Announced during the latest Nintendo Direct and released shortly after, Tokyo Scramble is a Switch 2 exclusive, which combines the worlds of horror and dinosaurs. So, grab your smart device, a spare pair of pants, and get ready to find out if Tokyo Scramble is a roarsome time or a Jurassic-sized failure. Tickets, please.
Chaos Theory
Tokyo Scramble has you controlling the fate of Anne, on her way to meet her friends/band mates, when the world beneath her train collapses and thrusts our unwitting heroine into an underground nest of Dinosaurs…which Anne decides are called Zinos because she apparently has never experienced any history lessons or dinosaur-related media.
The story is mostly told through text messages exchanged between Anne and her friends, with the odd cutscene here and there when her brother turns up. This would be a fun way of piecing together a narrative if her friends weren’t completely unbothered by Anne’s situation and would much rather talk about who fancies who or other teenage drama. Anne’s brother, while in the same situation, doesn’t really add much to the drama or exposition either.
Sadly what could have been a really interesting premise is ruined by how seemingly uninterested the developers are with presenting a good story. Even a good cheesy B-Movie can present a little more than what we get here: an interesting idea with the lack of any depth or charm. Tokyo Scramble offers little more than a dinosaur-filled undercity that instead wants to talk more about teen drama and borderline bullying, like an incredibly untactful and confused version of Silent Hill: The Short Message with poorly named Zinos.
Be Very Quiet
Tokyo Scramble is a survival horror more in the vein of titles like Clock Tower, Remothered and Haunting Ground. There are no weapons throughout the game; it’s just Anne, her smart watch, and you looking over her trying to escape the Zinos and return to the warm embrace of her completely uninterested friends.
Stealth is the key here and the gameplay really does force that. With no weapons or healing items, any interaction with the Zinos often results in a rather awkward death where the Zino flails wildly as Anne crashes to the floor and the screen fades to black. This helps the game keep its T-for-Teen, PEGI-12 rating and makes you feel like you picked up an incredibly low-budget PS2 or early XBox 360 title.
That feeling extends throughout the whole game. It’s an entire title focused on the awkward forced stealth sections of yesteryear. By and large we’ve long since overcome cumbersome stealth movements, nearly instant death on sight, and rigid level design with one or two routes that spell success and any hint of trying something else spells disaster. Tokyo Scramble unfortunately just doesn’t feel like a 2026 title, and at times features something closer to an homage or outright imitation of the blueprints of gaming’s early stealth sections, down to the letter.
Watch What I Do Next
Anne’s Smart Watch which she names Dianne (because who doesn’t have a name for their watch?) is her main means of survival. It has the ability to activate various machines around the undercity, and these are how you’re going to distract the Zinos long enough for you to sprint momentarily to safety. Interactions range from activating vending machines to fire out soda to triggering escalators which cause the Zinos to jump onto them and run mindlessly like excited hamsters.
What this ultimately boils down to is you scrambling to your nearest “interactable” item and praying that the AI behind the Zinos decides to interact with it and then dash for as long as your heart rate monitor will allow. If your heart rate does goes over 150, you’ll slow down and start to panic; if this happens you do have a “Flash” on your watch which will in theory blind a Zino monumentally but it has a horrible habit of not working because of course why would it!
Your watch recharges when you find a charging station, so you have to use your watch sparingly. If it’s not available or you wish to conserve your battery, you’ll often need to alternate between crouching out of sight and sprinting when you have the chance to advance. It’s standard stuff really for the genre, but it’s not been tackled with the care or attention it needed. It feels stiff and awkward, which is a shame because there is real potential here in some of the larger environments.
On the Next Episode of Tokyo Scramble…
Tokyo Scramble is set in episodes rather than a giant sprawling world, and this somewhat helps the pacing. You can always set the game down after an episode and question your life choices before you jump into the next chapter, praying it isn’t one of the painful boss chapters. After you finish an episode you are given a rank of how well you did. What affects your score wasn’t made clear, and I was often left feeling like the result was completely random. Your side objectives that unlock a little bit of lore for the Zinos may have some impact on it, but you can fail countless times and still come out on the higher end of the scale.
There is a multiplayer feature in Tokyo Scramble where each player controls an aspect of the game. One controls Anne, one triggers the Watch, one controls the camera (and absolutely no one has any fun as a result). I tried one episode and saw all I needed to see with this. It’s a weird feature that seemingly has had both a lot of thought put into it and none at all, just a bizarre choice right here.
I was really excited to play this when it was announced, and after a few hours I couldn’t have had any more regret if I tried. I love the concept of the game and I’ve played my fair share of janky titles in the past. Dinosaur Horror mixed with Disaster Report just screamed my jam from the get go but sadly I didn’t find a single aspect of the gameplay enjoyable.
More Fool Me
Tokyo Scramble looks like a bunch of store-bought assets and Unreal Engine generic models thrown together with some actually genuine atmosphere (and no I’m not being sarcastic about that). Poor art direction aside, the game actually does do a good job at presenting an isolating and deadly atmosphere that is essential for all titles of the genre, so bravo to the developers there.
Character models are awkward and shiny, animate stiffly and don’t really blend in well with the surroundings. Nothing has a unique look to it, and it just comes off looking a little cheap. I wasn’t expecting AAA levels of shine, but it doesn’t even have the charm of a budget AA PS2 title.
The voice acting is hammy and awkward, especially the relationship between Anne and her brother. I couldn’t quite get the dynamic they were going for, to the point that it almost felt incestuous at some points. I would have rather they just went either all in on serious voice performances, or go absolutely bonkers with it, instead it’s just uncomfortable.
Verdict
I wanted to like Tokyo Scramble so much. A Switch 2 exclusive horror with dinosaurs and a generous dose of that sweet, sweet jank is exactly something I can get behind. Trust me, I can somewhat look beyond janky visuals and horrendous sound, but what I can’t get beyond is just how devoid of fun this game is.
It’s stiff, awkward, and restricting, much like the undercity in the game, which is the nicest thing I can say about this one. Tokyo Scramble is a scrambled mess of poor choices and bad gameplay, and I couldn’t recommend this one to even the most seasoned horror jank veterans.
TOKYO SCRAMBLE IS NOT RECOMMENDED
If you are looking for a different sort of horror game, you might want to check out System Shock 2: Remastered.
Many thanks go to Binary Haze Interactive for a Switch 2 review code for Tokyo Scramble.
Pride of utopia & greatest thing ever, I found the One Piece, Collected the Dragon Balls & won the Mortal Kombat Tournament in one night, it was quiet for me that night! Follow me on Twitter @powahdunk
