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Promise Mascot Agency involves a strange concept for a game. It’s an open world management game set in a world where mascots are sentient creatures, not people in suits. You’re a yakuza seeking redemption. And somewhere along the way you must save a rural town from its slow decay. It’s a concept that immediately grabbed me when it was announced, and I was excited to get my hands on it.

Michi is a yakuza banished to the small town of Kaso-Machi after he loses 12 billion yen in a deal gone wrong. There, he must raise the lost money by reviving an old agency for mascots, staffed only by Pinky, a murderously adorable mascot in the shape of a severed finger. However, if he doesn’t complete his task quickly enough, the curse of the town will claim his life.

Initially, it may be difficult to grasp exactly what Promise Mascot Agency is. Fortunately, there’s an obvious answer in the protagonist himself. Michi is voiced by Takaya Kuroda, who you might know best as a different video game yakuza: Kazuma Kiryu. It’s an appropriate voice, because if you’ve lost days to any of the Yakuza franchise’s management side games, you’ll have a rough idea of what to expect here. Most of the management aspects of Promise Mascot Agency echo those seen in the cabaret club or real estate management of Yakuza 0 or the Ichiban Holdings side story in Yakuza: Like a Dragon.

Here’s how it works. You drive your little kei truck around the town, finding unemployed mascots and offering them contracts. Once hired, mascots can be sent on jobs with local businesses. You can then use the money to invest in improvements to the agency, which brings in more money and fans. You can also use your money to invest in the town itself, causing business to pick up, creating more work for you. You also need to send money back to your matriarch as often as possible, to prevent the debt collectors showing up and breaking everyone’s kneecaps. Also, occasionally you have political debates as Pinky attempts to defeat the town’s corrupt mayor in the election.

Despite the persistent time limit presented by the family’s debt, Promise Mascot Agency is a surprisingly chill game. Most of your time is spent cruising around town, picking up contracts, mascots and collectibles. It’s strangely meditative, and easy to lose hours to its gameplay loop. Its freeform nature also reminded me of the previous game from developer Kaizen Game Works, Paradise Killer. Just like that game turned a murder mystery into a relaxing wander around an island outside the bounds of reality, they’ve done the same here with a management sim and a run-down town in rural Japan.

While Promise Mascot Agency doesn’t lean as hard into the vaporwave aesthetics of Paradise Killer, elements of that game have snuck in. The game’s persistent VHS filter and light city pop inspired soundtrack are obvious parallels for a start. But the character designs also manage to evoke the surreal residents of Paradise Island 24, even with the influence of former Capcom and Tango Gameworks designer Ikumi Nakamura.

However, it does still manage to carve out its own space within this. Unlike Paradise Killer, Promise Mascot Agency is a lot more grounded in reality. This may be a world where you can bump into a walking tofu block or a vampire made of shaved ice, but their stories are painfully real. Everyone in this town is suffering from government corruption and mismanagement of rejuvenation funds, something that you’re constantly working to combat. It maintains a dark sense of humor about it all, particularly with Pinky’s frequent asides about burying the mayor in a shallow grave. It’s definitely not a dour experience, as the cast is full of lovable oddballs always up to some kind of shenanigans.

Promise Mascot Agency isn’t going to appeal to everyone though. The gameplay leans a little heavily into repetition, with most of the management aspects amounting to selecting things from a menu. It’s a game that quickly fills up a task list for you and you spend a lot of time simply driving between those tasks. If you click with the setting and the humor, you’ll happily sink into the experience and go along for the ride. If you’re looking for more action or a more in-depth management experience, you’re unlikely to find it here.

Promise Mascot Agency is still a strange game. Its repetitive gameplay loop, limited management aspects and refusal to be serious at any point may be off-putting to some. But if you enjoy surreal humor and are seeking a cozy life sim with a vaguely threatening aura, you’ll be able to find a home in Kaso-Michi.

Promise Mascot Agency will release on April 10, 2025 for PC, Switch, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.

The post Review: Promise Mascot Agency Is a Charmingly Strange Management Game appeared first on Siliconera.

Former PlayStation president Shuhei Yoshida will be ing the cast of voice actors for Promise Mascot Agency, as revealed by the studio Kaizen Game Works. Other of the voice cast include Ayano Shibuya, Hidetaka "Swery" Suehiro, and Takaya Kuroda.

The voice cast for Promise Mascot Agency features a diverse range of Japanese actors and notable figures. Shuhei Yoshida, former President of Sony Worldwide Studios, is among the cast, playing a kappa mascot who loves games. He is ed by Deadly Premonition director “Swery,” who plays a priest. Ayako Shibuya (The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom) and Eri Saito (Chainsaw Man) voice major roles. Finally, the protagonist is voiced by Takaya Kuroda, best known as Kazuma Kiryu from the Yakuza/Like a Dragon series.

Promise Mascot Agency is an game about managing a mascot agency in a world where mascots are a living species. You play as a disgraced yakuza named Michi who is now trying to make a new life for himself with the assistance of a finger-shaped mascot named Pinky. The game will feature management sim mechanics, driving sections where you control a kei truck and visual novel storytelling. Promise Mascot Agency was developed by Kaizen Game Works, whose previous game was the surreal detective game Paradise Killer. Early development assistance came from Ikumi Nakamura, who helped give the game an authentic Japanese feel.

Shuhei Yoshida is an odd choice for a voice role in Promise Mascot Agency, as his background is mainly in management, not acting. However, Yoshida is a popular figure within the games industry and his presence is likely to be met with positive reception. He recently announced his retirement from Sony.

Promise Mascot Agency is set for release in early 2025 for the PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch and PC.

The post Shuhei Yoshida Is a Character in Promise Mascot Agency appeared first on Siliconera.

When it comes to story genres, there are few things I like more than murder mysteries and sweet romances. If you hand me a game that features one or both of these things, I'm in. If you show me an adventure game that features one or both, I will knock you out of the way to grab it. Show me an adventure game that's a murder mystery with retro-styled graphics, an insane and convoluted backstory, and a half-naked demon that's always flipping the bird at you, you'd have Paradise Killer. And yes, it's just as awesome as that last sentence.

Paradise Killer pits the player in the middle of an insane alternate universe with insane, over-the-top characters. The story behind the world of Paradise is convoluted at best, nonsensical at worst. Just whenever I thought I had a handle on what this world was all about, another twist was thrown my way. For example, Paradise is a utopia that exists in its own dimension of reality. It's ruled by a Council, and specific characters have very specific roles to play when it comes to creating and sustaining Paradise. The problem with Paradise is that even though the Council honors and worships gods, they expressly forbid anyone consorting with them. Doing so always leads to demonic corruption, which means Paradise has failed and must be expunged. With every new sequence of Paradise, the Council believes they are one step closer to perfection.

Are you still with me? Good, because now things are about to get really crazy.

The main character, Lady Love Dies, is Paradise's lone investigator, but she consorted with a god in the 13th Paradise and was subsequently exiled. However, now Paradise needs her skills more than ever. Someone murdered the entire Council, and while the remaining government of Paradise has a suspect, the Judge wants to make sure they do have the right person. It's up to Lady Love Dies, her personal computer Starlight, and her investigative skills to crack this case. Oh, and there's this demon who constantly appears and kind of gives you advice before laughing maniacally and poofing into thin air.

Starlight logs all notes from the investigation and will help guide Lady Love Dies to her next destination. Crossing the island will require solving puzzles and collecting items scattered all over the creation. It helps keep the investigation tedium fresh and always looking for other clues while exploring. That said, though, the investigation needs very little sprucing.

Even though you may not be able to access all parts of the island right away, it's completely up to you how to you want to conduct your investigation. There's no right or wrong order to talking to witnesses and other characters who might be in the know. You can follow up with characters at any time. You might do some backtracking, especially when characters' alibis seem to fall apart, but it's all part of the investigation experience. The more you talk to one character, maybe you'll learn a bit more about them or about another character. Or maybe they're tricking you into believing what they want you to believe. It wasn't long before I started taking my own notes to quickly reference witness testimony, rather than looking it up in Starlight every time.

When you're ready to name the murderer, Lady Love Dies will bring the person to stand trial and it's 100% up to Lady Love Dies (and you) to make the case against the culprit. Are you sure you have fully solved the mystery? Did you really find every last piece of evidence and pry out every bit of testimony? Even if you aren't a completionist, Paradise Killer will make you one by the end. Between that and the fact that it got me off of Animal Crossing: New Horizon for the first time in weeks, I really can't praise this thriller enough.

The post Paradise Killer Is an Unpredictable Thriller appeared first on Siliconera.