Some indie games are naturally more insane than others. Promise Mascot Agency fits the bill lovingly there. It’s by UK-based devs Kaizen Game Works and their game launched back in April 2025 (out on all consoles and PC).

It styles itself like a Japanese absurdist, surreal, manga type jaunt. The player works as a mascot recruiter where you go around a cursed town saving the day, which features all sorts of bizarre happenings. Hurray? Yes, it’s nuts fun.

The Berserk Charms of Promise Mascot Agency

This game may appear excessively weird from a surface level overview, but it actually turns out to be a super wholesome and delightful time of it.

It’s an open world adventure game with RPG, narrative, and mascot management sim elements. Players take control of Michi (a yakuza fixer type dude) who befriends Pinky. She’s a mascot of a severed living finger with a baby face, one who also has anger management issues.

Michi’s goal is to revive a mascot agency to support the local community.

To do that, you drive a small pickup truck and must speed around a Japanese city in the open world element, where you unravel various local conspiracies and the like. You also complete jobs in Grand Theft Auto fashion, develop your reputation, and revel in how incredibly weird everything is.

From there, a Mondo Mascots type vibe emerges. You meet all sorts of wonderfully bizarre mascot creations (a very real thing in Japan for every location), and guide them toward greater things.

Behold Kaizen Game Works’ gameplay explainer video below for more details. You’ll probably need to hear it as Promise Mascot Agency is an oddball time of it.

The whole thing is basically Grand Theft Auto but with a heaping wodge of insane Japanese kawaii culture stuff over the top. And that’s a very great thing a lot of the time.

Absurdity and all that to one side, it’s a fun game. If this sort of Nippon type madness is your thing then you’ll have a whale of a time here. We did the game very amusing, too, which helped. And it’s a unique take on the GTA format.

If you want something a bit less ridiculous, though, you may struggle with it. Plus, despite its best efforts, Promise Mascot Agency can feel a little aimless at times. The driving mechanics are, seemingly bad on purpose, also a bit strange and it can get frustrating.

However, overall we had a much fun with this. There’s about 10 hours of gameplay when you get stuck into it for the main story, but plenty of stuff around that to keep you occupied.

You’ll know from the trailer whether you want to give it a go or not. And if you do, just hurl yourself on in there and go with the flow. It’s all very odd, but then you must already like that type of thing as you’re a Professional Moron reader. Huzzah!

Promise Mascot Agency, Ahoy! This One Has a Jazz Fusion Score

A quick nod to the game’s soundtrack here. Kaizen Game Works even went all out with the game’s score, which was by Japanese composer Ryo Koike.

It’s that particular type of breezy Japanese music that’s 1970s Shōwa-era Japanese jazz fusion. That means a lot of funky basslines, vintage synths, jazz flutes and the like. It’s an acquired listen and not for everyone, but we like the below Misfits Make It Work.

Now, we happen to hate jazz fusion and find it stunningly pretentious.

Most of the time, anyway, but this particular Japanese variety has that oddball quality to it we kind of like. It’s background music, basically, which is why the devs put together this 60 minutes Kaso-Machi studying vibes video for students and working professionals.

Not 100% our cup of tea, we must admit, but notable for the commitment to Japanese authenticity here.

We thought Promise Mascot Agency was, surely, going to be by a Japanese indie dev. Nope! It’s by English people like us, which adds a nice bit of clout to the whole gameplay package.