On December 25, 1999, I woke up that Christmas morning, opened my gifts, and found not only a purple Game Boy Color, but also my first-ever video game, Pokémon Silver. Since that day, I’ve played many Pokémon games (Pokémon Yellow, Crystal, Sapphire, Emerald, Diamond, Platinum, Black, White 2, X, Moon, Ultra Sun, Sword, Violet, Fire Red, Heart Gold, Omega Ruby, and Legends: Arceus) so you can call me a pretty big fan — I even have HM04 tattooed on my chest (only real nerds know).
And while Pokémon Heart Gold is probably my favourite game ever, I have seen the pitfalls of the series, like Pokémon Sapphire having too much water, Scarlet having too many issues at launch, and Legends: Z-A wasn’t my cup of tea at all.
This was a lot of exposition to say when Pokémon game developer Game Freak made another game; I just had to get my hands on it. That game, Beast of Reincarnation, is absolutely fantastic, and though it’s not completely flawless, I enjoyed the 30ish-hour campaign and would definitely recommend it.
Not a difficult beast to tame
I would call Beast of Reincarnation a soulslite, a term used to describe a game with soulslike elements but far more forgiving. While Game Freak warned me that it’d be difficult, on the “Normal” mode, I found the game far easier than soulslikes such as Dark Souls, Lies of P or the game that I feel it has most in common with, Sekiro. In fact, this title feels heavily inspired by that FromSoftware game, as you can see that throughout the game’s main combat mechanic, parrying. Although parry windows are far more generous, and so are most aspects of the game. For instance, when you die, you don’t need to go back and collect any souls; enemies are easier to read with more wind-up time, and you have best boy Koo by your side with clever mechanics that can shift the tides of battle.
Speaking of Koo, the wolf turned malefect (the term for creatures affected by the blight that’s changing the world), he might be the best partner character I’ve had the pleasure of teaming up with – but I’ll explain why later.
But my point is, if you’re worried Beast of Reincarnation might be too difficult, if you were able to finish a FromSoftware game, you should have no problem here. And if you haven’t, I’d still give it a shot considering there’s an easy mode.
Sort of like Spider-Man
Beast of Reincarnation has two gameplay elements that I’ve been absolutely loving: traversal and combat. The protagonist, Emma, is seemingly like Koo, another malefect, who’s able to use her root-like hair to traverse the world. Pressing ‘jump’ twice raises Emma higher, like one of the coolest double jumps ever, as roots come up from the ground to give her more leverage. She can grapple to far-away destinations by using her hair as some sort of branch-like chain and can even use her hair to make a bridge of roots to help cross distances.
The traversal in this game is so unique, and while playing, I even compared it to Marvel’s Spider–Man. One section has you grappling around oversized trees, and it felt epic. You can’t cling to any surface, and you only tether when the icon appears, but it’s everywhere.
The blade is sharp…
And traversal can help emphasize Emma’s combat abilities. For instance, if you level up Emma’s hair-bridge ability and aim it towards an enemy, a giant flower will emerge from the ground that you can grapple to, double jump, and execute an enemy from above.
Emma and Koo have some very cool combat potentials; Beast of Reincarnation has literal skill trees for both characters, allowing you to pick and choose which abilities you want to level up. Emma has several perks that can be picked up as well to enhance her hair, range and sword abilities. Emma’s sword combat is very interesting, and there are several very easy combos to master.
On PlayStation, pressing ‘R1’ initiates a sword swing, and pressing ‘Square’ activates the ability. So if you’ve swung your sword twice and press Square, it’ll activate an ability; maybe a giant flower will spring up from the ground, or a swamp bog will emerge from your feet. Each swing of your sword will initiate a different ability that Square can activate, and there will be a pop-up to indicate what ability you’ll use when you press Square. It’s very intuitive and looks pretty cool when you’re fighting enemies. And the more you level up, fight bosses and gain powers, the more combos you can chain in combat. Eventually, you’ll be popping different plants out of the ground and moving your sword at insane speeds; it looks pretty fancy and very inspired by anime.
Emma pretty much feels like a character from the anime Demon Slayer swinging her sword in the coolest ways possible, and that’s only the tip of it.
…but so are Koo’s fangs
Koo brings a whole other element to combat. So while you’re controlling Emma fighting enemies, you’ll need to be both cutting away normally so you can build energy to use the above-mentioned sword techniques and then parrying as well so you’re able to build up Koo’s FP gauge. Once Koo has enough FP for the ability you want, press ‘Triangle’ (on PS5), and the world will slow down, like bullet time, and you’re able to choose the best ability for whoever you’re fighting against. In this game, you have to consider things like type advantages and resistances, and how to best build the numerous status effects the game has, while also wrecking the enemy’s stamina gauge so you can stagger them and devastate their health. You can also unlock six slots (through leveling up) that let you pick from a list of ‘Mods’ that enable Koo to perform passive abilities. For instance, Koo can summon a garden of flowers to heal you, throw fire bombs at the enemy or use special bite attacks that can build status effects. I eventually started relying on Koo to heal me a lot during combat, without me having to tell him to heal me. I’d expect him to build the ‘rooting’ status effect that would build roots around an enemy’s feet, trapping them, or expect him to use a howling ability that would increase my strength. Having both passive and active abilities for your side character is pretty cool, and even cooler because he’s a beautiful wolf that can shoot blazing seeds at your enemies.
Other aspects of the game I really enjoy include both the visuals and the music. I loved the background music during battles, and when you’re travelling the world, it’s calm and relaxing. And visually, Beast of Reincarnation is stunning, from the world to the gruesome bosses affected by the blight to Koo and Emma herself; I couldn’t get over how appealing everything looked. Though I did notice some texture pop-in once in a while (I am playing on base PS5), so some things would at first look a little smudgy – like Clair Obscur, and then details and proper textures would take a few seconds to catch up. Game Freak released a patch a few hours ahead of publishing this review, which helps performance, but I haven’t gotten the chance to check it out. But I didn’t experience any actual problems while playing.
Not without its flaws
I thoroughly enjoyed Beast of Reincarnation, but it wasn’t perfect. For instance, a larger variety of enemies would have been nice. By the end of the 30-hour campaign, I was getting tired of seeing the same robots and blight-infected beasts. Even some of the bosses double up, which is a little annoying. I think the last 10 hours I started noticing some doubling up and started getting annoyed by some of the enemy types. New areas bring different enemies, or stronger versions of previously fought ones, but even that gets a little tiring after your first combat with them.
I also understood the story (for the most part), but I definitely wasn’t playing the game for its story. It felt like a convoluted anime, and a far wilder version of Horizon Zero Dawn as Emma and Koo discover what happened to the world 2000 years ago (the game is set in the year 4026), the cause of the blight, and learn more about themselves. Seriously, there is a story here; parts of it are interesting, doing far better than most souls-esque games, but I was far more interested in finding and killing the next boss.
Other parts of Beast of Reincarnation were interesting, like the different regions based on apocalyptic Japan. Some were more forestial, others mountainous, another region was full of desiccated buildings, and dungeons to explore. I was expecting more variations, but it was fine, and I enjoyed exploring each section – the game has various sections to explore, instead of being a fully open world title. But some of these sections felt pretty large, while others were small. You can’t ride around on Koo, but a mount isn’t necessary; none of the sections were that big.
Time to put away the Pokéball
Beast of Reincarnation wasn’t perfect, but the title’s combat was fun, engaging and has an anime undertone that I love, and the traversal mechanics were top-notch. Seeing some of the bosses for the first time was exhilarating, and the title is beautiful with flashy swordplay, beautiful scenery, and grotesque monsters. And I was absolutely laughing when a boss falls in battle and then ‘evolves’ and comes back even stronger – like she literally says ‘it’s evolving’ like it’s Pokémon; now that’s hilarious.
Game Freak should consider hanging up Pokémon, take all the money it’s earned and focus on this game, possible DLCs and sequels or even other adventures. Because I definitely had a lot more fun playing Beast of Reincarnation than any Game Freak Pokémon game in years.
Worth mentioning, I didn’t rush through the game. I spent a lot of time exploring in the first half, but halfway through I was having more fun killing bosses, so I spent less time exploring and getting through it. Plus, I wanted to make sure I completed the title before writing the review; I’m in NG+ spending even more time in each region.
