Tokyo Jungle

Overview

Tokyo Jungle is a 'hunting action' game that takes place in a futuristic Japan after Humans have abandoned it, leaving only packs of animals roaming the country. Players assume direct control of multiple species throughout the game, all going toe-to-toe with each other in fierce battles.

The game had a retail release in Japan but was only released digitally in Western territories.

Gameplay

Survival Mode

In Survival mode, one or two players choose an animal and attempt to survive for as long as possible. Players choose either an herbivore or carnivorous animal to play as, moving through the city surviving and reproducing additional generations of animals. Playing as an herbivore focuses more on evading predators and seeking out plant food, while gameplay as a carnivore is more combat focused.

Gameplay is centered around using stealth and the advantages of the animal the player is using to seek out food, avoid enemies that are too strong, keep toxicity low, and complete objectives. Once the player has marked enough of a city area, they can then seek out a mate and breed a new generation of animal. Having a pack after breeding functions essentially as having additional lives. Completing objectives will lead to unlocking clothes. With clothes the player's animals are augmented with boosted stats similar to a RPG.

Randomized weather and environment status is also an important part of the game. A section of city with the famine status for example, will have little food in it. At night, most animals are asleep and view distance is reduced.

Players are scored depending on several factors, including how long they survived, how many challenges they completed, how much they ate, how many territories they dominated, and how many times they mated, with scores being recorded on an online leader board.

Story Mode

Story acts are unlocked by collecting archive data found in predetermined locations throughout survival mode. Story mode follows the lives of multiple animals as they adapt to life in the Tokyo Jungle. These animal's stories intersect to form a larger plot and eventually explain why the humans have disappeared.

Stories include a pet pomeranian that must learn to hunt, eat, mark, and mate in order to survive the now inhospitable, humanless world; an ongoing war between beagles and tosa dogs for territorial supremacy; hyena stealth missions as he works to win control for his nomadic band of scruffy carnivores; and a revealing final string that explains everything and gives players an important choice.

The game explores themes of power and belonging in the animal kingdom as well as environmentalism, hubris, technological innovation, and conspiracy in the human world.

Animal Selection

Initially the player starts with very few animals to choose from, earning more through challenges presented in the game's survival mode. After a player unlocks a new animal by completing survival or story challenges, they must purchase the animal with SP earned in survival mode. The selection of animals is vast; with over 50 breeds of living and extinct animals to play as.

They are (in alphabetical order):

So far, animals that have been released in the west are:

See "Downloadable Content" for more information.

Animal Attributes

Animals have six attributes: Life, Attack, Speed, Hunger, Stamina, and Defense. Each animal species starts with a default set of attributes that can be improved by completing challenges or equipping clothing. Different portions of these attribute bonuses are carried over to new generations of animals when mating depending on the quality of mate; with desperate mates transferring almost no attributes to its offspring, and prime mates transferring about half of the bonus attributes to its offspring. If a player dies with a newer generation of animals that were born with bonus attributes, they'll be able to start again from that generation with the same bonus attributes on the next occasion they select that animal species in survival.

Toxicity

As well as the six attributes governing an animal's abilities, an additional Toxicity Meter is present. This meter keeps track of how many toxins an animal has present in its body. Toxins enter an animal's body when it is present in a polluted territory of the map, eats an animal or plant filled with toxins, or drinks polluted water. Toxicity can be reduced by using certain items, eating uncontaminated animals or plants, or drinking uncontaminated water. When the Toxicity Meter is full the animal will rapidly begin losing life until its toxicity has been reduced.

Rank

Each generation of animal has a rank determined by how much food they've consumed. An animal will start at the rank of Rookie, level up to Veteran, and eventually reach the rank of Boss. The higher an animal's rank the more likely other animals are to avoid it. Rank is also the determining factor in which types of mate an animal can pick. Rookie animals can only mate with desperate mates, Veterans can mate with average and desperate mates, and a Boss can mate with every class of mate.

Mating

Each animal in Tokyo Jungle has a lifespan of fifteen years; once this fifteen years is up an animal's maximum hunger will begin to drop until it is zero, at which point it will be impossible to survive any longer. In order to ensure the survival of the species a player must dominate a territory of the jungle and mate with another animal to produce offspring. The player takes control of this offspring and continues to try to survive for as long as possible until it is necessary to mate again.

Once an animal has dominated a territory, by marking four locations in that territory, two mates will appear for the player to choose from. There are three classes of mate in Tokyo Jungle, Desperate, Average, and Prime. These classes are identifiable by the floating hearts above their heads. A desperate mate will have one or two black hearts floating above its head and give the player fleas if touched, an average mate one or two pink hearts, and a prime mate will have an excess amount of pink hearts above its head and will be sparkling.

Once the player has dominated a territory and picked a mate, they can go to any nest in a territory they've dominated to mate. Mating has a myriad of results depending on the class of mate the player has picked, and which bonus attributes the player's animal gained prior to mating. With desperate mates very few offspring are produced, and little to no bonus attributes are carried over to the new generation. Average mates produce slightly more offspring and about 25% of the player's bonus attributes are passed on to the new generation. Prime mates give the player the maximum amount of offspring and pass on about 50% of the player's bonus attributes.

Items

One-use Items such as medicine, food, and sleeping bags can be found scattered about the world or dropped from plants and animals that can temporarily boost an animal's attributes, restore life and hunger, halt stamina loss for a short time, remove fleas picked up from other animals, or let an animal sleep and mate without having to be at a nest.

Clothing

The player is be able to outfit certain animals with multiple sets of attribute-boosting clothing that can be received as drops from animals and plants, or rewarded for completing sets of in-game challenges. There are four slots for animal clothing; including hats, collars, shirts and shoes. Any item a player picks up can be purchased for survival points from the store menu under the survival section of the title screen. Free downloadable items are also available, themed around other Sony franchises including Ape Escape, LocoRoco, Patapon, Badman and PlayStation mascots Toro and Kuro.

All non-DLC clothing is tied to a durability stat that lowers depending on how much damage is taken while the clothing is being worn, or in the case of certain attack items, how much damage is inflicted on other animals. Once an item's durability reaches zero it is broken and lost for the rest of that game. The Item can be purchased from the "Store" game menu and used once again.

Downloadable Content

Tokyo Jungle has twelve additional DLC "animals" that have been made available for purchase in Japan, some of which were initially available as pre-order or Special Edition bonuses. The DLC content itself is already part of the on-disc or game download package - the DLC files are ~ 3 MB in size and are merely unlock keys.