If you’ve ever dreamed of running an agency that loans out supernatural mascots for events, while your assistant, who’s a sentient dismembered finger, does all the accounting, then do I have the game for you.
Promise Mascot Agency is what happens if you take a management minigame from Yakuza and blow it up into an entire game, and it’s utterly delightful. Despite its clear influences, it’s unlike anything else out there, and despite its off-the-wall story, it’s a surprisingly chill experience that feels meditative in some profound ways.
You play as a fearsome yakuza named Michi, who’s known in the underworld as The Janitor. Promise Mascot Agency quickly gets you to buy into its harebrained premise: right out of the gate, Michi is disgraced after he loses two billion yen trying to broker a crucial deal. To repent, Michi is sent to the tiny town of Kaso-Machi and tasked with running his family’s secret mascot business. Oh, and in this world, mascots are a sentient species that live alongside humans, run businesses, commit crimes, and might have magical powers.
As absurd as that might sound, Promise Mascot Agency immediately draws you in with its marvelously emotive world and strong writing and acting. Again, the Yakuza franchise’s influence is clear — Michi is even voiced by the actor who plays Kazuma Kiryu — but Promise Mascot Agency quickly sets itself apart. Despite being a game about organized crime and the nature of bloodshed, it focuses solely on peaceful exploration and management.
As Michi, you’ll need to drive your truck around, recruit new mascots, negotiate contracts, then send them out on jobs. Occasionally, your mascot will run into trouble, launching you into a faux livestream where you have to play a minigame to help out. These issues are often hilariously simple, like when your giant piece of tofu mascot gets stuck in a door.
The management mechanics are accessible, yet surprisingly deep and genuinely fun to engage with. You’ll need to manage your mascot’s stamina and sometimes negotiate new contracts, but sending them out on jobs is all done from an intuitive and snappy menu. But the real brilliance is how the management system ties back into the rest of the game.
While your overall goal is to earn back the money Machi lost, you soon learn that Kaso-Machi is in dire straits thanks to the machinations of its corrupt mayor. That’s where the game’s themes of finding your place in the world, rebuilding from nothing, and discovering family among other people lost in life rear their head. It’s a surprisingly uplifting story that’s heightened by the gameplay.
When you’re not sending mascots on missions, you’ll spend your time exploring Kaso-Machi, bonding with its inhabitants, and completing side missions. Kaso-Machi is a small open world where you can recruit characters, clean up trash, and reconstruct the city’s abandoned shrines and tourist destinations, among other distractions that feed back into the story’s themes.
Every activity ties into that core idea of restoring Kaso-Machi and Michi’s honor. Nothing in Promise Mascot Agency’s 15-hour runtime feels superfluous, which is a remarkable feat of pacing in a game that feels so relaxed and freeform. Even the game’s impeccable presentation helps tie things together: Promise Mascot Agency is designed to feel like a Showa-era TV show along the lines of early Godzilla and Kamen Rider.
Everything is given a glitzy sheen that treads the line between modern and nostalgic; Showa style often evokes longing for a simpler time, and that’s clearly evident in Promise Mascot Agency. This is a management sim that strips away a lot of the genre’s complexity to reinforce the narrative and overall vibes, a decision that pays off. Promise Mascot Agency is a delightful gem with an infectious spirit and personality that will leave you feeling refreshed.
