Beast of Reincarnation has surprised me in a number of ways, and not least because it was developed by Game Freak, the Pokemon people. For a start, it’s bursting with mechanics, arguably too many for what it is, where much of Pokemon’s creativity is tied into its creature design. It’s also pretty good looking, whereas Pokemon is, well, Pokemon. But Game Freak has really outdone itself with the combat design. In fact, it’s really the combat that carries Beast of Reincarnation despite some rather glaring issues.
The first of these issues is the story. It’s a pretty straightforward Nier: Automata or Stellar Blade proxy, following Emma, an enhanced human warrior picking her way through the ruins of an advanced civilisation with a little group of mysterious allies, and smacking the snot out of anything that moves. The world is all decayed buildings and ancient highways reclaimed by nature, as a mutating disease called the blight (of course) transforms animals, and in some rare cases, humans into “malefacts.”
Emma is one of these “Sealers”, a human infected by the blight and bestowed extraordinary martial gifts as a result. She also shares a bond with Koo, a malefact wolf who protects her fiercely. Individuals like Emma are shunned by the AI overlords of humanity, referred to as Golems, but relied upon nonetheless to slay malefacts and larger, deadlier mutants called Nushi, and absorb their corrupting power. The problem with Beast of Reincarnation is that Emma is remarkably dull as a protagonist. Game Freak has written her like a robot for some reason, even though all the other Sealers you meet are full of character, and so her dialogue is delivered in a constant monotone, and it’s a never ending cavalcade of questions about this human thing called “love” as she bonds with a rescued human girl called Kagura, also relentlessly dull.
Colour is added to the narrative by Brad, the surly pilot of their little mobile base, and Kunai, a mysterious Sealer who mostly appears in long-distance communications with Emma and Brad. Having characters so uninteresting makes it very hard to care where their going, especially when the plot is so formulaic and the pacing so hampered by constant breaks for unnecessary Flashback cutscenes and unexciting mystery. Emma has a ghostly companion called Violet who is central to the mystery of the story, and Violet has a link to the titular Beast of Reincarnation, the deity-like entity who awoke and brought such ruin to the world. But despite is sounding cool on paper, I really struggled to stay engaged.
Part of this is down to how the story is presented. Emma moves to a new area and is charged with hunting the Nushi, giant mutated plant-creatures that look like they’ve been lifted wholesale from Wild Hearts. In the vast majority of cases, you will meet the Nushi, fight it, then follow it when it flees, engage it in a two-phase boss fight, and move on. There’s so little variety in locations that by the fourth one I was longing for a different climate or colour palette. Even when it plunges you underground for several sections of the game, the imagery and architecture is the same, and it starts to reuse bosses around the halfway mark, which irked me.
At first I was really enjoying the exploration, but that too began to pale when it started to feel as though Game Freak had lost the ability to pace collectibles or upgrades. Emma’s mutation gives her plant-like hair that she can control like an extra, stretchy limb. It allows you to hold a button to create bridges, or hold the jump button to lift her to higher ledges, offering the opportunity to use ground slams and aerial attacks in the exceptional combat encounters. Each area is heaving with things to find, from strongboxes containing gear and currency, blueprints for new ammunition for Emma’s bow and crossbow, or upgrades for Koo’s arsenal. There are also Dragon Shrines, which will increase her healing capabilities for every 10 you find.
But by around the halfway mark of the game, the developer utterly loses the plot with how things are spaced out. There’s one large underground anteroom with no less than five fast travel Camp Fires (this game’s bonfires or lanterns), and there are areas where you can see the next Dragon Shrine from the one you’re standing at. It becomes oddly tedious to the just hop from one to another, when Game Freak would have been better served by reducing the required number and making them harder or more fun to find. This muchness pervades so many areas of Beast of Reincarnation, too.
Kagura cooks for you, and the food conveys a buff whenever you return to the base. So there are chickens to raise for eggs, and a little garden to grow ingredients, and you research growing things and recipes and ultimately it’s just far, far too much. There’s no reason to have so many ingredients and methods to grow them when food buffs amount to picking one from a menu and they all just raise one or two of Emma and Koo’s stats. Likewise you’ll pick up resources from every foe, but the only one I understood or needed to monitor was Amber, the catch-all currency used to upgrade Emma’s sword and ranged weapons.
Even the skill trees are sprawling, nonsensical labyrinths exacerbated by everything having a hard-to-pronounce and forgettable Japanese-sounding name that made them impossible to order in my mind. I ended up building a repertoire of attacks in my head and just repeating them, because I couldn’t make heads nor tails of the convoluted skill trees.
The combat, thankfully, is Beast of Reincarnation’s true saving grace. Emma is armed with a katana, which comes in many forms throughout the game, each with different effects like health restoration or elemental effects, a rapid fire crossbow and a powerful bow. Combined with her many combos, aerial and AoE moves, her arsenal makes her incredibly formidable. Combat is fast-paced and impactful, requiring you to stagger foes for a lethal blow. It’s very parry-centric, with a satisfying rhythm that I simply didn’t get bored of. Emma’s parry is responsive and brutal, and chaining blocks even against bosses feels hugely empowering, as does nailing a perfect dodge when an enemy throws a red attack at you.
Alongside her is Koo, who fights and harries enemies, but can be called upon to use a number of special attacks from his growing repertoire to bind, burn, or poison enemies. Koo can also be equipped with special skills that increase his attributes, or allow him to throw bottles of acid or oil at golems allowing Emma to increase her damage with the corresponding element. Holding the right bumper opens his menu, from which you select an attack. Like Emma he has a finite resource from which to use his special abilities, which refills when resting.
Boss fights against the Nushi’s feel epic and challenging despite the manageable difficulty never really moving into Soulslike territory. The only complaint is how formulaic they feel. In fact, this is Beast of Reincarnation’s most unavoidable problem: there’s a distinct lack of variety throughout. Standard enemies become samey quickly, some of the bosses are reused wholeheartedly – even Emma’s appearance doesn’t change when you swap armour. The best you can do is change her hat, but the only cosmetics for Koo are found in pre-order DLC. The problem extends to the world, which rarely changes its colour palette or atmosphere. It’s pretty enough, but by the twentieth hour I was over the decayed majesty of a dying world, etc.
Ironically, Beast of Reincarnation feels like a studio’s debut title, and I suppose in some ways maybe it is. This is Game Freak foraying outside its comfort zone, and despite some missteps where pacing is concerned, it shows massive potential. The combat in particular truly shines, while overall enemy design is very cool. The world, too, is intriguing but lacks any real risk-taking to avoid it being simultaneously convoluted and predictable. Still, there’s around 30 hours of flashy, compelling combat, and satisfying exploration to be had here, in an adventure that at least proves there’s life after Pokemon for Game Freak.
