Tokyo Tattoo Girls Review

Platforms: PC (via Steam), Sony PlayStation Vita
Player(s): 1

​Ever want to take on the role of an unnamed Tattoo artist and help a girl conquer the 23 wards of a post-apocalyptic Tokyo? Well then NIS America has the game for you!

Tokyo Tattoo Girls is a game developed by Sushi Typhoon Games (a subsidiary of the legendary Nikkatsu) and published in the US by NIS America. It features six girls who all bear a tattoo that grants them the ability to stand up to the rulers of the 23 wards of Tokyo who also bear tattoos which give them the power to rule this cut-off region of Japan. The game itself is a simple strategy game where you (sometimes) command your partner to do various tasks that help her gain a foothold in the various districts before eventually facing its leader, defeating them, and finally taking it over. You win various items by completing the game each time and you also have several difficulties to try your hand at if you find the core experience too easy. Now this might seem like a very brief description of what this game is, but I've really covered everything this game offers right there. Now let's take a deeper look and see if this one is worth your time.

Sorry for those expecting that...

They really do.

Let's start with the story. The story that is here is pretty much as barebones as you can get; it's barely there. We are told via the intro that some nameless calamity destroyed Tokyo and several girls with powerful tattoos arose to bring order to the chaos and currently rule together as "The Syndicate". Apparently this calamity was centralized to Tokyo and the city itself is walled off and the rest of Japan is presumably carrying on as usual. This is all we're really given for the background. The six main characters each have their own reasons for embarking on their journey to unite Tokyo under them and the 23 leaders have their own (sometimes ill-defined) reasons as to why/how they rule their respective districts. While 29 total characters may seem like a lot, there really isn't much more story here and each girl only has four truly unique scenes that help flesh out the story with the 23 leaders not even being given that luxury. Character 30 comes in the way of your avatar, a tattoo artist who wanders into Tokyo to help one of the six girls and is basically given no story at all and only exists as a vehicle to drive the game forward with only the most minimal of interaction from your partner and none at all from the 23 leaders. Also worth noting that this game implies that the area is solely, or at least largely, occupied by girls. Your character is largely left as a blank slate so you can assume what you will about the tattoo artist's gender.

Just starting out...

Full tattoos

Now let's talk about gameplay. There is also unfortunately very little to speak of here and that's all the more problematic being that this title falls under the strategy game genre. Your chosen partner starts out with just one small tattoo and your job is to fill up the rest of her back with tattoos that help out various aspects of gameplay, such as recruiting clanswomen and affecting things like your honor (this game's life bar) and such. Each turn is a day and each day sees your partner doing various things like invading neighboring territories, recruiting punks and clanswomen, and receiving protection money. (PM: this game's currency) Besides the aforementioned adding of tattoos, your actions mainly come by way of dealing with issues that might arise from invading territories, collecting random suitcases of protection money, and giving commands to your chosen partner. Now this might sound like your standard strategy fare and in fact I went into the game thinking that. I spent lots of money on actions for my partner that I assumed would help her conquer various districts and promptly lost the game after several turns with no real way to recover my dwindling honor. It was then that I found out that the game will pretty much play itself if you let it and you can just spend protection money on tattoos and the occasional boost to honor as it goes down each time a "turf war" breaks out in a district. (An action caused when you're recruiting too many people in any one area.) Very little happens on screen at all actually. The only true events in-game are when you face a district's leader, everything else is just told to you by your partner. It would have been nice if each of these events, such as an area becoming wary of your interest, you invading a new area, etc., were accompanied by some sort of small animation to break up the monotony of the map screen, but this never happens. The only animation that plays is for a turf war and even these seem to appear sporadically. As long as you keep your honor from dipping too low you can pretty much complete a game without ever truly interfering with your partner's automatic actions. I honestly found that the best way to play is to put the speed on fast and collect protection money only breaking that up to put new tattoos on my partner or complete the versus sequences with the leaders. Speaking of those sequences, these aren't exactly a break from the norm as they are impossible to lose from my experience and the only true variable being that answering a certain question correctly will net you an honor bonus. That is seriously it when it comes to gameplay and I was definitely left wanting a deeper experience. This game also has a random gambling mini-game, but I found it to be a waste of time and honestly ignored it after the first couple plays.

A typical gameplay scene.

Now is the part where I would usually talk graphics, but I can't find too many words to say about them. Character designs are good, if a little generic, and I share the same sentiment about the backgrounds. Everything looks colorful and nothing truly disappoints, even if it also never truly stands out. There is very little else in the way of graphics as there are very little visualizations or animations going on during the core gameplay moments. Everything works, and while I do like some of the designs, it comes off as a very standard bunch that doesn't try anything too unique beyond the typical anime tropes.

Pretty much the only reason to keep playing tbh.

That's too bad...

Let's talk characters, because some of you might be thinking that maybe one should look at this game as a type of visual novel and less like a strategy game. Now I wish that were the case, but I honestly can't let it off the hook using that reasoning. The characters here are a somewhat interesting mix of stereotypes from your average cat-girl Tama, to Choufu, who aspires to be an actress and several other types in-between. As stated earlier, each of the six girls have their own reasons for trying to conquer the 23 districts and while we do see some characterization from the girls it's often very sporadic and extremely one-note. Also many of the character's motivations aren't even given resolution at the end of the game. Not in a "this was left open-ended on purpose" way, but a more "oops, we forgot to wrap up that plotline" sort of way. The bosses of each area get even less characterization as you do not interact with them at all except before and after your "fight" sequence. More interaction in the main game might have been interesting or even a simple introduction as to who they are before you fight them. It is worth noting that each of the six girls do have different interactions with these leaders and while there are some variations in the interactions depending on the character, such as different insights here and there and references to prior relationships, but they're rather insignificant and don't serve to flesh out a mostly uninteresting lot. Now this doesn't mean that it's all bad. I found some of the boss characters, like those of Shibuya and Shinjuku, to be mostly funny and some characters like Choufu and Tachikawa have more than their share of interesting moments, but these were more the exception than the norm. The problem core problem here is that there is very little actual "game" present be it as a strategy game or as a visual novel. Once you've finished a playthrough with a girl you've literally seen everything their route has to offer.

As far as I can tell you can NEVER lose one of these.

You rarely see these chibi models elsewhere sadly.

Replayability is apparently where this game puts a lot of its focus. I looked into the trophy/achievement lists before playing and I was surprised to see trophies referring to beating the game eight times with each girl as well as completing each difficulty level. I assumed this meant that there would be some sort of New Game+ aspect or maybe a variation on each playthrough, but there really isn't. Besides beating the game on each difficulty for various items that decorate the girl's room (a very underused mechanic might I add that only adds other boosts similar to new tattoos) there is very little reason to keep playing once you finish a playthrough besides for said achievements/trophies. That being said, I will admit that the game did grow on me a bit and I played through the entire game several times with each of the girls, but the latter playthroughs were played on the highest speed with me skipping most of the conversations. You also get rated after each playthrough and collect a gallery of the pictures you get from each interaction with the bosses so there are other reasons to keep playing, but very little to keep any but the most hardcore achievement hoarder form playing beyond the first couple hours. Also for those hoping to unlock some sort of final story that wraps everything up by beating the game with every girl on every difficulty you are unfortunately mistaken as doing this nets you nothing special. I know that that might be counted as a spoiler, but I feel that it's important enough to mention as I wasted quite a bit of time doing this for this review.

The scenes in Shinjuku are my favorite bar none.

Masked Sumida is probably my favorite boss.

For this review I played both the PS Vita and Steam versions and I expected very little differences between the two besides some interface changes, but I was wrong. I would be giving this game a much harsher rating if I had only played the Vita version as it is plagued by very annoying loading times (I hated entering the partner screens as each one had a loading sequence) and was nearly unplayable at because of both their frequency and length. It also suffered occasionally from slowdown even though very little was happening on screen. The Steam port on the other hand has neither of these problems and ran very smoothly. What's odd is that this PC port is exclusive to this US release and otherwise is barely optimized for the platform. (The title screen still says "Press Start" for example) I liked the idea of using touch controls on the Vita since this game seemed like it lent itself well to them, so having those absent from the PC release was a minor letdown, but I still feel that this is the only way to get any real enjoyment out of this game. It should also be noted that while playing during the review period both version had glitched trophies/achievements and while game received several updates before release (including one on release day) I still experienced problems. Perhaps these will be fixed in a later update, but it is worth mentioning here.

Different choices don't affect much sadly...

It's actually not all that hard to get an S Rank

In short while I did find some enjoyment with this title I honestly can't wholeheartedly suggest that you check out this game, and I can't recommend this game at all for those looking for a good strategy game. If you want a collect-a-thon with visual novel elements though then this game might be for you. That said I strongly suggest that you forego the Vita version and go Steam if you really must experience this title for yourself.

-Manuel (alavic_222)

The game is available now on PS Vita and Steam. More information on where you can get the game can be found on its official website:
http://nisamerica.com/games/tokyo-tattoo-girls/

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Graphics: GOOD
Sound: GOOD
Gameplay: QUESTIONABLE
Value: GOOD

OVERALL: GOOD

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Disclaimer: This game was provided to us by the publisher for the purpose of this review.