Impressions – Tokyo Jungle

The jackal is approaching the end of its years. It was chased into these sewers ages ago and has finally claimed them for his own. And now he prowls, a vicious shadow felling the panthers of the sewer as if they were lambs. No resistance down here, except the Tigers. Mate in tow, he crawls through the muck looking to find a suitable place to pass on his legacy. He drops into a nest – it’s crawling with tigers! He barely makes it out alive, and makes a hasty retreat across the sewers to the one other place he remembers. It’s farther, but hopefully it’s safer. He makes it there while he barely has any virility left. His line is secured, for now.

Tokyo Jungle offers many experiences like this one, the urgency of survival. It’s not often I want to talk about a game so soon after its release… but this is a special case. So I’ll consider my impressions of Tokyo Jungle after one week of game time.

Now I’m going to give it to you straight here – it’s not for everyone. It’s quirky, it can be brutal, and it is unpredictable. I imagine a lot of people eat the hype and figure that they’re going to boot the game up for the first time and just start dropping elephants with their pack of Pomeranians. I’m sorry, it doesn’t really work that way. While you can beef the little dog up to drop big guys in theory, that will take a lot of effort and commitment. What you get instead is a game with a focus on survival, which will vary depending on the animal you choose and how you choose to play it.

Tokyo Jungle has a Story Mode, but Survival Mode is the real game. Or at least it’s the dev’s obvious focus. I would liken this to an “arcade” style survival game where you need to accrue points, rank up, and mate before you’re too old to reproduce. The aim is to see how long your animal can survive, in game years. The fauna changes drastically as years go by, and various events (such as toxic smog or a special animal) happen at random to make most playthroughs unique.  There’s a level of strategy available where you will go to areas where your current challenges take place or by what has a greater availability of resources according to the map. But it isn’t always so simple, you may end up running for your life or discovering that all of that food is poisoned.

I won’t call Tokyo Jungle a roguelike, but it does have roguelike ideas. The game is not set in stone. Things can and will happen, and death is actually meaningful in the scope of the game. This doesn’t appeal to everyone, and that’s probably why it was a PSN release outside of Japan. But it really appeals to me, and I adore the Survival Mode.

The game is easy to pick up, and the controls are simple. You can attack, jump, interact, dodge, creep, and so on. But there’s depth here as well. A stealth attack can instantly kill animals a similar or smaller size to you, or land critical damage. But what if the enemy is too big? You’ll bounce off and your guts will be squeezed out like toothpaste. So sometimes it’s best to just sneak by. Small grazers can double jump but big guys cannot. Medium and small creatures can easily enter the sewers, but some animals cannot fit. There’s a tradeoff to choosing big and getting all of that power. So you need to learn to think on your feet. Even if you’re killing with reckless abandon in the early years, you may be hiding scared in the grass in the later years.

In Survival Mode you will notice some “chips” or USB drive looking items. These present boxes contain archives, and once you have three you will unlock a story sequence. You cannot get more until you complete a Story mission. So the game forces you to play Survival Mode – I don’t agree with this design choice personally. But if you just want to rush for the archives, you can. Which I don’t agree with either. I’m still working on the Story as of writing this because I try to make every animal I play last as long as possible.

One neat feature that will help folks out is that stats carry over between generations. So those challenges that list things like Attack +5? They’re in your best interests to complete. When you mate, a percentage of these stat gains will be carried over into your progeny. And when you start a new game with that animal, they will reflect the last time you changed generations so you can start with a beefier animal. The increments are only slight, of course, but you could feasibly turn anything into a powerhouse given enough time. A more immediate alternative is to wear clothing – clothing can show a drastic jump in abilities and while it can break most of it can be rebought with your survival points. So it’s there to be used, not hoarded.

I love games that focus on animals and adaptation. I wrote two articles on E.V.O. for goodness sake. Tokyo Jungle is a little more like an open version of Cubivore though, only with real animals and without the wild mutations. It’s a visceral experience that is a survival game that truly emphasizes the  need to survive. It can seem cruel but once you’ve played it for a while you realize there’s a method to it all and you learn to cope.

The game world is big, but not actually all of Tokyo. It takes place in Shibuya and feels just big enough for the pace of the game. Would I like to see a more expansive game at a more leisurely pace? Certainly. But that would be a completely different game.

I will admit that there are some very redundant segments of the animal chains (especially deers and dogs) but it’s worth it to play as some of the more funky animals. And I will admit that progressing through the Story was handled poorly  but it’s worth it because the story scenes are funny, clever, and endearing and the archives are an interesting read. The game’s not without its flaws but it is certainly a contender for my favourite PSN game.

Tokyo Jungle plays exactly how I would have liked Spore’s Creature Mode to have played (vanilla Spore, anyhow, I don‘t know how different it is now). It’s physical, it’s direct, and you need to be able to act on the fly. I’ve wanted a game like this for a long time and Tokyo Jungle delivers. It’s a game that you just want to push the limits with and see just how far you can take that little yappy dog. It’s a game with so much flavour and so much to offer. I will say to please know what you’re getting into first, but also that it’s worth taking a chance on – and I’m glad the chance was taken to bring it outside of Japan.

When I consider what purpose this will serve in my rotation in the future – I know I will return to it like I do akin to roguelikes like ADOM and IVAN. Even after this initial high is over, I will look on it fondly and play it when the mood strikes me. Because just how long can I survive with that sheep anyways? It appeals to a primal quality – to thrive and survive. Unlock your PS3’s killer instinct.