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Like an above-ground swimming pool, Beast of Reincarnation is one of those things that feels like it should be great in theory, but leaves something to be desired once you actually spend some time in it. On a surface level, everything from the aesthetics and otherworldly apocalyptic setting to the battles against giant, diseased creatures has the makings of something really special. In practice though, this awesome collection of ideas only rarely approaches realizing that potential, as nearly every aspect proves to be quite shallow. Combat against both minion enemies and bosses alike is extremely one-note, the story succeeds much more at collecting tropes than evoking any kind of emotion, and there’s an overreliance on indistinguishable areas and enemies throughout the adventure. There’s still a decent action RPG in here somewhere, because when it occasionally does shine with a neat wrinkle in the story or a particularly cool fight sequence, it’s very easy to see how this could have been every bit as awesome as it looks at first glance, but highlights like those are certainly the exception to an action game that’s largely just okay.
Combining elements of a soulslike with a more traditional JRPG, this fast-paced action game feels like what you might end up with if you tried to combine Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice with the Final Fantasy VII Remake. Across the roughly 35-hour campaign, you’ll split your time between exploring levels of ruined buildings reclaimed by wildlife, parrying and dodging in tense combat encounters, and learning about the convoluted backstory of the world and characters that surround your protagonist, Emma. There’s loads of potential in that formula, and in its best moments, Beast of Reincarnation is both beautiful to look at and incredibly badass, as your katana-wielding elemental mage absolutely overloads the screen with over-the-top melee attacks, sending bolts of lightning and fire flying every which way to complement the artful swordsmanship.
That potential is only realized every once in a while though, as you’ll spend a lot of your time fighting the same handful of enemies far too often, plowing through even the most daunting encounters without much friction due to incredibly forgiving parry windows, and quickly mastering every opponent you come across owing to the fact that they all have just two or three attacks they repeat ad nauseum. Conceptually, ninja-dueling your way through this beautiful, destroyed world and its massive monsters should be sick as hell, but it only takes a couple hours for it all to feel quite skin deep, like how in its opening chapter you’re forced to fight the same giant elk boss multiple times, as it assails you with the one attack it seem to know over and over again in a fight that lasts much longer than it should.
There are still plenty of memorable moments sprout up every now and then, like one level where you’re scaling the inside of a creepy, rotating cube machine and fighting against the forgotten experiments left in the creepy structure, but most of your time will be spent in forgettable regions filled with the same robotic baddies, concluding in a boss fight against a creature you’ve already seen (and is in many cases just a larger version of an existing bestial enemy).
One aspect of combat that fares much better is the addition of Koo, your dire wolf companion, who battles alongside you with an arsenal of increasingly destructive magical abilities. Koo mostly does his own thing, but his behaviors and abilities can be customized and upgraded as you go, and it's important to build him up accordingly since he becomes a vital part of getting through some of the larger combat sequences much faster. He can also be controlled directly, as you pause time to select a special ability for him to use Final Fantasy VII Remake-style – you can even command him to assassinate enemies on your behalf, which really helps speed up some of those repetitive combat encounters and can burn through large chunks of a boss’ health bar as well. Plus, Koo is inexplicably one of the strongest characters, despite being a four-legged pooch with no dialogue. His high energy and unusually expressive face serves as a counterweight to the robotic mannerisms of the majority of the bipedal cast.
The paper-thin depth of Beast of Reincarnation only grows the longer you play. Despite Koo’s best efforts though, the paper-thin depth of Beast of Reincarnation only grows the longer you play. Exploring the mostly-linear regions is beautiful and features some truly awesome music, but after just two levels I already felt overly familiar with the extremely monotonous checklist of loot to collect and camp sites to unlock before fighting the boss (almost always twice for some reason), then moving on to do it all again. That formula doesn’t evolve as you progress through levels either, as you only ever unlock new abilities to help you power through combat while exploration and platforming never gain any new tricks. Meanwhile, most of the combat pits you against sword-wielding automatons who have maybe one or two different attacks between them, which means you’ll be parrying and countering the same set of telegraphed attacks a dozen times in a single combat encounter.
Even things like the music (which again, is quite good), becomes stale as you quickly discover they’ve got one whole song playing on a loop for more than ten hours worth of levels. Emma, on the other hand, gains access to a bunch of passive abilities that buff her generally, and a bunch of special arts that unlock new moves and attack combos in combat. Most of this stuff does very little to make fighting feel better, as you’re still going up against enemies that just spam the same attacks for you to parry before countering with an attack of your own. They do help those fights go by much quicker, however, and eventually you’ll be able to take out a handful of enemies all at once with some seriously cool-...
BeastReincarnationRPGLikeCombatThere’sCombiningJRPGSekiroShadows Die TwiceFinal Fantasy VII RemakeAcross
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