Beast of Reincarnation review: Game Freak's new action RPG tested

Game Freak, the studio best known for Pokémon, has borrowed generously from the action genre's biggest names for Beast of Reincarnation — and while the result is often muddled, thrilling combat, satisfying traversal, and a surprising amount of heart keep it afloat.

A Chaos of Familiar Ideas

The opening hours of Beast of Reincarnation are a lot to take in. The game begins with the melancholy backstory of a doomed world, briefly turns sci-fi with a giant AT-AT-style walker stomping across the terrain, and then erupts into a swirl of picturesque apocalypses, magic dogs and magical hair powers, cursed behemoths, glowing forests, a holographic (possibly supernatural) child, an elderly mentor named Brad, Souls-style respawns, and Sekiro-flavoured katana parries — all set to a gentle, looping J-pop soundtrack.

The influences are easy to spot. There's a hint of Sony's Horizon series in the pretty post-apocalypse, a lush vision of a ruined Japan. Bayonetta comes to mind with the magical hair; Sekiro is a clear touchstone thanks to the parry-driven combat, respawn "campsites," grappling traversal, and perfunctory stealth. There's even a Monster Hunter flavour — filtered through Wild Hearts and Shadow of the Colossus — as Game Freak builds its action RPG around hunting towering Nushi: majestic beast-nature hybrids that rule each semi-open region.

The setting is the soggy post-apocalyptic summer of 4026, where humanity has shed its emotions — and sometimes its bodies too, transferring souls into golem-like machines. A blight drives golems into violent frenzies and mutates smaller creatures into Malefacts, aggressive plant hybrids. Add the titular Beast stirring after a century of slumber, rumours of a land called Shambhala, and Emma, a hunter with neither heart nor soul, and you get a story that's doled out in an erratic, muddled fashion.

Easy to Follow, Hard to Love at First

Structurally, though, the game is simple. You travel across post-apocalyptic Japan — abandoned rural villages, flooded subway stations strangled by greenery, mountain temples — and in each new region your goal is to find and slay its Nushi. The route is mostly linear, with light platforming, combat encounters, and the occasional arbitrary roadblock, though semi-open areas invite detours. Each Nushi fight happens in two stages: a first clash to learn its moves before it retreats, then a trickier, more elaborate rematch. Victory grants Emma new abilities, and you return to your walker — a mobile hub where you can wash off the gore, grow crops, bond with companions, upgrade gear, and pet your enormous dog, Koo — before moving on.

Where the Game Shines

Two systems carry the experience: traversal and combat. Traversal leans on those magic hair abilities — hold jump to launch skyward on a column of strands, conjure hair-vine bridges over chasms, or fire out a ponytail to zip between grapple points. It's a compact toolkit that gives movement real momentum, engaging enough that you'll stop wondering why you can't ride the giant dog trailing you.

That dog, the endearing Koo, is central to combat instead. The battle system is convoluted at first, but it gradually settles into a distinctive rhythm built around parrying. Guarding drains your Entanglement meter until you stagger; parrying builds it up, eventually triggering a slow-time window for extra attacks. Parries also generate bloom, the currency for Koo's pseudo-turn-based support commands — bites, restraining vines, and small heals. Layer in elemental weapons, food buffs, gem boons, consumables, core upgrades, and unlockable Bloom Art combos, and when it all clicks, the push-pull of timing, observation, and gauge management is genuinely exhilarating.

Where It Stumbles

Unfortunately, persistent problems frequently derail things. The camera and its single-point lock-on struggle against massive Nushi and swap targets at will during group fights, leaving you eating attacks from offscreen. Murky visuals and flashy particle effects make enemy wind-ups hard to read. On PS5, critical inputs — potions, slow-time, even dodges — sometimes failed to register, and deaths often felt unearned.

Beyond combat, the maps are pretty but dull: visually indistinct, light on enemy variety, and short on imaginative encounters. The empty world also undermines the Soulslike loop — runbacks through vast nothingness feel like wasted time, and off-path rewards rarely justify exploring. Geometry snags, invisible walls, and dissolving textures don't help.

Verdict

My feelings are conflicted. Beast of Reincarnation is glorious when you're parrying colossal behemoths in a dance of timed ripostes and slo-mo blooms, or swinging acrobatically across beautiful desolation — and aggravating, unfinished, or outright dull just as often. Yet I grew unexpectedly fond of its broken world and broken crew, moved by the melancholy ambience throughout. Out of its grab-bag of borrowed parts, the game slowly finds itself, and its tale of self-discovery, community, and belonging is surprisingly tender. That it made me care despite so much irritation says something: flawed as it is, its earnest heart shines through.

Source: the original publisher