mascots no one is a caricature and even the side npcs are well fleshed out. I really enjoyed the small Japan town setting and Showa stylizations. 9/10

10/10, would trust Pinky to disappear my enemies any day. In all seriousness, the core gameplay loop is great casual fun, the truck mechanics are pretty satisfying, especially the generous gliding and boosting mechanics. There are lots of little touches I really appreciate (like disabling collision detection on tall trees - everything else has it by default, but it woul be a pain to glide around the mountains if they didn't, or that gliding passively regens your boost, so you can fly pretty much anywhere). The characters are highly eccentric but quite likeable. It's also got a surprisingly good story, one that has plenty of intrigue and suspense while also being realistic about the yakuza and not excessively glorifying them. Give it a shot!

After the delightful Paradise Killer, I was worried that the studio couldn't possibly have another banger up their sleeves. And boy how I was proven wrong. Promise Mascot Agency is a divine blending of open world exploration, narrative story, and bizarre worldbuilding. The way that the world grows around you mirrors the story and YOU start feeling attached to the characters and the success of the island in a way that few games have managed to pull off. Sometimes it's just great to drive around, sending mascots off for events, chilling to the sublime soundtrack. Oh, a thing over here... let's go check it out.