Tokyo 42

This spin on Tokyo is breathtaking to view and full of memorable moments, all of which are worth dying over and over for.

Regardless the badly managed shootouts against the hordes, the game will convince you of its high quality thanks to its art styling and flawless open world. [Issue#274]

A new way of looking at things, quite literally, and one that chooses bright joyfulness as its medium and lives up to it through its play. It's absolutely worth the time and the money, and if you find it frustrating, I encourage you to give it another few hours. Just about anyone who does will be charmed by the supersaturated, gloriously isometric, high octane, quirkily funny cyberpunk blowout that is Tokyo 42.

I enjoyed almost every minute I spent with Tokyo 42. Few games feel so immediately and consistently inviting - there are no penalties for pissing about in this urban utopia. You don’t even have to feel bad about killing civilians, as they’ll simply flicker back to life once you’ve ended your shooting spree. It’s a remarkable shooter, a solid stealth-‘em-up, and a terrible racing game.

Tokyo 42 is a stylish action shooter with a distinctive and colorful scenario. The freedom related to the completion of each mission and the variety of the equipment are significant qualities, however the variety of missions could have been deeper.

As far as debut projects go, Tokyo 42 is a great game with a fascinating sense of style and a confident swagger, let down by a handful of little things. Controlling how to shoot takes some getting used to and that sharp increase in difficulty was unwelcome to say the least, yet I had a fantastic time sneaking around and assassinating targets however I wished. A great effort.

An isometric shooter with a ton of style, and a lack of complexity that works in its favour.

Futuristic Tokyo is a beautiful and stylish city. It offers great stealth, pleasant freedom and great atmosphere. It’s a pity camera-shuffles sometimes make the shooting unpleasantly difficult.

For a game that promises a degree of freedom in how you approach a job, you'll often find there's a clearly preferred way of doing things. [Aug 2017, p.112]

Although it has quite a few issues, it’s original and fresh, and has a strong personality. If you like what it has to offer, you’ll probably forget about the problems and enjoy it quite a lot.

That's why it's so unfortunate that Tokyo 42 fails to leave its own mark on the genre its developers so clearly admire. It literally wears its cyberpunk influences on its sleeve (your default coat, Deckard, is named after Blade Runner’s iconic protagonist), but it fails to cultivate a unique personality during its various missions.

Its issues and occasional shortcomings didn’t hugely detract from my enjoyment, and instead just left me with a longing sense of “what if”. Tokyo 42 is still a good game. It’s just one that comes close enough to being a great one that its flaws sting a little bit more than they probably should.

An intricate, beautiful playground for some enjoyably open-ended assassinations.

Quotation forthcoming.

This action packed Syndicate-esque Tokyo 42 features lots of fun when the game plays right and lots of frustration when it doesn't. If you can withstand the randomness of its combat you are sure to enjoy the beautiful views of this colourful stylish cyberpunk shooter.

Thanks to the imprecision of its shooting controls and the cheap behaviour of its AI, I could never really develop any confidence in Tokyo 42’s frustrating combat. Which is a shame because, glitches aside, I really loved exploring the wonderfully crafted world and the simple yet still challenging nature of its stealth-based assassinations.

Tokyo 42 offers a stylish, polished, well-presented open world that’s unfortunately just not an awful lot of fun to do anything in. A few nice touches put a spark in its heart, but they can’t light up the overall experience.

The eccentric aesthetic of Tokyo 42 is its biggest selling point. It’s a joy to run around the skyscrapers and having some fun shootouts. It’s a pity that the camera proves to be our biggest enemy alongside the issue of repetition.

Tokyo 42 has a lot of potential, and moments of greatness where it can deliver satisfying action, but unfortunately gets bogged down by an annoying camera and notable structure issues and technical snafus. There’s still fun to be had in the candy-coated world of a futuristic Japan, especially when it comes to exploration and the occasional parkour, but those looking for a more focused and more effective action game would be better off checking something else instead. So in the end, it’s sadly less Blade Runner and more Johnny Mnemonic.

Quotation forthcoming.

The single player campaign remains immensely enjoyable but it’s a shame it can’t sustain early success. Refined controls and a focus on more crafted stealth missions, rather than turning everything up to 11, would have meant fewer rage-quits and a higher score.

Tokyo 42 rarely locks us into a certain style of play, but it’s not the "isometric Hitman game" you probably wished for. It’s too small in all aspects to earn that title, and, the worst part, the stealth is awfully boring and primitive.