Beast of Reincarnation, the upcoming action, role-playing game, is developed by Game Freak. Yes, the same people who make Pokémon. Let that sink in for a moment, because I can hardly believe it myself. The janky, repetitive, stagnant, and yet absolutely beloved and major commercial success turn-based JRPG series, Pokémon, is created by Game Freak, the same studio behind Beast of Reincarnation. I repeat myself with emphasis to express the degree of awe I felt while playing this game with that in mind. I come to this review as a player and enjoyer of Pokémon games, having played the last four major entries (including the spin-offs) and many early entries in the series, so I have intimate familiarity with the studio’s pedigree. And so, it is with great surprise that I say: Beast of Reincarnation is, surprisingly, a very good game.
Stellar Wukong Dies Twice
Beast of Reincarnation is heavily inspired by Souls-like games like Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, but ends up much closer to the Souls-adjacent games of recent years, like Stellar Blade and Black Myth: Wukong, where combat is challenging, health flasks are limited, and campfires abound for saving your progress. But it lacks the (frustratingly) harsh death penalty and progression loss found in the subgenre. In fact, Beast of Reincarnation is an interesting combination of those two games, with a very large skill tree (actually, two, but we’ll get there in a moment) and potential combat builds, but a combat style that relies on parrying more than dodging. Despite these similarities to the notoriously difficult subgenre, the game manages to be quite accessible for the average player.
One of the ways Beast of Reincarnation achieves this accessibility is through having a difficulty selection. At the start, you choose between Story, Normal, and Hard mode, with a fourth mode, named Reincarnation+, unlocking upon completion for the New Game+ option, should you opt to play the game on a more challenging level. You can also adjust the difficulty between the three original options at any time in your first run. I played the game on Normal, and while there were moments of frustration on difficult fights and quite a few deaths, I managed to stick it out and clear the game without changing the difficulty.
Who Are You? And What Do You Want?
You play as Emma, a young woman with multiple titles like “Purifier” and “Sealer” attached to her. Alongside Emma is her dog companion, Koo, who is a stray that she has teamed up with on her journey. The story begins in medias res, and after some basic combat information, brings you back to the beginning of their adventure. Ostensibly, Emma is on a mission with Koo, her friend Kagura, and their mech pilot Brad, to get to the Capital to slay the Beast of Reincarnation. Along the way, Emma must slay the Nushi, extremely powerful beings corrupted by the blight of the world and absorb their powers to get strong enough to confront the Beast.
There’s a lot more to the story than what I’ve just described, but unfortunately, it is the weakest part of this otherwise impressive game. The main problem with the story is it’s your standard “mystery box” archetype, where Emma has no memories, and people are withholding information. You, as the player, hear conversations without context as to what they’re talking about, but it clues you in that something is amiss. On the whole, it’s enough to get you through the game and keep you interested in finding out the truth, it’s just a bit sloppy in its form, and doesn’t answer everything cleanly, leaving some aspects I didn’t grasp by the end. None of that is to say the story is actively offensive or bad, but it’s the background.
A little of that holds true for the characters, particularly around development, but I enjoyed the characters themselves. They’re a bit shallow, not a lot of growth or change, but on an individual level, the performances were quality and characters likeable, with one exception. Emma shows the most growth, and for story spoilers I won’t say more, but because the story is in the background, the other characters don’t have much of a chance to improve. Koo, the dog, is adorable and amusing, with his dog sounds like “woof” and “arf” in response to Emma having conversations with him always inducing a smile or chuckle. Brad, the mech pilot, is mysterious, and his voice is gravely and warm, like a grandpa, and his relationship with the others is sweet. The only character I disliked was Kagura; she’s a scared, insecure child with a breathy voice performance. It may have been intentional because of who the character is, but I found her annoying most of the time.
Flower Power
The two stars of the show are the gameplay and the world. As noted, Beast of Reincarnation’s combat relies heavily on parrying. Emma’s perfect parry empowers Koo’s “Florescence Points”, or “FP,” which he needs for his abilities. While some equipment can give Koo FP, the only surefire way is for Emma to perfect parry attacks. The FP, in turn, allow Koo to use his powerful abilities, like shooting fire blasts, throwing a lightning spear, binding the enemy in place, etc. These are augmented by “Mods” that Koo gains access to through his skill tree.
Yes, Koo has his own skill tree, along with Emma, resulting in two very extensive skill trees with a lot of customization; a buildcrafter’s dream. Emma and Koo share skill points, which are earned through killing enemies, so you must choose carefully how you wish to spend them, although you can reset them, along with attributes, eventually. Separately, Emma and Koo both feature strength, vitality, and fluorescence attributes, which increase your raw stats like damage done and health, and are earned one point per level up per character, i.e., these are not shared like skill points.
Certain thresholds of attributes are required to unlock certain skills, so you can focus your leveling up towards your particular playstyle. It’s all quite intricate, and on harder difficulties, mastering the options would be key to success. For my game, I went with a relatively generic build, where I sprinkled stats and abilities throughout everything, with nothing maxed out. This required very little maintenance and tweaking, but it also meant I was never super powerful in any single scenario, oftentimes scraping by with a sliver of health.
My Girl Wants to Parry All the Time
Emma’s primary weapon is her katana, but she has a spring-powered crossbow and unlocks a bow early- on as well. All of these can be upgraded with the game’s currency, Amber. There are a lot of katana in the game, each with unique powers that you can enhance as you upgrade the weapon. The ranged weapons can be upgraded for power, ammo, reload time, and draw time, and they have various elemental bolts and arrows for different situations. Katana reach their max level very quickly, while ranged weapons have a lot more levels of upgrades and can get very expensive. That said, I never found myself unable to upgrade gear enough to overcome a challenge.
So, how does it play? In short, very well. All of these systems come together exactly as you would expect them to. Emma’s parries feel great, with a solid “cling” sound when it’s a perfect parry, and while it’s sometimes a tight window, it’s almost always fair. Koo’s abilities are extremely powerful and useful, making him fundamental to success. You pick his abilities from a list mid-combat, and time slows to a crawl while deciding.
Each ability has a different FP cost depending on a couple of factors, and abilities cannot be used back-to-back. This adds a layer of strategy of what to pick at each specific moment, factoring in Emma’s health, her current weapon, and her Entanglement Gauge (for her own time-slowed attacks). It’s here, in the smoothness and cleanliness of combat, that I felt my shock that Beast of Reincarnation is by Game Freak. There are a few quirks, like the camera can be a bit messy with large enemies, and I feel like getting her to do an action that’s not attack is a little too delayed (like taking her health item, pulling out a bow, and activating the Entanglement Overdrive), but if I, someone who does not play high-difficulty games, managed to get through, any average player can, too.
A Beautiful World with Lots to See
The other star, as I mentioned, is the world. The world is beautiful and desolate. Environments vary greatly, and you can tell that the characters are progressing through different regions and times of year as they go. The giant monsters you fight are all very cool, and very well-designed. The art style chosen, a sort of stylized, post-apocalyptic realism, is excellent. Even human characters, which still resemble plastic dolls to a certain extent, fit in with aesthetic and put Game Freak’s prior characters to shame. My only criticism here is there’s not a lot of enemy variety, on any level. You end up in vastly different zones, but you’re fighting golems that look the same. There are maybe 12 different enemy designs, including around 5 golems, so that can get old by the end.
Exploration is also a key part of gameplay with plenty of loot and upgrade components to pick up as you run around the zones. None of the zones are extremely large, with earlier ones actually being bigger than the later ones. And while the story is always linear, with only minor side quests to kill dangerous enemies or find items within a zone, there’s a lot to see and secrets to find in the bigger zones. By the end of the game, there’s not much discovery left, and I managed to finish the game a bit quicker than I thought because I had expected the bigger exploration areas to return. To be clear, I appreciated the size of the game for what Game Freak was trying to accomplish, but it does have a pretty sudden shift in design that was unexpected.
A Clear Path Forward
On the technical front, Beast of Reincarnation is, against all odds, solid. The game never crashed, never had any gameplay bugs, nor had any problems that caused a headache or frustration as the player. There are a couple places where the framerate would drop, but it was in one or two specific areas or in very heavy intense combat moments throughout my 34 hours playing. For a game with so much exploration freedom, they even account for getting stuck, where you just teleport back to the last solid place you stood. And if that’s not good enough, you can fast travel to camp when not in combat.
Beast of Reincarnation is a lot of fun and a very good game. Its well-designed and fantastically executed combat system makes this a standout game for developer Game Freak, and makes up for its story and writing shortcomings. I would love to see them make something similar in the future, with a heavier focus on the storytelling that could enhance an already quality game. Game Freak has created an honorable game with Beast of Reincarnation, and I hope they continue on this trajectory.
Thank you to our PR partners and Game Freak for providing review access to Beast of Reincarnation. You can find Seasoned Gaming’s review policy here.
