Toei Animation has been pushing a new gaming focused branch of their animation-focused company, first publishing Japanese indie games. Now the company is co-developing a brand new title with Re:VER PROJECT -TOKYO-.

I got time with the game with its current demo build at PAX West and was really pleased with the anime-style adventure game. It’s uncommon for Japanese games to have direct commentary on modern Japanese culture, so I was excited to see where Re:VER PROJECT -TOKYO- will take players.

The story in Re:VER starts with a Japanese congressman getting killed in public, and somehow protagonist Yukinori Amane is blamed with the crime. Yukinori becomes a wanted criminal, living on the outskirts of society and desperate to prove his innocence.

Yukinori is traveling and surviving with his companion, ex-idol Hinagi Mutsumi, who is also falsely accused of wrongdoing. It’s from here their struggle for survival begins and they have to carefully explore, find food, medicine, and hopefully their innocence.

Yukinori and Hinagi have to move from safehouse to safehouse, surviving each day with food they scavenge, all the while avoiding the public eye. The game features a “Citizen Sensor System”, which is basically the citizens noticing weird behavior. Each time you get caught rummaging through a trash can, they notice.

While avoiding the noticers, you can generally explore freely through a modern, 2D, and pixelated take on modern Tokyo, There’s all kinds of buildings and neon jam-packed throughout, but there’s also dark overpasses and even darker back alleys. Each area of Tokyo has areas with all kinds of hidden things to scrounge for.

Depending on how much you get noticed, police activity will increase and after a certain percentage, you’ll get more police patrols. I was told by the developer that apparently there’s no current limit to how many police can be added, so I hope there’s an ultra hard mode with an absurd number of police.

When exploring the neon-streets and dingy alleyways of Tokyo, you have to avoid those police because they also increase your investigation percentage. I’m assuming once you hit one hundred percent you get arrested and it’s game over. Generally it doesn’t increase that fast so the challenge feels just right.

While the game version of Tokyo may not be as big as the absolutely monstrous real life Tokyo, it’s certainly a good size and portrays its density even with those pixel visuals. The parallax scrolling in the background is multi-layered and when moving around, everything looks great and very stylish

A lot of modern indie games like to take the roguelike approach and while that has its benefits, I genuinely love hand-crafted levels and worlds. Every area in Re:VER is littered with details, NPCs roaming around, and has numerous things to interact with or buildings to enter.

The first major mission in the game is to get medicine for Hinagi, all while still getting food and water for both her and Yukinori. It takes several days in-game to actually get everything done in order to acquire the medicine, and if you’re not watching your survival Hinagi can even die.

I was so focused on trying to get medicine for Hinagi and got too wrapped up in the exploration that I forgot the game has survival elements too! I nearly let Hinagi die but managed to scramble for food and water, saving her in the nick of time. After that I was able to get the final things so we could give her that medicine.

At first glance it may seem like Re:VER is just exploration and collecting things but you have to craft things too, including some food that is more common, like acorns. Oh yeah, you can roast those acorns because when you’re living as a vagrant, you have to eat whatever you can come by.

There’s actually a third survival mechanic you have to manage, and that’s your sanity. Living on the run and being wanted for murder is probably not a good place to be mentally, so you have to occasionally take anti-crazy pills, so that neither Hinagi or Yukinori go crazy.

So the entire focus of the game is to survive and hopefully prove your innocence, with the two game over conditions being you get arrested or either of the protagonists go insane. One half of the development team, the indie studio Nestopi, is known for challenging but rewarding games, and it shows here.

The balance of challenge while giving players just enough time to explore and progress through the story is quite good. This is a story-driven game, so it’s natural players will just want to see more story but you’re responsible for two people now, so keeping them alive is the other half of the game.

As mentioned in my interview with Re:VER’s producer, it’s not common for Japanese games to have direct commentary on modern Japan, or rather how surprisingly strict its societal norms can be. As a westerner, it’s certainly eye-opening to see famous celebrities essentially have their career over, over controversy.

You get some hints of that society in Re:VER, and while it’s not preachy or annoying it’s very interesting to see a new story focused on redemption in modern Japan. To most outsiders Japan may seem very modern and even possibly futuristic, when in reality it’s traditional, culturally.

And there’s nothing wrong in that. Re:VER is simply juxtaposing modern Japanese society, which is quite homogenous, into a video game that also shows there can be redemption in society, too. The game reminds me of Japanese drama/thriller shows, so I’m very excited to see what happens next.

I’m honestly very surprised and intrigued by Re:VER PROJECT -TOKYO-, a very much needed breath of fresh air in the indie games scene. While lots of big Japanese companies are trying to avoid risks, seeing Toei take chances with indie games is nothing but exciting.

I know that after my time playing the demo for Re:VER (which is still available, by the way) I’m very eager to play the full game whenever it launches. The balance of survival mechanics and an interesting modern Japan story make Re:VER PROJECT -TOKYO- a must play for me. 

Re:VER PROJECT -TOKYO- is in development for Windows PC (via Steam), though a release date wasn’t announced.