One thing that’s become very apparent to me in the early hours of Beast of Reincarnation, the new original game from longtime Pokémon developer Game Freak, is that it’s a game filled with contradictions. Despite looking like and playing like a Souls-like game, most of the enemies I’ve encountered have been pushovers. There are campfires to discover and rest at, but you can fast travel from any point on the map, negating their impact on the game overall.
Even the world itself is somewhat of a contradiction (and one that has become a mainstay in modern video games): a hauntingly beautiful post-apocalyptic version of Earth set thousands of years in the future in which humanity is all but extinct and nature has reclaimed what we once called home. Despite the obvious similarities to how Nier Automata portrayed its own post-apocalypse, I’m actually drawn in by Beast of Reincarnation’s desolate version of Japan. I just wish the story stayed out of the way for me enough to actually experience it.
Beast of Reincarnation
$59.99
$59.99
$59.99Beast of Reincarnation has a huge problem: its characters are extremely chatty. For a world in which humanity is on the brink of extinction (if not already extinct), there is a troubling amount of dialogue in the early hours of the game. Even more troubling is the fact that the writing isn’t contributing anything to the worldbuilding that the game’s stunning art direction isn’t already doing in a better way. The protagonists drone on about what the world was before the blight took over—and there are some fun tidbits that reference life in modern times—but by and large, every element of the story, setting and characters is explained in unnecessary detail. It not only implies that Game Freak doesn’t trust their audience enough to pick up on these details, but it also takes you out of exploring the world and seeing it for yourself while enjoying the game’s decent combat.
It’s a shame because I’m really taken with Game Freak’s post-apocalyptic take on Japan. They’ve clearly prioritized a more cinematic approach (the game literally asks if you want to cap the cutscene frame rates at 24 frames-per-second to really drive this home), but the writing hasn’t been good enough to support how much the game interrupts you to espouse more exposition. Maybe that will change the further I get and I become more familiar with the cast, but for now, I’m doing my best to stay awake.
