Promise Mascot Agency might be the strangest “mainstream” indie game you’ve laid eyes upon in quite a while, but after playing through its Next Fest demo, I’m thinking Kaizen Game Works’ second title could be one of 2025’s biggest sleeper hits.
To fully understand what’s going on here, we have to return to 2020, a year that, in spite of the pandemic, delivered a handful of bangers, both big and small. Kaizen released the open-world murder mystery adventure game Paradise Killer in September and quickly gained a cult following. I’ll admit I’ve yet to play through its entirety (something I plan to fix before Promise Mascot Agency launches), but a quick glance will tell you it looks and feels unlike anything else in the crowded modern indie market. The same applies to Promise Mascot Agency.
Whereas the pitch behind Paradise Killer was solving a huge murder case on an island governed by immortal beings who worship dead alien gods (won’t spoil the rest of the setup here), Promise Mascot Agency presents itself as a narrative adventure with heavy management elements, sort of. Let’s get the obvious out of the way first: It’s quite hard to classify Kaizen’s latest, and that’s good.
As many voices in the gaming space (rightly) argue a full pivot to indie development won’t save a crumbling industry, it’s becoming increasingly easy to notice that many independent video games just look too similar nowadays. Whether they’re good or bad, it’s hard to catch players’ attention nowadays when those of us who are interested are already spread too thin. You might get lucky with a pixel-art roguelite or yet another cozy farm sim starring a witch, but the indie space is even more saturated than the bloated AAA portion of the market at this point.
Honestly, this is the main reason why something as odd as Promise Mascot Agency is instantly eye-catching. You just haven’t seen it before. You’re eager to find out more about it and see whether it’s your jam or not. That alone is a huge victory for any indie developer. “We like big, bold character games,” said Kaizen co-founder Phil Crabtree back in 2020 while discussing Paradise Killer. More than four years later, that’s an apt way to describe Promise Mascot Agency as well. But, you know, the production values aren’t AAA-level and make sense for the type of game the team is going for here. Too often, even indie developers forget a “big, bold” game needn’t be cutting-edge or huge.
This doesn’t mean Promise Mascot Agency has dropped the open-world angle. It very much feels like a forgotten PS2-era genre-bending sandbox title from Japan that caused a studio to close almost immediately after its launch. Luckily for Kaizen Game Works, one of the positives of the gaming era we find ourselves in is that people are much more into extremely weird stuff.
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The generous Next Fest demo jumps straight into the bulk of the game, saving the intro for the full release, which is set for April 10. A quick explainer of who Michi, the grave retired yakuza who’s exiled to the cursed town of Kaso-Machi, and Pinky, an energetic human-sized living finger, are is provided before the demo starts so the player can hit the ground running and get a solid idea of what the gameplay loop is and how the plot could potentially unfold.
Let’s talk about the latter first: I have no freakin’ clue, and I mean this as a compliment. Promise Mascot Agency will seemingly keep us on our toes and always guessing what comes next, and that’s a good feeling to have while exploring a new indie game. During the time I spent playing through the demo, the most normal character I met was an old corrupt mayor who kind of hates mascots but was willing to give the main characters a chance to rebuild the agency and make Kaso-Machi a bit less depressing (the promise of money under the table certainly helped their case).
This leads to Michi and Pinky meeting mascots like To-Fu (a tofu cube who won’t stop crying) and heroes like Captain Sign, “Japan’s only road-sign superhero.” It’s not only about the mascots; the run-down town is home to all sorts of colorful citizens and other helpful individuals. The end goal seems to be restoring both the place and the Promise Mascot Agency to their former glory, helping as many people as possible in the process and allowing mascots to take on different kinds of jobs. But I feel like anything could happen before the end credits roll.
With the narrative and management angles put front and center in the trailers and other marketing materials, you’d expect Promise Mascot Agency to be on the simpler side of things, but I was actually surprised by the amount of “video game-y” elements it has. It might have strong “collectathon” vibes, as none of its systems appear to be cutting deep, but its open world has refreshing PS2/Xbox-era DNA in both the way it looks and how the traversal and exploration loop feels. The strong Showa-era art and general aesthetics that drench the entire thing are just the cherry on top.
You can clean shrines, pick up lost purses to earn extra money, run into folks that need some help, and find more hero cards, among other things (and that’s just within the area the demo was limited to). As for the “meat and potatoes” of the game, you’re meant to hire mascots, negotiate their working conditions, and send them on “missions” that may or may not go well. If the latter happens, it’s time to go hands-on and send heroes (such as the aforementioned Captain Sign) to help; the card-based mini-game built around the RPG-y mechanics doesn’t seem too complicated, but it’ll be interesting to see how it all comes together in the full release and as the overall progression advances.
Regardless, the quality of the comedic chats between all sorts of eccentric characters and the management (and customization) possibilities of the agency feel like the “core” of a game, which ultimately is approachable and breezy, no matter how weird it looks at first. Michi and Pinky driving (and jumping) around with an old rusty truck is just what happens in between those bits.
Promise Mascot Agency launches on April 10 on PC (Steam & Epic Games Store), PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch.
Published: Mar 3, 2025 09:36 am