Studio Game Freak, known to millions of players through the Pokémon series, has released its most ambitious project outside the iconic franchise. Beast of Reincarnation is a post-apocalyptic action RPG, now available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S (from day one on Xbox Game Pass), and PC.
The game transports players to Japan 2,000 years after a global catastrophe. At the center of the story are a girl named Emma and her loyal companion Kuu, who travel through a devastated world, fighting giant golems, mutants, and other dangerous creatures.
Game Freak placed its bet on dynamic combat, world exploration, and a character progression system free of excessive grind. The combat system combines fast attacks, dodges, and parries, prompting many journalists to compare it to Sekiro, although the game itself is significantly less demanding of the player.
Semi-open locations encourage exploration, and completing the main story campaign takes approximately 20–25 hours. For those who do not wish to endure tough soulslike battles, a separate story difficulty level is provided.
The interaction between Emma and her companion Kuu deserves special attention, as he actively participates in both combat and story progression.
Initial reviews turned out to be fairly positive. On the aggregator OpenCritic, Beast of Reincarnation received an average score of 76/100 and a Strong rating, with 61% of critics recommending the game. At the same time, on Metacritic, the project holds a score of 73 out of 100 based on 50 reviews, which corresponds to the Mixed or Average category.
Journalists most frequently praise:
However, it is not without its flaws. Critics paid the most attention to:
On Reddit, player opinions largely align with critics' scores. Most call Beast of Reincarnation a "solid 7 out of 10 game" that possesses many interesting ideas, but falls noticeably short of the genre's best representatives.
Among the most frequent user complaints:
At the same time, many note that the core gameplay is satisfying, and a potential sequel could be significantly stronger if the developers take the feedback into account.
Despite a number of technical flaws and mixed design choices, Beast of Reincarnation represents an important step for Game Freak outside the Pokémon universe. Most critics and players agree that the studio managed to lay a solid foundation for a new franchise with its own style, an exciting combat system, and an intriguing world. If the developers continue to build upon this idea and incorporate the feedback received, Beast of Reincarnation stands every chance of evolving into one of the most promising action RPG series in the coming years. Even now, it is a release worth paying attention to for all fans of the genre, especially Xbox Game Pass subscribers.
As a reminder, Amazon is developing an animated Warhammer 40,000 series: Henry Cavill to serve as producer.
