Promise Mascot Agency is set in a world much like ours, with one significant difference. Advertising mascots are living, breathing beings who live alongside humans. Players take the role of Michi, an elite Yakuza cleaner known as "The Janitor." After he sacrifices 12 billion yen to save one of his closest friends from death, he is disgraced and saved from death only by his loyalty. To make up for this mistake, he's tasked with going to the distant town of Kaso-Machi and taking control of the family's business: a failing mascot job agency that's being run out of an abandoned love hotel. Aided by Pinky, a walking, talking severed pinky finger, Michi must turn this ruined agency into a success to make up the money he owes. Of course, this is complicated by the fact that Kaso-Machi is home to a curse that kills all Yakuza-affiliated men who enter ....

In a lot of ways, Promise Mascot Agency is the reverse of a game like Like a Dragon. Despite being set in a fundamentally absurd world, it is a lot more down to earth than expected. Yes, several cast members are sentient mascot costumes, but the core story is a crime drama draped in something more insane. The story takes its time to ratchet up the absurdity and reveal that it's something more mundane. It's an unusual way to handle the story and can feel a tad anticlimactic, but I appreciate the attempt at using absurdity to mask seriousness instead of vice versa.

Kaso-Machi is also the star of this mix of serious and absurd. The town might be populated by living mascot characters and under a curse that kills any Yakuza man who steps foot in it, but that is largely an excuse to focus on the dreary troubles of a former mining town that's struggling to remain alive in an industry that has left it behind. You're likely to deal with teens who lash out because they feel they have no other paths, or stores desperately trying to figure out how to survive when there aren't any tourists. It feels like a very distinct story about a small town that uses fanciful elements for garnish.

I found the story to be enjoyable. The cast is largely fun and likable, and there's excellent humor and genuinely interesting character interactions. I think the game will live or die on Pinky. She's clearly the centerpiece of the story, a depressed millennial who's stuck in a dead-end town and happens to be a cartoonish sentient plush finger who makes tons of jokes and flies off the handle at the drop of a hat. I liked her and found her to be a delight, but if the character doesn't work for you, it's easy to imagine the rest of the story losing you. Michi is a fun character in the vein of Kazuma Kiryu, but he only works because he has Pinky bringing the energy.

The core gameplay in Promise Mascot Agency involves Michi and Pinky driving their beat-up truck throughout the environments of Kaso-Machi. You can't leave your car, but you can stop at locations to talk to townsfolk, collect items for side-quests, or shop at stores and vending machines. The truck is invincible and can survive a drop from functionally any height. By default, it's equipped with powerful recharging rocket boosters that allow it to zoom across the map. You're able to find upgrades that allow it to fire missiles, float on water, or glide, which in turn opens up new collectibles to find.

The core problem with driving is that it feels vestigial. There are two upgrades you can get — ironically, they were the first two optional upgrades I got — that allow you to fire a missile and fly, and once you get them, travel involves flying across the map and occasionally pausing to drop down on items. It's fun for a little bit, but I found myself getting burned out, especially since the overall low difficulty of the game meant there was little reason to bother with many of the collectibles. Thankfully, it's pretty quick to go from place to place.

Beyond driving, your primary way of interacting with the world is with basic minigames, the primary being the Mascot Agency. By exploring the world, you can find mascots who want to be hired. Give them a few perks, and they'll sign with the agency, so they can be assigned to jobs. The jobs run automatically in the background, and when they are complete, you get a nice influx of cash. Mascots have a stamina meter and gain levels as they work, including unlocking side stories that go into more detail about their lives, encouraging you to keep them working and give them time to rest.

Sometimes, your mascot will run into trouble, and this is where the other major minigame comes into play, the Mascot Support Heroes. As you play, you'll meet people who want to work as support heroes, and meeting them or finding hidden items will give you cards. When a mascot is in trouble, you can take your deck of cards and help them, with each card having different stats. You have a limited number of plays and a randomly drawn deck, and you must defeat the challenge by playing high-value cards. Fail, and you lose rewards. Each card can also be upgraded from a basic Normal to a powerful Ultra Rare, which increases their stats. You do this by completing minigames and advancing plotlines.

I found myself a bit disappointed by the card game. It's a super cool concept, but there's not much more to it than playing your highest value cards. You can play certain cards that give you extra turns or draw extra cards, but they are usually also the highest value cards you have, so it's gilding the lily. Getting upgrades felt good early on, but by the last game, I honestly got bored because I was mashing big numbers and moving on. Thankfully, you can avoid this once you get more powerful mascots, but that makes the rewards feel less valuable.

A lot of the minigames and challenges in Promise Mascot Agency are odd in that they're more basic than expected, and there are hints of greater pressure that didn't make it into the final release. For example, there's a minigame where Pinky has to challenge the mayor to a debate about problems in the town. This is cool in theory, but in practice, there are three wrong answers and one correct answer. The wrong answers are shared between every debate, so you don't really have to consider the correct choices but just choose the different one. Likewise, there are multiple cases where it seems like it's building up to a challenge, only to have it be unwinnable until the plot gives you a win. Others are odd, like a crane game to get extra money, but it feels pointless because you earn more money from passive income than you could ever use.

This lends itself to feeling like the minigames are flavor more than anything else. They add some variety to what would otherwise be a fancy visual novel. I don't necessarily mind it, but it feels like the game is at cross-purposes with emphasizing collecting cards or min-maxing your mascot's pay rate when there's no reason to. It even adds a time limit at some point, but it is late enough in the game that I barely had to interact with it because I had completed everything else.

Despite these complaints I really did enjoy playing Promise Mascot Agency. It's a very relaxing game, and just driving around town, completing side-quests and interacting with the town was a fantastic way to unwind. In some ways, I feel beelining it to do a review isn't necessarily the optimal way to play, as it feels far more like a game you take your time with, versus min-maxing to finish ASAP. The tone and atmosphere are far more important than assuring your highest profits and most powerful support heroes.

Promise Mascot Agency is a basic-looking game. While the town and environments are large, they are simple in texture, and there's little animation among the 3D models. Most of the character personality is presented through the 2D artwork, which is charming and memorable. The voice acting is entirely in Japanese and is excellent; the music is a proper mix of atmospheric and absurd. It hits all the marks it needs to, but at times, I did feel that the 3D models could've used more pep.

Overall, Promise Mascot Agency is a charming combination of small-town drama and Yakuza crime politics. The absurdity of the setting gives it a flavor all its own, and it neatly threads the needle between ridiculous and serious. The actual gameplay is by the numbers and mostly serves as a delivery vehicle for the story, but it does well enough. If the game sounds appealing, you'll enjoy it quite a bit. Just make sure not to tick off Pinky. She's scary.

Score: 8.0/10