Tokyo Jungle [PS3/2012]

System Played: Playstation 3

Year Released: 2012

Year Reviewed: 2021

Tokyo Jungle is a PS3 exclusive digital-only stealth game from developer ‘Crispy's!’ and SCE’s Japan Studio, set in a near future where humankind has vanished and the city of Tokyo now belongs to feral pets, escaped zoo animals and dinosaurs?!


Survival and Chapter modes make up the meat of the experience, and the game eases you in with an in-depth tutorial laying out the key mechanics.

Survival is the main mode, first requiring you to select an animal from the list you’ve unlocked, and then seeing how long you can stay alive.

Only the Pomeranian dog and Sika Deer are available to begin, with others unlocked through progress (or buying DLC).


As the name implies, the main aim of Survival is to stay alive for as long as possible, fending off hunger, predators, the elements, disease, and old age, at the same time as achieving numerous objectives or “Challenges” set for you (varying slightly depending on the animal you’re playing as).

Do this, that, and the other in exchange for stat increase rewards that (could) help you survive a bit longer, be it defeat so many other animals, find certain landmarks, breed so many times, etc.

Each time you start a new Survival run, you’re presented with this list of objectives which influence which areas you should go to, in which order, and what to do. They’re not mandatory exactly, but the game is a bit aimless otherwise.

The passage of time is a big factor in playing Tokyo Jungle, with each in-game year being a real time minute. The Challenges are time sensitive, giving you 4 to do in the first 10 years (minutes), then another 4 in the second, etc.


More vital is the need to manage your life and hunger meters.

The hunger bar is just constantly depleting, needing you to keep consuming. If it goes completely, then your life starts draining, and in no time you’ve starved to death. This is a common outcome, because there often just isn't enough food around.

The playable animal rosta is a mix of carnivores and herbivores, each requiring a different approach to how you play.

Perhaps self-explanatorily, carnivores survive by eating other animals whereas herbivores eat plants.

Playing as herbivores is almost exclusively stealth and evasion-focussed, since they’re often weak fighters like Deer and Sheep (but there are exceptions, like Hippo’s, that have some weight behind them).

Carnivores are stronger fighters, whether it be toe-to-toe or making stealth-kills on unsuspecting prey. Don’t think a Pomeranian could take out a Dairy Cow? Think again! Maybe not a full grown Lion though...


Regardless of the animal you’re playing as, stealth is usually the best approach (unless you’ve put in the hours and hours to unlock the upper echelons of the food chain, like lions and tigers).

The main mechanic involves hiding in tall grass, either to get the jump on unawares prey, or avoid the detection of bigger animals who want to make a meal of you.


Get too old (20+ for most species) and you become weak and easy to kill. To avoid this, you need to breed.

There’s a bit of A process required before you can achieve this, first needing to “mark your territory”, claiming various areas of the district you’re currently in. This gives you use of the local nest (where you can also Quick Save your progress to continue later).

Claiming a territory also spawns a couple of mates for you to attract. There’s “grades” available, which the game dubs Prime, Average and Desperate. You have to level up (by eating lots) to attract the best partners, and time pressures will typically contribute towards you having to settle for whoever is closest. To add further insult, the Desperate ones will also give you fleas...


Mating produces offspring, at which point control switches over to this next generation, inheriting some of the stats you accumulated as their progenitor. How good a transfer of stats you get is determined by factors like your age at the time of mating and the quality of your mate.

One thing I didn’t like about the game design was that when control first switches to the offspring, there is never any food in the district, so you have to run full pelt to a different area or quickly starve to death (which you still might do, if the random elements align to decide there is no food in the next district either). This design choice seemed unnecessary to me.

There is usually more than one offspring born at a time (depending on the animal), with these siblings almost acting like extra lives, following you around until the one you’re controlling dies, at which point control will pass over to one of the others rather than ending the game.

It also varies a bit depending whether you’re playing as a predator or grazer. As a carnivore, your siblings will fight with you, and can even carry food around for when you need it. Herbivore siblings can be sacrificed if you’re under attack from a predator, throwing themselves into the jaws of your pursuer so you have a better chance at escape.


Evasion is almost like Metal Gear Solid, where enemies become alerted to your presence and pursue you. Maybe you can take them on and out, but sometimes you’ve got no chance and have to flee.

If you can find a hiding place and remain undetected for a period of time, eventually they’ll give up and return to their business. In a further nod to Konami’s series, you can occasionally walk around under boxes to avoid detection.


When stealth goes out the window, and you have to fight toe to toe, the mechanics are basic enough.

Square attacks, weakening enemies with a few blows, then go for a finishing bite (R1) when the icon turns red. The same can be done to you, but bites can be evaded with a well timed jab of the R Stick, leaving them open for a counter (limited by your stamina meter, which depletes each time you dodge about).

Some animals, such as wolves, hyenas and lions, hunt in packs. You might be ok against one or a few of them, but eventually they can overwhelm you with numbers.


Tokyo itself is a set map separated into 12 districts you can travel between.

It’s all streets and rooftops, connected by obvious paths and less obvious shortcuts. A mini-map helps you see how they’re all connected, but I still had some issues seeing the less obvious routes. Familiarity, through continued play, helps.

Where, how many and which animals you encounter is more random, changing for each run of Survival mode, and the longer you last, the bigger the other animals get.

The ultimate goal of Survival is (through breeding and luck) to last for 100 years.

Another random element conspiring against you is weather, including toxic rain which frequently poisons your food source or smog which removes all the animal markers from your mini-map, so you can’t see what’s around you (often until it’s too late).

There’s also a day/night cycle (nothing like in sync with the year counter), which can work to your advantage, catching some unsuspecting victims asleep, but there are other predators out at night too.


As if it wasn’t weird enough already, you can also improve stats temporarily by “dressing up”, equipping items of clothing and accessories you find. Ever seen a crocodile dressed in a Japanese schoolgirl outfit?


Playing Tokyo Jungle’s Survival mode is a constant juggling act, as you try to keep alive but also position yourself to be able to complete the Challenges within the allotted time, AND pickup any story Archives (to unlock new Chapters) AND take on any boss events which occur (to unlock new playable animals). The reality is that you can’t really do it all at once, having to play again and again.

Every run ends in death eventually, but you have good ones and bad ones.

Typical things that end a run are: being too big for your boots (trying to take on bigger animals than you should), getting ambushed, starvation or falling victim or the elements.

Your “score” is automatically posted on the global leaderboards each time a run comes to an end.


Chapter mode is a series of small scripted narrative episodes, complete with cutscenes and text, where you control a specific animal to achieve a set objective.

These are locked to begin with, made available by gathering Archive items in Survival mode runs.

The story unfolds over 14 chapters, eventually revealing man's fate.


Tokyo Jungle does look a bit “budget”. The animal models are all low poly and none of them have eyes, making them look like tatty old taxidermy. It doesn’t impact your enjoyment of the game at all.


Tokyo Jungle is a weird game, but that seems to be where a lot of the appeal comes from.

I liked the premise but the implementation irked me a bit, like all these Rogue-ish games that are so heavily reliant on repetition to achieve small progression. I prefer to see continuous and definite progress in exchange for my playing time.

It’s one of those games that doesn’t really have an “end”. You just play for as long as you care to. For me, this was only a few days. I enjoyed my time a lot, for a little while, but reached a point where I was familiar with the mechanics and structure but still didn’t seem to be making much progress. At this point, it all started to feel too repetitive, and by its nature, it is.

6/10