“Souls-like game from long-time Pokémon developer” wasn’t on my bingo card going into the back half of this decade, but Beast of Reincarnation has come out swinging nonetheless. And while it sometimes falls a little flat outside of its gripping battles, largely thanks to a sluggish narrative and unrewarding exploration, it’s undeniable that the team at Game Freak has found some creative ways to breathe life into an increasingly stale genre.
Tasked with defeating the eponymous Beast of Reincarnation, main character Emma and her canine companion, Koo, are sent into a variety of post-apocalyptic zones to track and slay lesser beings and absorb their powers along the way. The setup is strong in the opening hours before giving way to needlessly long, melodramatic cutscenes filled with stiff dialogue (the English dub is particularly awful), which did little to keep me invested in Emma’s story of personal growth, nor the game’s overarching dystopian tale.
Instead, Beast of Reincarnation's biggest selling point is how it blends traditional Souls-like combat with a compelling turn-based mechanic that lets Emma use resources earned in fights to command Koo to use his own flashy attacks. The action slows to a crawl for just a moment to allow you time to choose Koo’s attack from a JRPG-esque menu before the big pup unleashes his wrath upon your foes with a hell of a visual flourish.
This means that Koo plays as much of a role in combat as Emma does, so you’ll have to master properly mixing and matching mods that grant you additional effects each time one of his attacks is used. Whether it’s briefly increasing Emma’s attack power, dramatically improving status effect buildup on foes, or granting some health recovery, these mods ultimately make or break your build. Finding perfect synergy between these various effects made me feel immensely powerful, and I loved spending time in the menus figuring out how to best combine them with other upgrade types for the best possible build.
Emma is still the main star, though, and fans of Sekiro should find her parry-focused combat style appealing. Timing windows for parrying are usually wide and not too punishing, though they occasionally feel inconsistent in larger boss battles where it’s hard to read when a massive attack will connect with you. Even so, whittling away at an enemy’s stagger bar with a dance of attacks and parries before finishing them off with a flashy execution is a thrilling experience that requires intense focus.
Emma also has an array of cool traversal abilities, which use her hair (yes, her hair) to create vines. Holding the jump button extends a long vertical vine that functions as an extended double jump of sorts for reaching high spots, while holding the right trigger sends out a horizontal vine you can use to cross long gaps or create a pathway above an enemy for an easy aerial assassination. With environments designed to take advantage of these options, there’s a joyful elegance to moving about the often multi-level zones.
Having such an arsenal of movement techniques comes in handy for reaching the plethora of resources, weapons, and more scattered throughout each zone. It’s unfortunate, then, that Koo automatically spots items for you, removing some of the incentive to search areas very thoroughly. Instead, you can usually just run in the general direction of a point of interest to mark all nearby items, which steals away the joys of scouring every nook and cranny that makes a Souls-like most appealing to me.
Meanwhile, these resources you discover in each zone largely tie into upgrades back at your hub, a mechanical walker that carries Emma and her group of companions across the land. You can find and plant seeds to grow a smattering of crops, or interact with (admittedly forgettable) supporting characters to have them research skills, items, or recipes for cooking while you’re away. But these systems are so passive that it’s easy to forget to even interact with them, ultimately feeling more like tacked-on busywork meant to fluff out the game than truly engage you.
All of this comes together into an ambitious but uneven showing for Game Freak’s first foray into the Souls-like genre. Sure, I had a great time navigating Beast of Reincarnation’s zones with Emma’s inventive movement mechanics, as well as building her and Koo into powerhouses that complemented one another in stylish, high-stakes battles. I just wish I cared more about them and was given more reasons to probe the world I was asked to save.
Verdict
Beast of Reincarnation’s enthralling traversal, satisfying parry-centric combat, and intricate build-crafting help to keep things exciting even if it could’ve used a bit less hand-holding with exploration and fewer superfluous hub-based features. It’s a shame that a plodding story and dull performances make it hard to connect with its characters, too, but there’s nevertheless a fundamentally solid Souls-like journey to be enjoyed here for those seeking action over narrative — which is what the genre is generally known for, after all.
