Yakuza and living, breathing mascots collide in this adventure that has you battling a "normal sized door", faulty cash registers, and a playful dog

For yakuza lieutenant Michi, being exiled by your family matriarch to a backwater town and forced to reinvigorate a failing mascot business would be bad enough. But in Promise Mascot Agency, that town, Kaso-Machi, is home to a yakuza-killing curse, and the mascots aren't people in suits but living, breathing, near-mythological figures. Though the ones that call the dilapidated town home are more than a little odd.

Going hands-on, we join Michi as he links up with Pinky, the titular agency's main mascot and leader. A severed giant little finger, Pinky is a disturbing nod towards yubitsume, the ritual practice of cutting off part of your own finger for atonement, usually associated with yakuza crime fiction. Having fallen on hard times, the agency itself was converted into a love hotel, giving the now-deserted interior a kind of tacky, grimy feel. Our first mission has us driving Michi's prized, battered pickup truck to the corrupt Mayor's office to beg for the restoration of the mascot agency's license to do business. There's a constant, seedy undercurrent in Kaso-Machi.

Making a promise

It's not Kaizen Game Works' first time thrusting players into an oddball community. "Modern indie classic" Paradise Killer was a murder mystery that had you running and jumping through a strange vaporwave house of divinity. In Promise Mascot Agency, Kaso-Machi is bigger, meaning most of the time we're blazing through rural roads watching Pinky wobble in the back of the pickup truck. But it's no less an aesthetic, the visuals trading Paradise Killer's high contrast colors for a film-grain Showa-era style Japanese cinema vibe – just like the yakuza movie classics.

Less like those classic flicks are the bizarre mascots. Like everyone else in Kaso-Machi, they're struggling, down on their luck, and out of work – meaning they're more than willing to hear Michi out with an offer to get back into the game. But, like Pinky, they're more than a little bit off-kilter and unsettling.

To-Fu is an ever-wet piece of the food stuff, thanks to constantly crying, with a little crumbled off corner; Trororo is a yam cat, always upsettingly covered in the sticky stuff, and obsessed with the adult film industry; Kofun is a living tombstone and goth who's obsessed with death and history. The whole town is filled with these strange creatures to meet and strike up a deal with.

And strike up a deal I do. Recruitment involves actually offering contract perks like the percentage they make from mascot jobs, how often their salary is negotiated, and how much time they get off. This affects not just how much money you can make from their mascot laboring, but also how their stats will grow and change as they take on work, and how likely they are to get into trouble while on a job.

What trouble could a mascot get into, you might ask? The answer, from my own experience, is lots. And that's where Michi shines. While jobs can be completed over time by simply waiting, when something goes wrong he'll get a phone call, rushing you to the scene. These incidents play out as slapstick skits that have your mascot getting, for instance, stuck in a "normal sized door" while entering the event they're promoting, a playful dog getting too excitable, or perhaps a gas stove getting supercharged and the mascot having to deal with the fiery fallout.

These mundane hazards are given the RPG battle treatment, with Michi's staff being dealt to him as cards which you can play to have them jump in to assist. Most of them have specialities for dealing with specific situations. José, for example, is the local mechanic, so will deal greater "damage" to engineering issues. Others might be better equipped to deal with social problems, like rowdy crowds. So far, only a couple of hours in, these have all been quite simplistic, but have been fun and quick ways to throw me into the hazards of mascot life.

Expanding the staff that can assist, like everything else in Promise Mascot Agency, mostly revolves around driving across Kaso-Machi and scooping up collectibles. At this point, this is more straightforward than Paradise Killer's exploration – which may be a relief to some that found its tricky parkour a bit overwhelming. Still, poking around Kaso-Machi has been compelling, especially as I come across new locations and learn a bit more about the history of the town – praying at shrines and recycling trash as I go.

But what's stuck with me the most so far is meeting the people. Each new character, be they human or mascot, has a hook that makes me want to get to know them more. And, importantly, as seedy as Kaso-Machi is, everyone stuck here doesn't just feel like a real person, but a genuine piece of a community. Mr. Mori and his cat Tori, a train guard who stands ever vigilant at the now disused train station; Miss Wambui, an anime fan who came to Japan to teach, and cares for her troubled students deeply; or even Captain Sign, a Power Rangers-like hero with road safety signs strapped to his body.

There's so many people who truly want to make things better, as hard as it is to get by in Kaso-Machi. Michi might have a tough exterior, but his heart's in the right place – and if he can overcome the yakuza-killing curse, he might just be able to bring them all together to build something better, one creepy mascot at a time.

This might only include the captial "Y" series, but here's the best Yakuza games, ranked, if you're looking for some more quirky crime drama.