Tokyo Jungle: The Extra Animal

If I were to pick one Video Game that was incredibly weird, obscure, and needed more publicity, it would be 'Tokyo Jungle'.

I always found that the Playstation 3 had some very interesting exclusives hidden withen the Playstation Store. I only discovered the game because I often watched Let's Plays, and a certain Let's Player had done a full playthrough of the game. Watching it, it just seemed so fun and unique, being able to play as animals in such a feral, wild environment. After a few months of thinking about it, I decided to beg my parents to buy me the game. Only because of it's low price of 15$, and reassuring that a credit card would be safe using it on the Playstation Store, my dad eventually bought it for me.

With plenty of energy as I usually had playing new games, I started it up, and played as the first carnivore available; The Pomeranian.

Despite the slightly repetitive gameplay after playing it for awhile, I eventually had unlocked all the Carnivores in the game with only unlocking a couple Herbivores, stopping around the Dairy Cow. I had also completed a surprisingly complicated and emotional story, that needs to be seen to be believed. Bit of Spoilers here, but you get to play as Dinosaurs! Though only two of them, [Though technically 4, counting the Saber-Toothed Tiger DLC and the Mammoth, which was the final Herbivore unlock] they were still very fun to play as.

They were fairly accurate depictions of the Deinonychus, and the Dilophosaurus, which Jurrasic Park did mess up. A great thing about the game though, that even playing as these final Animals, it was still incredibly difficult if you just went fighting everything and didn't plan out a survival strategy. Even in the end, the game is programmed in a way so that you quickly die after surviving 100 Years. Even playing as such a powerful creature, I have only survived up to 106 years.

Now... here is where things get... interesting.

I had eventually unlocked all the Herbivores, having fun with new strategies that now had to work for the plant-eaters. I had also gotten my parents to get me every DLC animal, as well as me having accumulated enough points to unlock the last two secret animals for beating the story. [They take a HUGE amount of Survival Points to get.]

I had taken a break from the game for a few weeks, having gotten a pretty big fill on it from getting every Animal in it. Though after ending up watching some videos of the game again, I just wanted to play it again for myself. When I went to select the Dilophosaurus, something strange caught my eye. In the two empty slots at the bottom right of the selection screen, there were two new animals.

The Pigeon, and the Pteranodon.

This was completely unexpected. Even with the two animals being seen in the game, you were never able to play as flying creatures. I never seen any videos, or even screenshots of this happening, but one thing was for sure; I was completely excited for some finally new things to play as!

Of course I picked the Pteranodon, as the Pidgeon was just as small, if not smaller, then the Pomeranian, and was labeled as a Herbivore. Pternadons in the game were a huge threat, as you couldn't hide from them unless you went into a train car, as well as it was extremely hard to hit them. Even then, they where pretty bulky. Even with that, as said before, this game is great at providing challenge even as the best Animals.

The Pteranodon could still fly, but for a limited time, for about a minute or so. While flying, it was out of reach from every animal, had no worries about obsticals, [On the ground at least] had an absolutely devistating attack, and was easily the fastest thing in the game. Though it had a major draw-back. Whenever it was on the ground, it was probably as slow as the Chick, and had a very weak attack. If you used the full flight time, it would be stuck to the ground for around the same time as the full flying time. You also had to go on the ground to clear some more higher up obsticals, meaning you were vulnerable until you could take off again.

Though while playing as the Pteranodon, I quickly realised something. It had slightly unique animations for eating different kinds of animals. For large animals, the Pteranodon dug it's large beak into them, pulling out the entrails of the animal before tilting it's head back to eat them. It was surprisingly graphic for this game, as the eating animation for all Carnivores was just having some silly blood splatter from the corpse, before the animal burst into a cartoony skeleton. Now, however, it showed in much more detail the Pteranodon ripping apart the guts of large animals, then leaving the emptied bodies to rot.

The small animals however.... It's what makes playing as this creature really difficult for me. By now, I had gotten used to killing Pomeranians, Cats, and other such things that people usually get emotional about when they are hurt. With the Pteranodon, the eating animation for animals about as big as Beagles or chickens, it was just... disgustingly sad. Instead of killing a small animal when you get a 'Clean Kill' on them, the Pteranodon grabs them with it's beak, shaking them around a bit before eating them.... Alive.

The image of a Pomeranian crying out and struggling while sliding down the Prehistoric Creature's throat.... get's stuck in my head, and it really just makes me question the game all together. Even after seeing it a few times in my first playthrough, I promised myself to rather starve in the game then eat small animals.

After this, I just had to get used seeing the animation of eating large animals if I wanted to keep surviving. Even though I play Mortal Kombat 9 from time to time, the image of the prehistoric animal ripping through the entrails of a Lion or Large dog still just makes me uncomfortable in some way

I remember being able to get to 158 years or so, due to the fact that the Pteranodon can fly to avoid, and actualy be able to eat the Homo Erectus that constantly spawn after you reach 100 years. [They replace almost all other animals, are very overpowered, and usually can't be eat by Carnivores... And yes, the Animation for eating them involved the Pteranodon ripping out their guts.] The score was the highest it will probably ever be for me, even though I saw scores that completely maxed out the points, and was at year '999'. I knew that whoever got that was obviously hacking the game.

Strangely enough, the Pteranodon didn't have a picture on the score board rankings, but instead just had Question Marks over it, like an animal on the board that you haven't unlocked yet. This did make me wonder if I somehow got a hacked version of the game, even though I got it in the legit Playstation Store. Also, since I don't own any sort of recording equipment or capture device, I couldn't record or take a picture of me playing, so I guess I don't have any real evidence of this whole thing. Guess you'll just have to take my word for it.

I still love playing the game from time to time, and I still sometimes pick the Pternadon. I still never eat smaller animals with it, which has sometimes ended up killing me early on, or made me lose challenges, but I just can't watch it again. I don't think I'll ever 'quit' the game though. It's something special that I don't want to waste.