Promise Mascot Agency

tl;dr version Reasons to play this game: -Great writing that balances absurdism and wholesomeness into surprising and compelling story. -Mellow vibes of driving around an open world that's too small and light to get exhausting. -You enjoy Japanese culture references. Reasons to not play this game: -You want intense gameplay action. -You dislike low production values (there's very little 3D animation) Cool, now I'm gonna gush a bit. There's so many good ideas at play here, starting with the general absurdist tone. A world where mascots are sentient beings that live alongside humans is such a fun premise. It lets you bake in ridiculous characters like a giant piece of tofu that's permanently crying, but then also give them verisimilitude and arcs. The earnest bits do a good job at keeping the silliness in check, and the silliness keeps the many warm-hearted "help the small town" stories from being overly saccharine. The silliness also helps works magic for the gameplay, allowing for cartoon logic to simplify situations that would have been expensive and/or tedious to present realistically. So like, you don't walk around town, so no walk/run/stop/strafe/jump animations. You just drive your truck, which wouldn't work for most open world games because of all the places your truck could get stuck or flipped. But this truck engages in occasional cartoon logic. Saying too much would spoil the jokes, so I'll just say, It doesn't get stuck and it's very funny. I also have to shout out the open world for not being a tedious checklist. I'm generally exhausted by open world games, but this open world is small enough, and the activities are all relatively light and fun, so I ended up doing most of the "collect X things scattered across the island" quests. The only mediocre gameplay point is that the mascot rescue minigame isn't super engaging on its own. However, its narrative trappings are still very funny, and it's neat to see the heroes you recruit show up in your moment of need, so there's still a lot of redeeming value there. In conclusion, I like the characters, I like the world, and had a lot of fun driving though the world and doing minigames to help the characters.

This game is just fun. I like the characters, I like the dialogue, and I like the gameplay loop. Well worth the cost.

there is so much to do in this game, and the characters and open world are so vibrant and strange. never played anything quite like it.

Прикольная задумка, хорошая атмосфера и музыка, приятные покатушки. Только я, наверное, ожидал от игры сколько-нибудь серьезного симулятора доставщика или менеджмента, или песочницы, чего угодно, но не открытого-юбисофт-мира с перебивками на визуальную новеллу. Первое не категорически плохо сделано, но мотаться по отметкам на карте я считаю своей дурной привычкой, поэтому и часов в игре так много. Второе просто не моё. Я только поначалу читал диалоги. И да, они иногда забавные, но я всё равно быстро решил, что не нахожу их и сюжет достаточно интересными. В итоге мне самому обидно ставить довольно-таки любопытной инди-игре палец вниз. У нее хватает заслуженно положительных отзывов, но сам я о проведенном времени жалею. Точно так же как буду жалеть о рано или поздно еще одной купленной юби-помойке.

Bizarre and ridiculous, just as expected from the descriptions. I'd recommend it to anyone who thinks it sounds interesting and doesn't expect anything super deep. It feels like a PS2 game in a good way. The story was entertaining enough and a suitable length (~18h to complete main story for me). LOVED the truck upgrades. Nothing's so complicated that you can't just keep moving and progressing even if you skipped some text or spaced out during explanations (like me playing this struggling with a flu). The game also has some nice usability options, like not having to hold buttons down for a long time for driving, option to turn off timers, and a clearer font.

Best Kazuma Kiryu side quest ever!