Elephants are big and smart, but surviving the wild of Tokyo Jungle is going to take more than size and brains. Thankfully, those who chose to play as an elephant have a means of outrunning a jet pack equipped chicken.

Before mankind disappeared, they left behind special roller skates designed just for giant animals.

Equip your elephant with these roller skates, and you'll be able to speed through the Tokyo Jungle, like so:

Elephants aren't the only animals to benefit from costumes. The game also has a sumo wrestler's belt. Equippable exclusively by the Japanese Tosa dog, this item for some reason makes you more aerodynamic, allowing you to outrun other animals.

(I don't know why there's a fish in that second pic, so don't ask.)

Other items can help out even if you don't wear them. Try "cheap pet food" to recover your hungry gauge and poison gauge. Try "terrible stamina jerky" to keep your stamina gauge from depleting temporarily. Try flea removal shampoo to recover from a flea state (yes, the game apparently has a flea state).

In addition to helping with survival, you'll want to make skilled use of these items to climb the game's online ranking mode. Sony also shared today a couple of additional pointers for climbing the ranks.

First, you'll want to clear the various challenges you're given as you progress through the game -- things like "reach the Shibuya outskirts" and so-forth. You'll actually be presented with multiple challenges at the same time. They're ranked S through E in terms of difficulty. There are also special missions which when cleared will unlock new animals and costumes.

The other method for increasing your rank is a bit more luck based. You'll occasionally come across special events which will present you with rare animals to hunt. For example, this "Legendary Giant Bunny:"