Tokyo 42

This review could just as easily have been negative rather than positive. The clincher for going with positive is that I got the game at 90% discount, and with ~19 hours playtime at time of writing, it's hard to say I didn't get my money's worth. And there is a lot you can enjoy here, as long as you know what to expect. So consider this a heavily qualified positive review.
The Good
There is a lot to like about this game. The environment design is (mostly) really good (there is an area where the design is somewhat clumsily chosen to add challenge to a specific mission that takes place there, but it's noticeable by contrast with the rest of the gameworld), and the art design is phenomenal. This is a 9 year old game and it still feels fresh and distinctive.
Similarly, the music is really good and fits the game perfectly. Good enough that I've looked it up to see if I can buy it as its own thing.
The world is full of little details and secrets to find, and - for me at least - the crowd and NPC behaviour does a lot to sell the idea of a busy, bustling megacity. There's a sense of humour and whimsy to the world - starting with the basic premise which is "framed for a murder, you start committing murders for hire to expose the real killer", but also in the writing/dialogue and even some of the visual aspects of NPCs.
There's a bit of variety to the missions, although they are generally of the "go here, kill this person" - but the fun is more to do with figuring out how you can do it. You can do the "all guns blazing" approach - you don't get punished for doing this, other than it being a more challenging way to play since the game does also enable a more stealthy approach.
The Bad
The camera. I understand the desire for an isometric-type camera system, and I can even deal with the "for certain missions or areas, half the challenge is working out which camera angle to use" because done right it can add to platforming/parkour challenges. But the system here needs a lot of refinement to mesh smoothly into the game - not least to address things like your direction of movement changing immediately on rotating the camera, but also the limited range of zoom levels and the lack of an auto-zoom feature. The fact that you can't change the vertical orientation of the camera means that certain combat situations are far more frustrating than they need to be.
The controls. I'm a little more forgiving here as I know that designing future-proof controls is hard - but the big problem is that controller layouts can't be customised. So hope you like the default controls! The aiming controls are bad, which comes back to the camera issue - but they are far worse when you need to use them while also moving, because you don't get a proper laser-sight on "fast aim" - so you need to use the reticle-aim option instead, but that moves the camera entirely without pausing the game, so now you can aim better but at the expense of not being able to see where your character is.
The enemy AI. Sometimes this manifests in ways that help you (there's no scaling-response from most enemies, and they don't notice or react to e.g. several corpses of their fellow gang members lying around, as long as they didn't see or hear you kill them), others in ways that suck (in combat they always know where you are and can aim accordingly, including projectiles - and they also always know where your projectiles are being thrown).
The boss fights - these are in a way a combination of previous issues, but nonetheless it's worth knowing that there are a couple of these and they are vexatious. For one of them it's possible (though not mentioned in-game) to get an assist from an NPC if you have completed their side-missions beforehand - but even then I had to look up a guide to figure out how to beat them. And the final mission is the only wave-based level in the game where failing sends you back to wave 1 rather than using a per-wave checkpoint system. Callback to old-school difficulty options? Cheap way of bumping difficulty? Both? That'll depend on the player, but it's hard to argue it makes the game better, and they will suck the joy out of the game while you're stuck on them. You'll get shot through cover. You'll get to read the same ****ing boss monologue every time you die. You'll swear a vendetta against the camera and aiming systems. And after a while you'll start wondering if a game you've stopped enjoying is still worth your time.
The alternate mission types I respect the desire to introduce additional mission types, but the end results - specifically the racing and parkour missions - don't work well. The programming for the racing missions definitely needs a lot of refinement, and the parkour missions just felt frustrating rather than a fun challenge.
So yes, the game has flaws. Sizeable flaws. And yet, when you're not fighting the camera, and particularly when you're just mooching around the city looking for secrets or just taking in the music and scenery... it has a lot to offer. Some of its flaws will undoubtedly be in part due to this being the first game developed by its creators, with presumably limited resources for play-testing and iterative feedback-driven development. But I can't mention that without also giving credit for just how well they handled the good parts - because the stuff that they got right here, they did excellently.

Steam User 2

Reviewed 1 week ago

This review could just as easily have been negative rather than positive. The clincher for going with positive is that I got the game at 90% discount, and with ~19 hours playtime at time of writing, it's hard to say I didn't get my money's worth. And there is a lot you can enjoy here, as long as you know what to expect. So consider this a heavily qualified positive review.
The Good
There is a lot to like about this game. The environment design is (mostly) really good (there is an area where the design is somewhat clumsily chosen to add challenge to a specific mission that takes place there, but it's noticeable by contrast with the rest of the gameworld), and the art design is phenomenal. This is a 9 year old game and it still feels fresh and distinctive.
Similarly, the music is really good and fits the game perfectly. Good enough that I've looked it up to see if I can buy it as its own thing.
The world is full of little details and secrets to find, and - for me at least - the crowd and NPC behaviour does a lot to sell the idea of a busy, bustling megacity. There's a sense of humour and whimsy to the world - starting with the basic premise which is "framed for a murder, you start committing murders for hire to expose the real killer", but also in the writing/dialogue and even some of the visual aspects of NPCs.
There's a bit of variety to the missions, although they are generally of the "go here, kill this person" - but the fun is more to do with figuring out how you can do it. You can do the "all guns blazing" approach - you don't get punished for doing this, other than it being a more challenging way to play since the game does also enable a more stealthy approach.
The Bad
The camera. I understand the desire for an isometric-type camera system, and I can even deal with the "for certain missions or areas, half the challenge is working out which camera angle to use" because done right it can add to platforming/parkour challenges. But the system here needs a lot of refinement to mesh smoothly into the game - not least to address things like your direction of movement changing immediately on rotating the camera, but also the limited range of zoom levels and the lack of an auto-zoom feature. The fact that you can't change the vertical orientation of the camera means that certain combat situations are far more frustrating than they need to be.
The controls. I'm a little more forgiving here as I know that designing future-proof controls is hard - but the big problem is that controller layouts can't be customised. So hope you like the default controls! The aiming controls are bad, which comes back to the camera issue - but they are far worse when you need to use them while also moving, because you don't get a proper laser-sight on "fast aim" - so you need to use the reticle-aim option instead, but that moves the camera entirely without pausing the game, so now you can aim better but at the expense of not being able to see where your character is.
The enemy AI. Sometimes this manifests in ways that help you (there's no scaling-response from most enemies, and they don't notice or react to e.g. several corpses of their fellow gang members lying around, as long as they didn't see or hear you kill them), others in ways that suck (in combat they always know where you are and can aim accordingly, including projectiles - and they also always know where your projectiles are being thrown).
The boss fights - these are in a way a combination of previous issues, but nonetheless it's worth knowing that there are a couple of these and they are vexatious. For one of them it's possible (though not mentioned in-game) to get an assist from an NPC if you have completed their side-missions beforehand - but even then I had to look up a guide to figure out how to beat them. And the final mission is the only wave-based level in the game where failing sends you back to wave 1 rather than using a per-wave checkpoint system. Callback to old-school difficulty options? Cheap way of bumping difficulty? Both? That'll depend on the player, but it's hard to argue it makes the game better, and they will suck the joy out of the game while you're stuck on them. You'll get shot through cover. You'll get to read the same ****ing boss monologue every time you die. You'll swear a vendetta against the camera and aiming systems. And after a while you'll start wondering if a game you've stopped enjoying is still worth your time.
The alternate mission types I respect the desire to introduce additional mission types, but the end results - specifically the racing and parkour missions - don't work well. The programming for the racing missions definitely needs a lot of refinement, and the parkour missions just felt frustrating rather than a fun challenge.
So yes, the game has flaws. Sizeable flaws. And yet, when you're not fighting the camera, and particularly when you're just mooching around the city looking for secrets or just taking in the music and scenery... it has a lot to offer. Some of its flaws will undoubtedly be in part due to this being the first game developed by its creators, with presumably limited resources for play-testing and iterative feedback-driven development. But I can't mention that without also giving credit for just how well they handled the good parts - because the stuff that they got right here, they did excellently.
Steam User 0

Reviewed last year

Beautiful game with somewhat lackluster combat and stealth.
I actually really enjoyed the switching camera forcing me to develop spatial awareness of all enemies and possible paths.
Steam User 0

Reviewed last year

very good innit
Steam User 0

Reviewed last year

its good

Tokyo 42

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