Tokyo Jungle

[Chardok]

Long time, guys. So, I picked up this game on PSN (10.49 if ya nasty or 7.39 if yous a PS+ member) enjoying it quite a bit. Very strange game: here's the "short" version:

The story is this: People gone, you're in Tokyo - but you're an animal. Tokyo is being taken back by the jungle and animals roam the streets. There's more to it than that, there is an ACTUAL story to explain why this has happened, but...well, it's complicated.

basically, your goal is simple: Survive. The tutorial has you as a Golden Retriever. you roam the streets of Tokyo looking for food and a mate. but before you can find a mate, you must claim territory. Each, sort of, section of the city has a number of flags you must go to and, I guess, pee on. once you claim all flags in a zone, females of your species will appear. There's three grades of female - Desperate, Average, and Prime. Once you breed, the femal gives birth to X babies. Congratulations, you now have a pack. somewhere beteween 2 and 5 packmembers per litter/clutch/whatever (More on that later) You can think of your packmates as "lives" the one you play is the "alpha" and when/if you die, another takes your place, basically a duplicate of the one who just died. You get upgrades to things like stamina, hunger, life, etc. by completing challenges (Go to place, kill thing, find this plant, etc. etc. etc.) BUT the upgrades only apply to the animal you are currently playing. the upgrade only becomes permanent when you mate, and your mate passes somewhere between 10 and 50% of the upgrades you accumulated during that life to the next generation.

Also, you only live 15 years and yes, you can die of old age, so there is constant pressure to complete challenges quickly, mark territory, find a mate and continue on.

As a predator, you hunt (duh) but WHOOPS shit's hunting you, too (duh) so probably not a good idea to take a swipe at an alligator if you're playing a cat (duh).

there's a second class of animal in the game as well, The "grazers" things like chicks (yes, chicks), deer, porcupines (???), cows, horses, etc. and their whole things is to find plants to eat...

Okay, so you start the game with only 2 animals unlocked, Pomeranians and Sika deer. compelte certain challenges, and you unlock more animals. Hippos, lions, horses, pigs, boar, alligators, Deinonychus, etc. (Yes, you can unlock dinosaurs) and get this - ITS ALL EXPLAINED IN STORY MODE

Right - everything I've been talking about is called "survival mode" - you have to unlock animals in survival mode to unlock episodes of the story mode. and all of this crazy nonsense is explained. (I'll give you a hint: it involves time travel, kidnapping, a sentient robot dog, and pollution (So basically, I'm saying it's Japanese as fuck)

It has a real Dynasty Warriors appeal for me (play campaign, get tiny upgrade, play again for MOAR UPGRADEZ, repeat forever until ALL DUEDZ HAVE MAXIMUM PURPLE SWORDZ), except this time with cute puppies and dairy cows. I'd recommend checking it out if you've got a chance. check it out on Youtubez, first though, it's not really "for" "everyone".

[Cykeisme]

I watched some short video reviews about this game, it looks interesting and fun.
Too bad it's PS3 only, though.

[Andrew_Fireborn]

Decent time waster.

Would probably be better on a portable, but eh.

a game 'year' is somewhere under 5 minutes. Feels like 1-2 iirc.

One thing you didn't touch on is that once you've claimed a territory, you can sleep at the nest if you don't have a mate. This rerolls the surroundings, and can change available food, weather, and mates. It also wipes toxicity and I think heals you.

You can drink out of puddles that are fairly rare outside of 2 areas. This restores a very low amount of hunger, but can only be done on a cooldown of exactly 1 game year.

Also, you can generally unlock the next animal in the chain within the first generation or two if you rush it.

You might also need to look up a map to find some of the locations for certain challenges. Completing all of a certain generation's challenges tends to net you a piece of clothing, which increase stats. Managing to snag all of them nets you a tuxedo, which is appearently the best gear in the game. But, since gear deteriorates, and the tux can't be bought...

[Chardok]

Decent time waster.

Would probably be better on a portable, but eh.

a game 'year' is somewhere under 5 minutes. Feels like 1-2 iirc.

One thing you didn't touch on is that once you've claimed a territory, you can sleep at the nest if you don't have a mate. This rerolls the surroundings, and can change available food, weather, and mates. It also wipes toxicity and I think heals you.

You can drink out of puddles that are fairly rare outside of 2 areas. This restores a very low amount of hunger, but can only be done on a cooldown of exactly 1 game year.

Also, you can generally unlock the next animal in the chain within the first generation or two if you rush it.

You might also need to look up a map to find some of the locations for certain challenges. Completing all of a certain generation's challenges tends to net you a piece of clothing, which increase stats. Managing to snag all of them nets you a tuxedo, which is appearently the best gear in the game. But, since gear deteriorates, and the tux can't be bought...

Shit. I never even thought to sleep to reroll. That wouldve been nice to not have to go to BFE to find food. I've made a little metagame which is to level up the chick to be absurdly powerful. I like the idea of taking down big predators easily...as a tiny...you know...chick.