Review for Tokyo 42. Game for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, the video game was released on 31/05/2017 The version for PlayStation 4 came out on 30/09/2017
Tokyo 42 is one of those games we really wanted to love, which we really wanted to be more of an eye-catching graphic style. And in part SMAC Games, a team of two British brothers, has succeeded in the intent: Tokyo 42 has an unexpected depth, a story with a reasonable duration, many secondary missions, weapons and collectibles. Too bad it is betrayed by a gameplay that, especially in the second part of the experience, abandon the realm of "difficulty" - which we basically don't mind - to enter that of frustration and anger.
Indie game that can't be more indie and published by Mode 7, Tokyo 42 is defined by its creators as "the secret son of Syndicate and GTA I": an isometric shooter with a mission structure and an open world, freely explorable , which responds to the name of Tokyo of 2042 in fact.
A killer among colors
It is in this city that we wake up in a room, before being attacked by the police. We were framed for a crime we didn't commit and our only way to find the culprit is to climb the organized crime hierarchy and find who has made us the perfect scapegoat. Getting respect in the world of the Japanese underworld means becoming criminals, becoming murderers and following the bizarre demands of an equally bizarre group of characters.
The intriguing twist of Tokyo 42 here is that in this future the profession of hired killer has become commonplace, with people who will ask us to kill those who are less than they like, even for the most venial reasons. The world hasn't become such a terrible place though: thanks to advancements in the medical field, the giant pharmaceutical company Nano-Med has invented a medicine that allows anyone to return immediately in life after death. The murder thus becomes a way to send a signal, to teach a lesson, but it makes us less horrible people than any Nathan Drake looking for a treasure. The Nano-Meds will also be central to the plot of the title and the perfect pretext for the easy and immediate Tokyo 42 respawns.
1000 ways to die (and revive)
It will be these Respawns that we will constantly see, because in the SMAC production shootings the rule of one-shot one-kill and in the most excited moments the bullets will invade the screen, making the trial and error a habit. If in the first missions Tokyo 42 is magnanimous and accessible, when it comes to certain infiltrations in super crowded buildings or firefights in large numbers, the matter will get much more complicated; however it's not just a difficult game: the isometric view and the aiming system similar to twin-stick shooters makes hitting the target a very difficult task. There are times instead when everything works great, mainly when we will face the mafia using stealth and our reliable katana for silent kills: in these situations we see the skeleton of a successful game, which unfortunately it wants to be not only a stealth game, but also a shooter, failing this second intent.
The last few missions are truly heartbreaking: we gave up finishing the game when a clash took us to 30 reps with no chance to save in half. Suffice it to say that only 0,7% of those who bought Tokyo 42 on Xbox Live completed the game.
Not just fighting: the exploration is made particularly interesting by the camera rotation system, entrusted to the two bumpers of the controller. In fact, you can rotate the view at each press, similar to what happened in Fez, another very successful independent game. The system is interesting but makes some of the timed parkour missions or the practically uncontrollable sections on the bike damn annoying. In Fez all this was not a problem, given the very staid rhythms, while here you will often find yourself cursing against this function, which you were surely in love with after the first five minutes with the game.
Cats, fish and bullets
The element that brings home the sufficiency in Tokyo 42 is certainly its graphic realization, phenomenal in terms of style. From the first second we set our eyes on it, we were in love with this futuristic Japanese capital, with the colors of Ghost in The Shell and something of Blade Runner. Chinese and Japanese style that hybridize to create an original playground and in which to exercise our parkour skills, perhaps looking for a detail, a collectible, a glimpse worthy of a screenshot.
Finally, Tokyo 42 offers - quite surprisingly - online multiplayer, currently limited to deathmatch only. We would have really liked to tell you how it works or if it's fun, but in more than a week with the game we never found a single game available.
Tokyo 42 was a big disappointment: tested at EGX Rezzed a few weeks ago, it gave us the idea of an independent game with great potential, an AAA structure and a splendid technical sector to see. What we hadn't been able to understand, in the few minutes available at the stand, was that all the possible fun it could give is lost every time we have to pull the trigger. Not a small element, for a shooter.
► Tokyo 42 is an Action-Shooter type game developed by SMAC Games and published by Mode 7 Games for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, the video game was released on 31/05/2017 The version for PlayStation 4 came out on 30/09/2017
