By Eu
鬼ノ哭ク邦 | Oninaki
Publisher: Square Enix
Developer: Tokyo RPG Factory
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PS4, PC (Steam)
Category: Action, Adventure, RPG
Release Date: August 22, 2019
Summary from Official Website:
Reincarnation is the foundation of our way of life. We celebrate the lives we’ve been given, and offer up prayers for the next.
It is grief of death which shackles the living, and causes the dead to stray. Indeed, there is no greater affront to reincarnation.
So do we turn our grief to joy as we send off the dead.
But the souls of those who held back their tears in life still need salvation in death. A duty that falls to the Watchers.
Their task is to guide the wandering souls known as the Lost, and serve as keepers of the Living World and the Beyond.
The Watchers sever the bonds that tie the Lost to this world, and send them on to the next. They navigate the emotions of the living and the dead. They prize life above all else.
This is the story of one Watcher.
So I was wandering around the Nintendo Eshop when I came across the demo for Oninaki. I think the two games that I kept on hearing about lately were either Astral Chain or Oninaki. Between the two, I’m more interested in the former than the latter. Anyways, even if I’m interested with Astral Chain, it didn’t have a demo available so I tried Oninaki instead.
Just so we’re clear, this post will be about the demo version of Oninaki for Nintendo Switch.
May contain spoilers so proceed with caution!
Story
Positive ♡(｡- ω -)
I thought the biggest draw factor would be the art but it turned out that it would be the story. I liked it because, like what my friend told me, the story seems different from the usual RPG-story about friendship, self-discovery and all that. It revolves around death and reincarnation. For the demo, there are 2 available cases and both are pretty sad. They were intriguing and a bit of a bleak to say the least. I know the story can be really dark but that is what I like about the story of the game. It doesn’t shy away from topics such as death.
Characters
Positive ♡(｡- ω -)
I love Kagachi’s indifference though sometimes he reminds me of so many jerk male leads who are well-loved despite being such an ass. But of course, it’s a demo, so not much info about him.
What I do love are the Daemons! If you want to look at all the Daemons check out the Japanese website. I only have Aisha and Zaav and I wonder if there’ll be a time where you get to see what happened to them when they are still humans.
Gameplay
“The ONINAKI demo features extensive gameplay with both a deep “Story Mode” that lets players experience the opening of the game’s epic tale of life and “Battle Mode” with thrilling combat using an upgraded character possessed by 4 daemons.”
You can choose between 3 difficulties as shown in the screenshot above. If I remember correctly, you can change it mid-game if you so wish.
Positive ♡(｡- ω -)
I love the hack and slash kind of fighting. Brute force is so nice.
There are 3 maps and 2 daemons available for the demo. There’s also a story mode and battle mode. I briefly touched the story mode above so I’ll just talk about the battle mode here.
For the battle mode, you will explore a new map with all of Kagachi’s Daemon’s. In addition to Zaav and Aisha which you can get from the story mode, you’ll also have Will and Izuna. All of the Daemon’s have complete attacks and skills. This mode ends once you face a boss battle which was hard considering I’m on Casual mode.
It was a nice way to explore the attacks and familiarize myself with the Daemon’s skills. They all have a varied attack — Aisha for the katana, Zaav for the spear, Will for mace, and Izuna for scythe (?). They also come in different specials attacks like agility for Aisha and aerial attacks for Zaav. I love Izuna’s though, a wide range of attack and the special warp is pretty convenient during fights.
Art
Positive ♡(｡- ω -)
I love it! Especially if I’m looking at the character arts like the image of Kagachi above. It’s such a shame though that they have to adapt the chibi style in the game.
Sound/Music
Positive ♡(｡- ω -)
Honestly, it did not register to me lol. I was busy fighting.
The game did have some clipped voice overs. Though the audio is in Japanese but it is subbed in English.
Enjoyment (✯◡✯)
I enjoyed it a lot. I love the gameplay and the story.
Plugging time!
If you want to check out the gameplay of the demo or even the game, please check out my friend’s channel. She’s live-streaming her playthrough here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcG2ho6cfBM&t=1172s