Review: Promise Mascot Agency Is a Charmingly Strange Management Game

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 upcoming 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.