Every once in a while a game releases that makes you do a double take. Sometimes you hear a bunch of words that may sound like a fever dream. If a few years ago you asked me my thoughts on a mascot management crime drama with heart, I'd probably look at you like you had five heads. If you told me I'd be spending hours with a walking pinky in a truck that can also be a boat, a glider, and a mascot launcher... well you get the idea. Yet here we are, a Promise Mascot Agency review, the latest game by developer Kaizen Game Works known for Paradise Killer. 

Even before getting hands on this copy, this game struck us as interesting. When the demo found its way out there, we featured it as part of our Demo Disc. After enjoying our 90 minutes with the demo, we had the opportunity to interview Art Director Rachel Noy and Game Director Oli Clarke Smith. So how does the game stack up when we get the final product?

What is Promise Mascot Agency

If you've ever wanted a more quirky yakuza story, there's a very good chance this is for you. While being a bit of a business management sim, this game is so much more. You'll also find yourself helping mascots on their own journeys, scouring the town to make people happy, and taking down a corrupt mayor. You'll explore the town in a truck, find hidden treasures, traverse haunted areas, help your agency gain fans, play crane games, and keep your matriarch alive by sending money home on a regular basis. If you're lucky, you'll witness an interesting ritual in a hidden cave. You may also end up putting a mascot in charge of a town. Just be sure you do all of this before the yakuza killing curse gets you. Don’t question all of the above too much, just enjoy the ride. 

Story of Promise Mascot Agency

When you begin the game, you'll receive a brief introduction from Pinky☆ to set the stage. In this universe, mascots were "born from the earth a hella long time ago". This means it's not odd to see them living with humans in harmony. Pinky☆ will also let you know all about the current standings of different Yakuza families and what moment you are about to be dropped into. 

Very quickly we meet the head of the Shimazu family and learn what type of man our main character is. Michizane "The Janitor" Sugawara is not the type to just watch out for number one. He places high value on the family and its future. So when a deal goes south and his oath brother is shot in beautifully drawn manga style panels, Michi faces a difficult choice. Will Michi save the future of the family or keep fighting? Ultimately, he protects the future and takes the fall for it all. 

It's not as easy to get rid of Michi, also known as the Janitor, though. When faced with this difficult situation, the head of his family decides to give Michi one more chance. He will be secretly exiled to a cursed town where he must make money to fix his mistake. He must get all of the funds in order to save the head of his family and their future. 

When you arrive in Kaso-Machi, the cursed town, you arrive at a love hotel. Here we meet our partner in not so much crime, Pinky☆ who you recognize from the opening information scene. While you don't get the friendliest welcome at first, Pinky☆ will come around and before long, you are on the road to opening your shared mascot agency. Of course, it can't be under the name of a supposedly dead Yakuza so expect Pinky☆ to be the face while you're the brains behind the scenes. 

Once you open up the agency, you'll be on the road to look for jobs, more mascots, and fellow employees. Pinky☆ will give you all the guidance you need in a variety of cut scenes. If at any point you feel lost during the game, you can trigger one of these scenes by asking Pinky☆ with the click of a button. Pinky☆ will help you find new jobs, new mascots, and remind you to fix up the agency along the way. Every good operation needs a good looking home base right? 

You'll get your license to operate from the corrupt mayor who you'll ultimately want to take down. Now that your agency is open, meet Shiori who will accompany your mascots on each job. Your first official mascot will find their way to you and perhaps you can cheer up To-fu! Pinky☆ will make sure you meet the other cast of characters in town.

Soon you’ll meet the mechanic who will help you get those sweet upgrades to your truck. You'll meet Pinky☆'s "grandma" and the mother in law of the current head of the yakuza family. There's also the teacher of the school who often has to buy her own supplies. Throw in the farmer’s daughter Peaches who has a social media following, the town employee Sato with a fascination for a specific idol group, and Shiori's mother who has an eye for Michi and you've got an almost full cast of characters. 

It won't be long until you learn the mayor is under investigation for misuse of funds. This is one of the larger plot points as you progress. The mayor's illegitimate dealings will also get you to meet another family in town. Perhaps they can help you take down the mayor or at least get some product moving. Don't worry, any product they move won't be the illegal kind. To ensure you get the full effect of Promise Mascot Agency, we won't tell you all of the story. Just know there are twists, turns, some lost cats, and a strong emphasis on family.

Game Play Loop

There are aspects of this game that are very much on a loop but this cycle can quickly be broken by all of the other fun areas of the game. The most basic game mechanic is you will drive around recruiting mascots and then pairing them up with jobs. However, to recruit a mascot and make them happy, you should be very mindful of what perks you give them as you hire them. Every good job comes with benefits right? Will you give them 5, 10, or 15% of the job share? How about some time off after a few jobs? You could also give them bonuses or increase their additional share of the job along the way. The cycle of sending mascots out on jobs once you recruit them can quickly feel like it becomes mundane, but don't worry there's more. 

Mascots on jobs, especially early on, may require help from other characters you'll recruit, the support heroes. Should a mascot need help on the job, you'll receive a call. You can decide if helping the mascot is the right thing to do (the answer should probably always be yes). Using the deck of cards you've been building along the way, you'll play cards to take down the enemy of the show. We're using the term enemy here loosely. The enemy of the mascot could be anything from broken vending machine to a door too small for a mascot. 

Each card will come with its own stats including how it handles certain difficulties, the cost, and if it draws new cards. You'll also upgrade your cards by completing town quests, finding upgrades throughout town, or purchasing them. 

Your town quests will be part of the exploration you do while driving around the Kei Truck. Every white dot on the map is something for you to collect. Once it's time, every yen marker will be an ATM to send money to your matriarch. However, there are some items that won't appear on the map. This includes vending machines and spirits that will hold your truck upgrades hostage. Cleaning up the town, cleansing the sins, and destroying the signs of the mayor will also help you gain fans. More fans means more notoriety. The more people know about you, the higher your agency rank will be, and the more (perhaps even better) mascots you can recruit. The map also does not include every area of trash that requires cleaning and every sign of that awful mayor that can be broken. Down with the old guard! 

If destroying public property and cleaning up the town isn't enough, in time, you'll be able to also play one of Japan's favorite pastimes, the claw machine. Use the giant claw to grab merchandise from the machine. Once you’ve collected the goods, sell them at the local stores to earn more income. It isn't enough just to earn money and clean up the town though. The town is overdue for a new regime. When the time comes, Pinky☆ will step up and go against Mayor Maeda in debates around town. You'll also spend time speaking with your mascots, resting at the love hotel, and upgrading the hotel and the agency’s marketing. 

The nice part about the gameplay loop, the only consistent thing, is that you will be sending mascots on jobs and helping them out. You can play the claw machine as often (or as little) as you want. You can explore the map as much or as little as you want. Don't care about the missing cats in town? Then don't worry about finding them, although the support card won't get any stronger. You can play the game as you'd like as the story won't completely railroad you minus the big story points. You can always choose to not progress the story until you feel comfortable with a big enough savings. 

The Bad

Starting with the bad, although there isn’t truly much that is bad to say about the game. Perhaps the part that can be found difficult was the gliding/flying mechanic. At times, it felt like accounting for wind that couldn't be seen. At other times, trying to stop the truck on the right spot was quite a challenge. When trying to collect everything on the map, this made it quite difficult. This could be player error so we won’t weigh our full Promise Mascot Agency review on this alone.

Another not so great aspect was not truly knowing what time it was in the game. Many of the mascots will disappear or be on jobs for a certain number of hours. However, there isn't a clock to help count down what timing looks like. You could see the sun setting and rise as you explore the town. However, without a true sense of time, time would truly get away from Michi and Pinky☆ as they drove around. Somehow, they also never need to sleep. 

The timing aspect also came into play with getting the money back to the family. Early on it felt like I couldn't be too far away from being able to send money. Too often Pinky☆ would ask if I had sent money to the family. If the count down got too low, players hear from Yui and Nui saying it was urgent to send money. If there was a way of knowing how much time was passing, and knowing the countdown to send money back, it would feel slightly smoother. This could be made harder by your bills being paid each night as well. To be fair, perhaps the sense of urgency is exactly what the developers were looking to do. Enough to scare Michi into constantly being ready to send money. 

The Good

I’ll start off with one aspect that really helps bring the game to life and set the scene. With voice acting credits such Takaya Kuroda, the voice of Kazuma Kiryu from the Yakuza video game franchise, the voice acting is one of the highlights of this game. Ayano Shibuya lends a sort of crazed joy and warmth to the character of Pinky☆. There’s something both endearing and sometimes scary about the way Pinky☆ speaks that makes her so irresistible. While these are the voices you’ll primarily hear, every character comes wonderfully voiced. The mascots really embody their joy, sadness, or even the feeling of being a tossed aside office employee looking for new joy in the world.

Voice acting can only carry characters so far though. The greatest voice actors in the world can’t help a game if the writing isn’t there. Thankfully, the writing is solid while still wonderfully odd. Perhaps the world is one where everything feels too real despite the living breathing mascots running around. A corrupt mayor embezzling funds, a underpaid teacher working at an underfunded school, and buildings being torn down to more than likely build luxury apartments no one can afford, does it hit too close to home yet? When the reality of the world is juxtaposed by the absurdity of the mascots, you realize, perhaps the real word is just as bizarre anyway.

The blend of art styles and filters is also a great touch to Promise Mascot Agency. The majority of the story is told with the colorful characters on screen with text boxes below. However, some of the action scenes are show as though the player is reading a manga (comic or graphic novel from Japan). These small finishes give the player just a touch of pop culture from Japan in a tasteful and clever way. When these scenes appear, it hard not to envision holding these pages in ones hand and reading with a nice cup of your favorite beverage.

There are also plenty of accessibility options in the game with descriptions of how they impact the game. To name a few, there are text options, the ability to turn off the vintage filter in the game, and ways to improve/adjust the movement. There is also an area for comfort allowing players turn off areas that may cause discomfort during game play. This includes different screen effects, screen shake, and a motion sickness dot. The development team also made sure to allow players to adjust aspects within the world such as traffic and varying how quickly animals may run from you.

In keeping our Promise Mascot Agency review spoiler free, all we’ll include is there’s quite a turning point in the game that may seem predictable but also welcome. Kaizen Game Works has managed to at times make the game feel a bit cozy while still discussing the yakuza lifestyle and how family really cares for each other. This turning point in the game also impacts the game play loop. In fact, it may even impact the way you prioritize your day in game. What is a bit fun, is the fact that each mascot you recruit who gets their own merch. This means you’ll be re-exploring the map and finding areas you may have missed. Fans of Kaizen’s previous work, Paradise Killer, will enjoy finding a few reminders of Paradise Killer while exploring Kaso-Machi in full.

Final Thoughts

One of the best parts of this game truly is how unhinged some of the characters are while being balanced out by straight man Michi. Pinky☆ and her antics truly bring a crazed sense of joy and passion to the story. In some ways, the strength of this game is finding small reflections of ourselves in the characters. The characters are slightly unhinged and truth be told, who isn’t? Promise Mascot Agency reminds us there is always hope, even in the most forgotten areas. Kaizen Game Works reminds us there can be unlikely heroes and family is what you make of it, good, bad, and in-between in this latest release.

This doesn’t mean the game is perfect or that everyone will love it. Promise Mascot Agency will delight many looking for something akin to a fun fever dream. Those who find themselves enjoying the culture of Japan may also find joy in seeing showa-era vibes, engaging with the mascot culture, and of course, being on the more questionable side of the law. This is a great option of a game for those looking for something to unwind with after a long day. Nothing in the game is overly difficult or stressful just for the sake of a challenge.

Expect a playthrough to take anywhere from 20-30 hour which feels like the perfect length for a game like this. There is the opportunity to keep exploring and upgrade everything after the credits roll if you just can’t find it in you to say goodbye yet. Overall, Promise Mascot Agency is a great time with friends who become family despite all the challenges you’ll face together. For those who enjoy a small open world game and enjoy a bit of cozy chaos, this the game for you.

Promise Mascot Agency was reviewed on PC (Steam) with a review code from Kaizen Game Works. The game will be released April 10, 2025 on PC (Steam & Epic Games Store), PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, and Nintendo Switch.