Tokyo Scramble got revealed during the last Nintendo Partner Direct and then… it was just there. Released shortly after, barely any time to build hype or time for a deep dive beforehand. And I’ll be honest, that immediately triggered my red-flag intuition. After spending some time with the final version, that feeling didn’t completely disappear. Tokyo Scramble isn’t bad. It’s also not great. It’s one of those games where you constantly see potential, but it never fully settles into something worth playing.
Oh, you’re in danger? Anyway, why are you leaving me behind?
Perhaps the most shockingly bad part of Tokyo Scramble is its story. On paper, the setup isn’t terrible. Parts of Tokyo literally collapse, Anne gets stranded deep underground, and to make things worse, she’s not alone down there. The tunnels are crawling with dinosaurs or “Zinos,” as the game calls them and since Anne isn’t exactly a trained fighter, sneaking your way out becomes the main objective. Basic stuff, but at least it gives you a clear goal.
Then the game introduces Anne’s friends, and everything completely derails. Through her smart device, Anne keeps in touch via text messages, explaining that she’s trapped underground and being hunted by prehistoric monsters. Their reaction? Barely any concern. Instead, they mostly seem bothered by the fact that Anne is planning to move abroad for her studies. It’s such a strange tonal mismatch that it immediately kills any sense of danger or momentum. You’re supposedly fighting for your life, while your friends are having what feels like a group chat about mild personal drama.
At one point, you also meet Anne’s brother, who’s framed as someone there to help. In reality, he barely does anything meaningful. He shows up, talks a bit, disappears again, and somehow we’re expected to feel supported by his presence. Story-wise, it’s honestly kind of wild that this shipped in its current form. Character reactions make no sense, pacing is all over the place, and nothing feels grounded in the situation that the game itself created. If you’re looking for a spiritual successor to The Room, you might have just found it.
Sneak away from the Zinos
So the story clearly isn’t doing this game any favors, which made me hope the gameplay would pick up the slack. That’s honestly what I was thinking during my first hour, and to be fair, there are some genuinely fun ideas here. Sneaking around the Zinos and trying not to get spotted works surprisingly well at first. Combined with the visuals, those early sections actually create some real tension, especially when you’re slowly moving through tight spaces and can hear something big nearby. For a moment, it feels like the game knows exactly what kind of experience it wants to be.
Anne’s smart device is easily the strongest gameplay hook. You can interact with parts of the environment to set traps for the Zinos, dropping elevators on their heads, triggering mechanisms, and generally using the level itself as your weapon. It reminded me of a stripped-down version of Watch Dogs tech, and again, there’s definitely fun to be had here. It gives you a sense of agency beyond just crouching behind boxes and waiting for patrols to pass.
There’s also some enemy variety early on, including a few larger Zinos that feel like mini-boss encounters. At first, that helps keep things fresh. But the longer you play, the more the cracks start to show. After a while, you realize the Zino roster basically stops expanding, and the game just keeps recycling the same enemies and setups over and over again. What initially felt tense slowly turns predictable. You stop adapting and start repeating. The systems don’t really evolve, and once you’ve seen most of what the game has to offer, it becomes clear that it doesn’t have enough depth to sustain itself. That’s where the momentum starts to fade.
Why am I playing this?
I genuinely wanted this to work. That first hour gave me hope, but the further I pushed forward, the more the game started pushing back. What initially felt tense quickly turns frustrating, mostly because the rules around stealth aren’t always clear. Sometimes a Zino spots you from what feels like miles away, other times you can practically walk past them. Add instant-death hits to that mix, and suddenly you’re not learning from mistakes anymore but you’re just retrying the same section over and over, hoping the game behaves differently this time.
On top of that, the gameplay loop barely evolves. Sneak, distract, trap, repeat. Without a story that pulls you forward, there’s not much left to keep you engaged, and at some point, I caught myself wondering why I was even still playing. That’s always a bad sign. The thought that kept creeping back was that this game simply doesn’t feel finished. Or at least not aligned with what I expect from games in 2026. At its best, it reminded me of those B-tier titles from the early 2000s, you know, those games that were rough around the edges, but occasionally charming. At its worst, it felt like a half-baked experiment that never got the time or polish it clearly needed. There’s just too much working against it here to honestly call this fun.
Conclusion:
Tokyo Scramble starts with a few interesting ideas, but it never manages to make them entertaining. Between the messy story, unclear stealth, recycled enemies, and a gameplay loop that quickly wears thin, this ends up feeling unfinished. I kept waiting for it to click, but in the end, it simply didn’t.
