Tokyo Jungle
released on Jun 07, 2012
In Tokyo Jungle, everything is the enemy, and only the strongest will survive! With over 50 playable animals to choose from, unleash your inner beast to hunt your way to the top of Tokyo's post-apocalyptic food chain. Whether in Story or Survival Mode, you never know where your next meal will come from or the dangers you'll face, so be prepared for anything and everything. Forage through this desolate but dangerous city to complete story-based challenges using a variety of survival skills, from all-out attack to stealth. Beware-- you are not the only animal out there hunting for survival!
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Okay, Tokyo Jungle is one of the weirdest, most fun games I've ever played. Imagine humans vanish and Tokyo turns into a wild animal battleground! You're a Pomeranian trying to survive, fighting for territory, hunting, and even finding a mate. It's totally ridiculous, the controls are a bit janky, and honestly, it gets repetitive... but I can't deny it's insanely addictive and has a strange charm.
You get to pilot cute animals in a brutal fight for survival, managing their thirst, hunger, and even age. Taking a dynasty of pomeranians from crocodile food to kings of the jungle will never not be fun. Bizarre roguelite(?) from a bygone era of video games. There's no way Sony would have financed something like this today.
Playing so much PS3 recently, I started to think of other games I've had on my PS3 for AGES that I never finished, and Tokyo Jungle was one of the first that came to mind. I've owned this game for over 8 years, and got a bit bored with it last time and never ended up finishing it. Granted, I would argue that "finishing" Tokyo Jungle in just seeing the credits really isn't the overall goal of the game, I finally saw the credits. I beat the story mode and got every trophy, and it took me about 15+ hours over the course of a weekend.
Tokyo Jungle's premise is that all humans have vanished. Ten years have passed, and escaped pets and zoo animals have reclaimed the streets of Tokyo as have the local flora. You play as all sorts of animals, from a pomeranian to an ostritch to a raptor to a mammoth, surviving as long as you can and racking up a high score. This game is ultimately a score attack survival game. I would describe it as kind of a micro-Dead Rising with a bit of a rogue-lite twist in how things change from run to run.
One in-game year is about a minute, and the game effectively ends after 100 years (a new apex predator is introduced that can't be eaten and is EVERYWHERE, so a meat eater will definitely starve, and a plant eater (aka grazer) has a very hard time finding opportunities to eat and mate). Your animal needs to eat to keep living, and after about 10 years your max hunger starts ticking down until you effectively cannot eat. The remedy to this is to mark territory to "take over" an area and make potential mates appear. The more you eat, you'll level up from rookie to veteran to boss, and the higher your rank, the higher ranked female (you have to play male animals) you can attract and mate with. The better your mate, the more siblings (and therefore effectively attacking partners/decoys and extra lives) your next generation will start with as well as likely better stat boosts. Then the next generation continues the whole thing and the map status gets a little bit of a refresh. Progressing through generations is also what gives the game it's rogue-lite-y elements, as the tiny stat boosts you get continue though not just to your next character, but to your next playthrough as well, so play an animal enough times, and it'll slowly get more and more beefy and strong.
There are two types of animals to play as: predators (carnivores) and grazers (herbivores), and the game does a good job at making them feel different and one not distinctly worse than the other. Predators tend to have runs focused more around combat and trying to take out enemies as they go (at least ones they can take out). You have a normal attack, a command to sorta make your litter mates attack with you (although I'm still not sure how exactly that works), and can use the right stick to directionally dodge. You also have a super attack button bound to R1 that you can use to do a stealth attack or a counter once an enemy super attack is dodged. My most successful run was with a jackal, and the key to surviving against the lions and larger predators that come to eventually populate the map is to not only know when to pick your battles, but also that you can sometimes take down a larger predator instantly with a stealth kill while your normal attacks might barely damage it.
Grazers, on the other hand, are more about being agile and avoiding combat whenever possible. They generally have very low attack, but they also have a double jump that predators lack, so a quick way to escape is often to double-jump onto an above awning, should you be lucky enough to be near one. Grazers are hunting down plants to eat, rather than animals to kill and eat, so while big predators are still a danger, you're a little more at the mercy of how the map spawns. Eating animals, eating plants, and exploring the map can also net you little present boxes that have consumable items in them. You can hold up to ten at a time, and they range from flea-removal shampoo that gets rid of fleas, to a water bottle to remove toxicity and fill your belly, to a magazine, which, for whatever reason, is a full heal to all your stats when used XD
The great equalizer between grazers and predators is the factor of map pollution. Over time, especially as the years go on, pollution will strike and leave different areas of the map, and different areas will also suffer droughts of food of all kinds as well. Predators have small stomachs and are generally slower, so although you need to worry about attackers less, the silent killers of disease and starvation are far more present for predators than they are for grazers, and a big part of playing the game is learning how best to not only deal with the other animals, but pollution as well.
The map is always the same, and you also have semi-randomized time limited challenges to complete each run for more bonus points, stat boosts for your current generation, and even extra clothes. Clothes are equippable items you can find from defeated foes or for completing challenges. You can hold as many as you want, and once one is found one time, unless it's a special super rare one, you can buy it on the main menu's shop with the points you earn each run acting as currency. You also unlock new animals to play as by completing certain challenges, and they are also unlocked with these points. The different kinds of animals are pretty well balanced too. Sure, bigger predators are tougher and can win fights easier, but their stomachs are suuuuper tiny, so you need to CONSTANTLY be eating or you're gonna starve really quick.
This is where I'd say Tokyo Jungle has its biggest flaw. Other than the game getting a little samey after a while (it is a score attack game after all, so that's a given), you only start with two animals, a Shika Deer and a Pomeranian. There are like 30+ animals in the game (with a few being $1 DLC each, one of which is a salaryman in a suit X3), but you unlock them one at a time through challenges which are sometimes super easy and other times brutally hard. You'll hit a few that are no problem at all, and then you'll die loads of times just trying to do the next one. And retrying those challenges isn't fast, because the requirements to start them become being more about time passed in your current run, like needing to be in your 3rd generation and having completed 4 other challenges before the map event to unlock that animal will start. Top that off with some animals playing very similar or literally identical to each other (the Jackal and Lyceon literally have the same stats and move animations, and one unlocks the other), and it makes the whole unlocking process really grueling, albeit super satisfying when you finally pull it off. I unlocked about a third of them by the end of my time with the game, mostly predators (that cheetah challenge was just too hard XP).
The other big issue I wish the game had fixed is the map, particularly around pollution. Though areas will get polluted, the only way to tell that is to catch the little bullitains that come up about it in the upper right of the screen while you play (while your attention is quite logically probably focused on other things). While you can check how much food is currently in a map area, you can't look at any other aspects of the map's current conditions, and that can be really irritating when you suddenly wander into a super polluted area you were hoping was full of food, only to find it's full of super toxic food from all the pollution (which give calories if eaten, but also TONS of pollution).
The game's story mode is a series of structured missions taking place in the game map. You unlock them by collecting data files as you play the survival mode, and once you collect all present on the map, you'll unlock a new mission (for a total of 15, including the tutorial). They're sorta serious, but they acknowledge how silly the premise is fairly often. They're often about taking down a series of enemies around the map, or sometimes are HORRID stealth stages that the game's stealth mechanics just are not good enough to make fun (and whose checkpoints are not nearly generous enough). It's a neat little diversion that explains why the world is the way it is, but it's certainly not what I'd call the main draw of the game by any respect. There are a couple animals locked behind completing story mode though, so it's worth going through if you really really wanna unlock everything (although no trophies are tied to animal unlocks).
Verdict: Highly Recommended. Tokyo Jungle, by its sheer premise, won't be for everyone. That said, it's really good at what it does, and if this sounds like something you'd enjoy, I'd say it's definitely worth checking out. The only hesitation I'd have at recommending it is that the nature of its gameplay does make its appeal a bit niche. It does have local co-op play, which can be very fun, although the game is also pretty hard, so that can be an obstacle to enjoying it with someone unless you're just going out for silly fun. Especially if you can find this on that PSN physical bundle along with Journey and that other game, this is definitely a game worth picking up and trying out for the sheer silliness and the good challenge of being a Pomeranian forced to take on a raptor XD
Tokyo Jungle's premise is that all humans have vanished. Ten years have passed, and escaped pets and zoo animals have reclaimed the streets of Tokyo as have the local flora. You play as all sorts of animals, from a pomeranian to an ostritch to a raptor to a mammoth, surviving as long as you can and racking up a high score. This game is ultimately a score attack survival game. I would describe it as kind of a micro-Dead Rising with a bit of a rogue-lite twist in how things change from run to run.
One in-game year is about a minute, and the game effectively ends after 100 years (a new apex predator is introduced that can't be eaten and is EVERYWHERE, so a meat eater will definitely starve, and a plant eater (aka grazer) has a very hard time finding opportunities to eat and mate). Your animal needs to eat to keep living, and after about 10 years your max hunger starts ticking down until you effectively cannot eat. The remedy to this is to mark territory to "take over" an area and make potential mates appear. The more you eat, you'll level up from rookie to veteran to boss, and the higher your rank, the higher ranked female (you have to play male animals) you can attract and mate with. The better your mate, the more siblings (and therefore effectively attacking partners/decoys and extra lives) your next generation will start with as well as likely better stat boosts. Then the next generation continues the whole thing and the map status gets a little bit of a refresh. Progressing through generations is also what gives the game it's rogue-lite-y elements, as the tiny stat boosts you get continue though not just to your next character, but to your next playthrough as well, so play an animal enough times, and it'll slowly get more and more beefy and strong.
There are two types of animals to play as: predators (carnivores) and grazers (herbivores), and the game does a good job at making them feel different and one not distinctly worse than the other. Predators tend to have runs focused more around combat and trying to take out enemies as they go (at least ones they can take out). You have a normal attack, a command to sorta make your litter mates attack with you (although I'm still not sure how exactly that works), and can use the right stick to directionally dodge. You also have a super attack button bound to R1 that you can use to do a stealth attack or a counter once an enemy super attack is dodged. My most successful run was with a jackal, and the key to surviving against the lions and larger predators that come to eventually populate the map is to not only know when to pick your battles, but also that you can sometimes take down a larger predator instantly with a stealth kill while your normal attacks might barely damage it.
Grazers, on the other hand, are more about being agile and avoiding combat whenever possible. They generally have very low attack, but they also have a double jump that predators lack, so a quick way to escape is often to double-jump onto an above awning, should you be lucky enough to be near one. Grazers are hunting down plants to eat, rather than animals to kill and eat, so while big predators are still a danger, you're a little more at the mercy of how the map spawns. Eating animals, eating plants, and exploring the map can also net you little present boxes that have consumable items in them. You can hold up to ten at a time, and they range from flea-removal shampoo that gets rid of fleas, to a water bottle to remove toxicity and fill your belly, to a magazine, which, for whatever reason, is a full heal to all your stats when used XD
The great equalizer between grazers and predators is the factor of map pollution. Over time, especially as the years go on, pollution will strike and leave different areas of the map, and different areas will also suffer droughts of food of all kinds as well. Predators have small stomachs and are generally slower, so although you need to worry about attackers less, the silent killers of disease and starvation are far more present for predators than they are for grazers, and a big part of playing the game is learning how best to not only deal with the other animals, but pollution as well.
The map is always the same, and you also have semi-randomized time limited challenges to complete each run for more bonus points, stat boosts for your current generation, and even extra clothes. Clothes are equippable items you can find from defeated foes or for completing challenges. You can hold as many as you want, and once one is found one time, unless it's a special super rare one, you can buy it on the main menu's shop with the points you earn each run acting as currency. You also unlock new animals to play as by completing certain challenges, and they are also unlocked with these points. The different kinds of animals are pretty well balanced too. Sure, bigger predators are tougher and can win fights easier, but their stomachs are suuuuper tiny, so you need to CONSTANTLY be eating or you're gonna starve really quick.
This is where I'd say Tokyo Jungle has its biggest flaw. Other than the game getting a little samey after a while (it is a score attack game after all, so that's a given), you only start with two animals, a Shika Deer and a Pomeranian. There are like 30+ animals in the game (with a few being $1 DLC each, one of which is a salaryman in a suit X3), but you unlock them one at a time through challenges which are sometimes super easy and other times brutally hard. You'll hit a few that are no problem at all, and then you'll die loads of times just trying to do the next one. And retrying those challenges isn't fast, because the requirements to start them become being more about time passed in your current run, like needing to be in your 3rd generation and having completed 4 other challenges before the map event to unlock that animal will start. Top that off with some animals playing very similar or literally identical to each other (the Jackal and Lyceon literally have the same stats and move animations, and one unlocks the other), and it makes the whole unlocking process really grueling, albeit super satisfying when you finally pull it off. I unlocked about a third of them by the end of my time with the game, mostly predators (that cheetah challenge was just too hard XP).
The other big issue I wish the game had fixed is the map, particularly around pollution. Though areas will get polluted, the only way to tell that is to catch the little bullitains that come up about it in the upper right of the screen while you play (while your attention is quite logically probably focused on other things). While you can check how much food is currently in a map area, you can't look at any other aspects of the map's current conditions, and that can be really irritating when you suddenly wander into a super polluted area you were hoping was full of food, only to find it's full of super toxic food from all the pollution (which give calories if eaten, but also TONS of pollution).
The game's story mode is a series of structured missions taking place in the game map. You unlock them by collecting data files as you play the survival mode, and once you collect all present on the map, you'll unlock a new mission (for a total of 15, including the tutorial). They're sorta serious, but they acknowledge how silly the premise is fairly often. They're often about taking down a series of enemies around the map, or sometimes are HORRID stealth stages that the game's stealth mechanics just are not good enough to make fun (and whose checkpoints are not nearly generous enough). It's a neat little diversion that explains why the world is the way it is, but it's certainly not what I'd call the main draw of the game by any respect. There are a couple animals locked behind completing story mode though, so it's worth going through if you really really wanna unlock everything (although no trophies are tied to animal unlocks).
Verdict: Highly Recommended. Tokyo Jungle, by its sheer premise, won't be for everyone. That said, it's really good at what it does, and if this sounds like something you'd enjoy, I'd say it's definitely worth checking out. The only hesitation I'd have at recommending it is that the nature of its gameplay does make its appeal a bit niche. It does have local co-op play, which can be very fun, although the game is also pretty hard, so that can be an obstacle to enjoying it with someone unless you're just going out for silly fun. Especially if you can find this on that PSN physical bundle along with Journey and that other game, this is definitely a game worth picking up and trying out for the sheer silliness and the good challenge of being a Pomeranian forced to take on a raptor XD
longtime ladyHeads might know that tokyo jungle is a constant for people visiting or coming over. I love the survival mode's challenge, and how it keeps me and whoever I'm playing with on the edge of our seats as we have to strategically plan out our routes for challenge completion.
I love the way the game looks, almost like a high-detail pop up book, and the music controls tension so well.
fantastic little game
OH and there's a story mode I havent even gotten into that much!
I love the way the game looks, almost like a high-detail pop up book, and the music controls tension so well.
fantastic little game
OH and there's a story mode I havent even gotten into that much!
The humans are dead, and the animals reign supreme. The original Darwinian instinct kicks in as your animal has to eat plants or smaller animals and avoid threats like stronger carnivores and the toxicity those pesky humans left behind. Eat, you-know-what, fight. Eat, you-know-what, fight. Eat, you-know-what, fight. Yeah, I could see why this game wasn't a huge hit with its somewhat repetitive gameplay loop, but I can't deny the concept is interesting enough for me to play this for a while back in my peak PS3-playing days.
It does take a long time to unlock the more interesting animals, and a lot of the animals in between are just Pomeranian but faster or Sika Deer but stronger, and it can get frustrating getting so close to unlocking the next animal only to get one-shotted because a lion managed to acknowledge your existence. But, that's the way nature is, isn't it?
I never managed to beat the story mode; I mostly stuck to survival mode. I guess I never got to it.
It does take a long time to unlock the more interesting animals, and a lot of the animals in between are just Pomeranian but faster or Sika Deer but stronger, and it can get frustrating getting so close to unlocking the next animal only to get one-shotted because a lion managed to acknowledge your existence. But, that's the way nature is, isn't it?
I never managed to beat the story mode; I mostly stuck to survival mode. I guess I never got to it.
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