00:01I played 90 minutes of Beasts of Reincarnation and I walked away incredibly impressed.
00:18Okay, so first off, what exactly did I see?
00:21Well when I walked in, they let me play the first 90 minutes of this game from the start.
00:25That means I got to see how the game opens, the first area that you get to explore and
00:30then I got to see the first fight and some background cutscenes.
00:33One thing I'll say first is that I don't fully understand what's happening with the story.
00:38My best grasp is that Emma and Ku are a certain type of being that can take down these infected
00:46creatures and store them in herself or something like that.
00:51It seems like her position in this world is basically to quell it of these malefics or
00:57these evil blighted creatures.
01:00The way gameplay essentially plays out is it's a lot like Sekiro, but I would say there's
01:04a lot more room for experimentation.
01:07For some context, I love Sekiro, it is one of my favorite games of all time.
01:11I've played it, god, countless times and this felt right at home to me.
01:16I will say it's definitely a little easier, I would say that the parry window is a little
01:22longer, so you don't need to be as precise, at least from what I can remember, and also
01:27there's way more wiggle room.
01:28I think with Sekiro, you're kind of forced into playing a specific style and I think that's
01:33one of that game's strengths.
01:34With this, there's more tactical options to you.
01:37A big one would be Ku.
01:39Ku is the dog you've seen in trailers, in gameplay and essentially he is your companion.
01:45He is the only gameplay companion that Emma gets throughout the game, so it's not like
01:50Pokemon, which is a weird comparison, it's nothing like Pokemon, but it's hard to get
01:54away from because it's developed by Game Freak.
01:57But you are not collecting creatures, you're not capturing creatures, but Ku is by your side
02:01the entire time and he has his own skill tree and can level up alongside Emma as you play.
02:06The thing about Ku though is that when you input a command for Ku, you press Y or triangle,
02:12depending on the control you're playing on, time stops or at least it slows down and then
02:16you get to pick a move that you want to do.
02:19As you level up Ku and as you expand the skill tree, you'll unlock new moves and you can upgrade
02:24the ones you have.
02:25However, the interesting thing where, once again, I'm invoking Pokemon again, which I'm
02:31sorry, I'm going to try not to do it too many times, hard not to make those comparisons,
02:35but these moves have different affinities.
02:37Certain enemies are weak to these different affinities, we'll say.
02:41So there's like a shield enemy and if you use one of Ku's abilities, it had like a knockback
02:47effect and it would destroy the shield and then you could go in for a finishing blow.
02:59And as you upgrade Ku, like I said, you'll get more abilities, but also there's passive abilities
03:03that come along with it as well.
03:05One passive ability you can unlock, for example, basically lets Ku mop up all the enemies that
03:10you've weakened.
03:11But there is a giant skill tree.
03:13It seems like there's a lot of customization that you can invest not only in Emma, but also
03:17in Ku.
03:18And I'm super curious to see how that plays out the further along I get.
03:21Like I said, I started at the very beginning, so I didn't really get to experience what these
03:27different Emma and Ku builds are like, but I did kind of get a taste of them.
03:31So with Emma, obviously you're going to be using your sword a lot.
03:35However, there's also a range of projectile weapons.
03:37Pretty early on, you find a bow which you can use and then you start with like a little
03:41crossbow gun.
03:42I think I didn't get a good look at what it was, but it seems like there's multiple options
03:46there.
03:47Something that's important to point out too is that when I started this demo, they told
03:50me that this game is hard.
03:52I've made a lot of comparisons to Sekiro here, definitely not as hard as Sekiro, but
03:56I think if you're not familiar with these types of games, you might have a little bit
04:02of trouble, at least at the beginning before you start unlocking different things.
04:06But there is a more traditional level up system than in Sekiro, more similar to I would
04:10say a Souls game where after you level up, you can go to a campfire and then you can upgrade
04:15one of three stats.
04:16I believe there, Vitality, Strength, and like a third one, I don't remember what it's called.
04:22We've got gameplay, it'll show up here.
04:24But they basically do what you'd expect.
04:26Vitality increases your health, strength increases your damage, and those are permanent.
04:30As far as I could tell, when you die, you don't lose progress to the next level, you don't
04:34lose your experience or anything like that.
04:36So some of the tougher aspects of Sekiro or a Souls game are not present here, which makes
04:41sense.
04:42This is not intended to be a hard experience.
04:44But like I said, you may run into some trouble early on.
04:47According to the staff there though, I was the only one who one-shotted this boss right
04:51here, which is pretty cool.
05:06When it comes to just standard combat with enemies, enemies have a health bar and they
05:10also have a stamina meter or a poise meter.
05:13And once that entirely fills up, you can do a finishing move.
05:19Like I said, if you hit a weaker enemy with a weakness, you automatically trigger that finishing
05:23move.
05:24And one thing that's kind of cool is that there is range to this finishing move.
05:27So for example, for these shielded enemies, I would use one of Kuu's ability in order
05:31to break the shield, which would then stagger them.
05:34And then because there was range, I could swoop in and kill them instantly.
05:37It felt really good.
05:38And that's something I can say in general.
05:40Just the game feels really good.
05:43I'm very hesitant to play games that play like Sekiro because not many games feel as good
05:49as Sekiro if I'm putting it bluntly.
05:52This feels pretty dang close.
05:58One of the cooler aspects of Beast of Reincarnation though, is that it seems like there's a lot
06:03more movement abilities than something you might see in similar games.
06:07Emma's hair, which are like these roots that kind of come out of her, can be used in order
06:13to jump high.
06:14So one thing I was able to do is I'd see an enemy that didn't see me, I'd jump up
06:19high
06:19and then I was able to get like an instant finishing blow because of my height, which
06:24was super cool.
06:25I was doing that a bunch, but also you can use this hair to cross gaps.
06:28So you can hold down right trigger, I believe, and the hair extends and you can walk across
06:33it and you can jump over gaps, but also you can upgrade it too.
06:36And I upgraded so that at the end of her hair, a like blossom shows up and then you can
06:42like
06:42attach to that blossom and get some forward momentum.
06:45It all feels really good.
06:47And then in terms of performance, which I know is something that people are worried about.
06:50I played on PC, they didn't tell me the specs of the PC, but it ran really well.
06:55They said it was running uncapped.
06:56I didn't notice any stutters or anything like that.
06:59Obviously it'll depend on your hardware, what you're running.
07:01I didn't get to see it on console, so I don't know how it runs there.
07:04So in terms of how this game is structured though, it is not an open world.
07:08They called it like an open area, open zone style gameplay, where throughout the story
07:12you will get to these different areas.
07:13There will be like a key path that is pretty much straight ahead, at least based on the
07:18area I played.
07:19But then it kind of expands outwards and you're able to explore different areas of the map.
07:23You're able to find secrets.
07:25I found a side boss that had a little skull over its head.
07:28So I assumed I wasn't supposed to fight it yet.
07:31I did anyway, and I died a couple of times and then I got a little stronger and came
07:35back and I kicked his ass.
07:40Once I beat him, there was a chest there that I looted and there was some currency and some
07:45other items that I guess helped me level up, but I wasn't entirely sure.
07:49I didn't quite get a full understanding of how these different items work in the world.
07:53Now, in terms of story, I don't really want to jump into spoilers, so I'm going to keep
07:58this somewhat vague if you're curious about the story.
08:01However, that's pretty easy for me to do because I didn't fully understand what was happening.
08:06So it does take place in the future.
08:07It takes place in Japan.
08:09Everything is overgrown.
08:10And basically, I believe they said you're trying to get from Tokyo to Kyoto or Osaka to
08:17Kyoto.
08:18Obviously it doesn't look anything like that.
08:19So you're traveling through these open zones with the help of your cleanse walker, I think
08:25is what it's called.
08:26And it's basically this base of operations that you will return to throughout the story.
08:29It's a van.
08:31You hop in the van and if I had to guess, you can pick which portions of the map you
08:36want
08:36to go to.
08:37Now, even though I didn't quite understand what was going on in the story, that doesn't
08:41mean I'm not intrigued.
08:43So basically, the timeline of what I saw is that the game starts what I think is the climax
08:48of the game.
08:49You and Ku are chasing down a giant creature thing that I think you're supposed to kill.
08:56And right before you fight this thing, this sordid figure shows up and then it cuts back
09:02to like a couple months ago.
09:03I think it was like four or five months ago.
09:05And then that's the start of the road trip.
09:07I fought that boss I was talking about earlier.
09:10And then I got a flashback to when Emma and Ku meet.
09:13There are a lot of specifics and jargon in this world that left me a little confused,
09:19but the core of the story is between Emma and Ku.
09:22And I think it's going to tug at the heartstrings.
09:26Can't say for certain.
09:27Haven't finished it, obviously.
09:29But the music, the visuals, the way Ku and Emma meet at the beginning kind of got me.
09:35It didn't quite get me yet, but I think it is building to something that will very much
09:39hit hard, at least I hope.
09:50And that was my experience with Beast of Reincarnation.
09:53As you can tell, I really enjoyed it.
09:55I'm very excited to play more.
09:57I think Game Freak has something special in their hands, but we'll need to play the full
10:00thing.
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