Beast of Reincarnation

My first reaction when Game Freak announced this was pure skepticism. The studio behind Pokemon has spent decades in one very specific lane, and action RPGs set in brutalized future Japan are about as far from catching pocket monsters as you can get. But the more I've dug into what Beast of Reincarnation actually is, the more that skepticism has curdled into cautious excitement. The setup: it's the year 4026, and Japan has been consumed by a parasitic corruption called the Blight that warps living things into hostile creatures called Malefacts. You play as Emma, an outcast infected by the very plague she's trying to stop, traveling across a 10-stage world to reach the capital and end the cycle. Her constant companion is Koo, a blighted dog, and their bond is the mechanical and narrative spine of the whole thing. The art direction draws clear comparisons to Studio Ghibli and Princess Mononoke - sci-fi ruin overgrown by twisted nature - and built on Unreal Engine 5, it reportedly looks striking. The combat is where this gets interesting. Emma fights in real time with a katana and a bow, and parrying enemy attacks is central - think Sekiro in its rhythm, not its punishment level. Director Kota Furushima has been explicit that this is not a Soulslike. There are no stamina meters or corpse runs. Instead, landing parries earns points you spend on Koo's command menu, which slows the action and lets you queue up support abilities, buffs, debuffs, and attack skills in a system that plays more like Final Fantasy VII Remake's ATB than anything from FromSoftware. Capturing boss powers adds further options over the course of the roughly 30-to-40-hour campaign. The balance between reflex-based sword combat and deliberate companion strategy is the one thing previews keep flagging as genuinely fresh - not just a marketing angle. That said, a few concerns have surfaced from preview coverage. Screen clutter during intense fights has been noted, with combo gauges and interface elements competing for attention. The traversal sections, which lean on Emma's vine-hair abilities, reportedly hit some predictable environmental stretches across the 10-stage structure. Neither issue sounds fatal, but they're worth knowing about if you're coming in expecting a tight, relentlessly polished action game from top to bottom. The loadout flexibility - ranged, stealthy, and aggressive options are all mentioned - suggests there's more build expression than the trailers surface, which is a good sign for replayability. Who is this for? If you've ever bounced off Soulslike games because the punishment loop felt like a second job, this is worth a serious look. If you liked the feel of Nier: Automata's combat but wanted a companion layer with more tactical depth, this is directly in your lane. And if you're a Game Pass subscriber on Xbox Series X or Xbox One, the barrier to trying it is about as low as it gets.

Alex · Scout Team

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