Tokyo Jungle Review (PS3)
Released last year exclusively on the PlayStation Store, Tokyo Jungle is a game with an interesting take on what would happen if humans just disappeared one day. If you ever wanted to play a game as a Pomeranian who fights crocodiles in a post-apocalyptic Japan, the time has come for you to change from a toy dog to noble beast.
Tokyo Jungle has two main gameplay modes, Survival and Story mode. Survival mode is really just an infinite, rouge-like game where you have one go at it, with no continues. Story mode on the other hand seems like an afterthought. In order to even be able to play the story mode you need to collect data disks in survival mode. Tokyo Jungle also features co-op multiplayer so if you ever wanted a deer and wolf to join up together in order to survive the ruthless urban jungle, this mode is perfect for you.
Once you finish the tutorial you can pick whatever animal you want and start playing. You start out at Shibuya station. The goal of the game is to survive as long as possible. Years pass very quickly, with about a minute for an in-game year. As time passes your animal will grow hungry. As a carnivore you can eat animals you kill. Each time you feed you gain a number of kilocalories. Gain enough and you will rank up.
As you might have noticed you can either play as a carnivore or herbivore. While both can kill other animals each can only eat their own specific foods. Herbivores graze on specific patches of grass, while carnivores eat what they kill. Killing everything that comes in your way is bad idea since the area might lack any kind of food supply later on.
Another important task you have is marking your territory. Mark enough territories in a specific part of the city and you will be able to mate with a female of your kind. Be careful though, mating with an average female will give you less of a stat increase than breeding with a prime female. Breeding with a desperate female on the other hand can even give you fleas. Once you bring the female back to your nest you continue playing as one of their offspring while the other follow you around, serving as spare lives.
In order for the game to be a bit more challenging it has a toxicity feature. As time passes the toxicity will steadily increase. Eating will decrease it, but eating poisoned food will drastically increase it. Once it reaches 100 your life starts depleting making you pay attention to more factors at the same time.
In order for the game to be fun Tokyo Jungle features a challenge list. These challenges have a time limit where you have to either: kill enough animals, claim parts of the city or have offspring. Nothing is cuter than a pack of small Pomeranians taking over the cat’s territory. Completing these challenges can unlock you more animals which you can play as. Another thing that spruces up the gameplay are random events such as heat waves, diseases, pollution and mass rabbit overpopulation.
Tokyo Jungle has a great variety of animals from the ones you would come to expect such as dogs, cats, deers as well as other less common types including robot dogs, dinosaurs and human office workers. Each one of these species has different stats mimicking their real attributes. New types of animals can be unlocked by spending points you earn while you play survival mode.
While the story mode is lacking there is still some explanation as to why things ended up this way. During the game you will pick up memory cards with logs about what happened in the past, which is quite a nice touch.
This game doesn’t look too impressive for a PS3 title, but considering it’s a downloadable only indie game it looks decent. There is quite a bit of exploring to do and it’s nice seeing all these different animal species loose in the city. Even in the more crowded areas, where there are dozens of cats and rabbits, the game doesn’t have any slowdowns.
THE VERDICT
Tokyo Jungle is a fun little title. While not groundbreaking, it’s still innovative enough to justify a weekend or two with the game. If want to release your inner wild animal there is no better title.
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