There’s a moment early in Beast of Reincarnation that perfectly encapsulates the entire experience. Looking up at a high ledge, every RPG instinct screams that there must be something valuable waiting at the top. The journey upward is genuinely engaging—leaping to a lower platform, using the protagonist’s unique hair-bridge ability to cross to another surface, making a daring leap of faith, then employing a hookshot to climb ever higher. After several clever uses of the game’s genuinely interesting platforming mechanics, the summit is finally reached. But there’s nothing there. No item, no enemy, no reward whatsoever. This frustrating pattern of promising gameplay undermined by hollow execution defines much of what Beast of Reincarnation offers players throughout its substantial runtime.
At first glance, Beast of Reincarnation appears to be a dream game for fans of action RPGs with philosophical undertones. The game brings together beautiful musical compositions, striking environmental design, and parry-focused combat interspersed with turn-based strategic moments that reward player engagement with its core mechanics. The story premise reads like a fusion of NieR: Automata’s existential android drama and the whimsical yet profound storytelling of legendary animator Hayao Miyazaki. On paper, this Japanese-developed title has all the ingredients for something truly special—a fact that makes its ultimate shortcomings all the more disappointing.
Combat Mechanics: Parry or Perish
The combat system in Beast of Reincarnation initially shows the most promise among all its features. The fundamental philosophy is straightforward: parry or die. Nearly every enemy attack can and should be deflected, creating a rhythmic dance of defense and counterattack that fans of FromSoftware’s Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice or Neowiz’s Lies of P will find immediately familiar. Successful parries build up a stagger gauge, allowing players to instantly eliminate regular enemies or temporarily incapacitate bosses for massive damage. The parry timing, while slightly earlier than genre conventions, remains consistent throughout—a crucial factor for any game built around precision mechanics.
Beyond basic parrying, each successful deflection fills the FP meter (“Florescence Points”), enabling players to slow time and command their canine companion Koo to execute special abilities. This turn-based interruption of real-time combat initially feels fresh and innovative, suggesting strategic depth beyond simple reflexes. Unfortunately, the system reveals its limitations quickly. The most effective strategy devolves into alternating between just two of Koo’s abilities to rapidly inflict status effects, making any other approach feel suboptimal. Combined with a startling lack of enemy variety and the baffling design decision to force players to fight each boss a minimum of three times—sometimes up to six encounters—the combat becomes monotonous long before the credits roll. The difficulty curve compounds these issues, becoming progressively easier as players master the parry system, with supplementary mechanics like food buffs, experience levels, and skill trees feeling largely irrelevant.
Exploration and World Design: Beauty Without Purpose
Beast of Reincarnation features approximately a dozen distinct zones, and some genuinely achieve visual beauty. Each area contains collectible items, challenging Elite enemies, and occasional platforming sequences that require creative use of the game’s traversal mechanics. However, the exploration ultimately suffers from the same problems plaguing the combat. Most zones are disappointingly linear, funneling players through corridors rather than encouraging genuine discovery. The same handful of enemy types appear throughout the entire game, and the pervasive importance of parrying renders most collected items functionally meaningless. Inexplicable invisible walls block sensible paths with frustrating regularity, breaking immersion and discouraging experimentation.
The musical score initially seems like a highlight, featuring soft choral arrangements and ethereal atmospheres that evoke comparisons to the celebrated work of MONACA, the studio behind NieR: Automata and Stellar Blade. However, this impression fades as the soundtrack reveals its limited range. Despite the melancholic mood being genuinely appealing, the lack of tonal variety becomes exhausting across the game’s minimum 25-hour runtime. Visual presentation fares somewhat better—environments feature crumbling architecture, expansive green landscapes, and atmospheric mountain caves. Combat animations are particularly well-executed, character models are crisp and detailed, and importantly, the frame rate remains stable throughout, essential for timing-based combat. Nothing here will revolutionize visual expectations, but the technical execution is competent.
Narrative Ambitions and Execution Failures
Beast of Reincarnation’s story comes closest to breaking the pattern of unfulfilled potential, featuring a genuinely interesting premise that unfortunately drowns in poor presentation. The narrative opens in medias res before flashing back to establish that civilization collapsed a millennium ago after humanity attempted to eliminate emotions, unleashing a corruption called the “Blight” that infects human souls. The titular Beast of Reincarnation threatens the world every century, and protagonist Emma—a emotionless “Purifier” with the unique ability to absorb Blight and survive—is tasked with confronting its latest manifestation.
The lore remains confusing throughout, partially due to a narrative structure that constantly jumps between flashforwards and flashbacks without clear purpose. This represents a classic case of poor narrative design suffocating whatever potential the underlying story possesses. Even the eventual explanations, delivered through heavy exposition during active combat sequences—a narrative sin the game commits repeatedly—fail to distinguish the plot from its obvious inspirations. The derivative elements border on plagiarism of the games that clearly influenced its development. The writers clearly aspire to create a contemplative character study focused on Emma’s gradual emotional awakening, but this arc takes so long to develop meaningfully that player investment evaporates long before any payoff. Flat voice performances in both English and Japanese dubs compound these storytelling failures.
Final Verdict: Wasted Potential in an Ambitious Package
Despite the extensive criticism, Beast of Reincarnation isn’t without merit. The core concepts remain appealing, and there’s genuine entertainment to be found in its parry-focused combat, at least initially. The visual presentation is competent, the technical performance is stable, and the ambition behind the project is evident. However, ambition without execution produces disappointment rather than satisfaction. The game represents a collection of broken promises and wasted potential—interesting ideas implemented without the refinement or variety needed to sustain a lengthy adventure. Like that empty ledge reached after clever platforming, players may find some enjoyment in the journey through Beast of Reincarnation, but the destination offers little reward for their investment. For action RPG enthusiasts seeking experiences that successfully blend philosophical storytelling with satisfying combat, the games that inspired this one remain far superior choices.
Expert Opinion: Beast of Reincarnation exemplifies a growing trend in the action RPG market where developers successfully identify winning formulas from established franchises but struggle to implement them with sufficient depth and variety. The game’s heavy reliance on parry mechanics without meaningful supporting systems suggests either development constraints or a fundamental misunderstanding of what makes similar titles compelling. Future projects from this studio would benefit from focusing on fewer mechanics executed excellently rather than attempting to recreate the scope of AAA productions with limited resources.