For decades now, Japan has been trying to insist that everything is better if you replace the normal entity with a cute anime girl. From sports team mascots to soldiers, if you simply put Natsumi-chan in play, you’ll have a good time. Marfusha made it clear that my frontline should be entirely composed of anime girls, so why stop there? Why not put them into the entire Japanese government and have them do legislative business and pass bylaws? Oh, don’t worry: they wouldn’t only be doing desk work and focusing on campaign promises. They’d also be dungeon crawling and fusing together other cute girls to make top-tier cute girls with powerful weapons. Does that sound completely bananas? Then welcome to Tokyo Clanpool, and I hope you enjoy your stay.

We just started, I don’t think you can call it safe just yet.

The government of Japan is facing another disaster, but one that they can actually do something about instead of the falling birthrate and skyrocketing alcoholism. This time, a mysterious tower has appeared and a being called Isperica has proclaimed that he’s unleashing a bunch of monsters and going to bring a calamity down so strong that the end of the world will merely be a side effect. He’s operating for the benefit of some unknown queen, so that’s fairly exciting. The Prime Minister, Natsume Kannuki, has decided to face this problem head on, which she does by recruiting other members of the Cabinet (all cute anime girls) and diving head first into the tower. Through multiple levels of changing, bizarre biomes, Natsume and company will discover the incredible secret behind these monsters, their own technology and the truth about Ether, the life force of everything.

When it comes to Tokyo Clanpool, players need to know there are a metric ton of fantastic, first person dungeon crawlers out now, especially for the Nintendo Switch. You’ve got classics like Wizardry, modern marvels like Etrian Odyssey, and plenty inbetween like Mon-Yu (I will NOT type out the full title). In the straightforward essence, Clanpool brings very little to the table in the traditional sense. The dungeons are arguably sprawling and complex, with a lot of ideas to contend around in order to advance. Combat is set on an elemental scale, so being able to mix and match different kinds of attacks to best match enemies (water vs fire sort of stuff) is key to easier victories. If you’re here only for the hack and slash aspect, you might be let down. 

Though the chibi avatar combo attacks are always satisfying to unleash.

In fact, some of the more basic aspects of Tokyo Clanpool were a tad annoying to me. For example, like most dungeon crawlers, you frequently need to leave the dungeon in order to heal, replenish and get the populous to vote on their favorite government official (more on that in a moment). However, the dungeons in Clanpool are in full reset mode every time you leave. So the treasure drops and item finds, which are static in location, always refill, letting you get a silly amount of loot with nary an effort. In that same vein, though, traps, additional pathways and specific doors also reset, which results in needing to repeat your actions if you didn’t fully finish the floor. It can be exceptionally grating to need to re-tunnel the same spots again and again just to move forward.

Additionally, the combat difficulty spikes enormously between chapters/biomes. After defeating a boss, you get to move onto a new section of the tower, which has different monsters (though some are, arguably, reskins of existing monsters). Yet every time I moved on I immediately hit a wall of massive damage and resistance for the first few fights. It’s awful to get to a point where you almost feel cocky about navigating your current floor, then you go up the stairs and watch the Chief Cabinet Secretary get one-shotted by some unspeakable horror. This is less of a complaint and more of an observation: players might get complacent and I’m letting you know you will get merced in the process.

Yet, once you move beyond the traditional aspects of Tokyo Clanpool, you really open up the fun and excitement that kept me engaged. As I mentioned before, the government angle actually plays a huge part in combat and survival. Your dungeon crawling is live streamed to the citizens of Japan, and your approval rating goes up with each new discovery, successful combat or awesome finishing move. The higher your approval, the more passive bonuses you get, like increased EXP, better loot drops or even auto-refill of HP after fights. When you make the public happy, everyone is happy! Or at least the public is happy, which is something.

The public loves us! Let’s not screw it up!

Plus, there’s a vote if you’re able to successfully finish the dungeon and return home in one or several pieces. The vote is based on how well everyone did in terms of offense and defense, plus you do get some additional numbers based on your Digiskin. The winner of the vote gets a huge bump in EXP from the conclusion of the venture, so much so that the Prime Minister ended up several levels ahead of everyone else thanks to her heavy hitting nature and the fact that she didn’t die so often as the healer-based characters. It encourages players to try and level out the playing field through good Digiskin and Gadgettia selection, and also to mesh well with the Gadgettia so they give you an impassioned speech during the votes. 

The Digiskins are your core tenants of how to fight in the game. Rather than focus just on equipment, Tokyo Clanpool gives players a variety of equippable suits that give specific stat boosts to whomever they’re on.. Each Digiskin has a better attachment with a different character, though you can mix and match to your heart’s content. Players who want a more offensive team or a healing based squad will find that Skins can better affect some defense or strength, in a case by case situation. Since Clanpool is an updated version, it comes pre-packaged with some especially powerful (and fan service based) Digiskins you can use from the get-go, but more can be unlocked through discovery, experimentation, and appealing to the Diet to sign them into legislation.

Mashing two diving girls together will create some kind of meek bookworm. Science is never wrong!

The Gadgettia, on the other hand, are these supportive digital beings that gives the characters different attacks and magical abilities. The Gadgettia give Clanpool a distinctly Shin Megami Tensei feeling, as you can make new ones from found elements and then fuse them together to get new ones that aid and abed in special ways. This system was very cool and I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to beat the level cap and unlock Gadgettia with even stronger abilities. Unlike SMT, I didn’t have to worry about them trying to murder me in the streets, so that was helpful. But there was also some sameness: a few Gadgettias were just the same skins with different colors, so there wasn’t as much variety. Having said that, I liked what I saw, so I can’t complain.

Lastly, the Diet. I cannot express to you the unfettered joy I got from taking a break from dungeon crawling and synthesizing items to walk into a board room and proceed to bribe everyone I could just to get things I wanted. For some reason, this unabashedly corrupt political element of Tokyo Clanpool was a hilarious and surprisingly necessary part of the game. Some of the best things in the world are using crap that I found in a dungeon to bribe the opposition into voting that I got more money. You could have easily removed this part of the game and no one would have cared, but I love that it’s here.

C’mon, if you vote for me to have a new Digiskin, I’ll give you…this solid gold dress? Wait, am I getting a raw deal here?

Something that has been changed, however, is the Stigmata Lab. A bit later into the game, the scientists discover that each of the four characters has extra power hidden inside of them, and, through Lab experiments, you can unlock super helpful things like attack and speed bonuses. You apply them in interchangeable liberty, and they can give a serious boost to your dungeon crawl. You find them by…rubbing the girls all over their bodies and finding the hidden spots. Yes, like Moero or Seven Pirates H, Compile Heart attempted to put in a “grope young women relentlessly” game mechanic. This, combined with the semi-nude transformation scenes that occur when the game starts and when you “fuse” with your Gadgettia, make for a bit of an awkward title to play on the go, and I can’t imagine how Vita players were able to do it.

However, Eastasiasoft has decided to clean up the game for the official Western release and has nixed all of that. The transformation scenes have been removed entirely, and Stigmata Lab now just gives you the perfect results for each attempt, regardless, with no visuals whatsoever. The only thing that’s confusing about this is the tutorial still tells you (with no photos) what to do, and then you just…don’t do it. That’s all. There’s still plenty of tongue in cheek ecchi writing here and there, but the actual act of taking the very prepubescent looking characters and rubbing over their almost naked bodies has been taken out. And I genuinely don’t care, because I didn’t play Clanpool on the Vita and, if I did, I would have skipped this entirely after the tutorial. I’m here to kill monsters, not commit a sex crime.

Jeez, so what crimes can I do, MOM?

Combine all this with a solid soundtrack, excellent voiceover work and the trademark silly humor of Compile Heart’s ridiculous character creations, and Tokyo Clanpool is one of the better dungeon crawlers I’ve gotten on the Switch. While exposition can take a while and the plot is a little run of the mill, it’s got heart and it’s cute, and I seriously thought the added mechanics were inventive. It takes a lot to run right alongside an Atlus mechanic and not be too samey or grotesque in your inspiration, and Tokyo Clanpool has done it. With a little luck, this new release, in full English, will find its way into the Western eShop soon. For the time being, though, only the folks in Hong Kong have the liberty to run a government the way it should be: by dressing your representatives in maid costumes for combat. God Bless Japan.

Tokyo Clanpool is available now on PS Vita, PC (GOG only) and Switch.

Reviewed on Switch.

A copy of Tokyo Clanpool was provided by the publisher.