New release – Story Mode

Platform: Nintendo Switch Gameplay: 20-25 hours Genre: JRPG, fantasy

Impressions: Memorable mechanics, rushed plot Rating: 7.5/10

This game left me conflicted. Mechanically it’s the best thing I’ve played all year, but story-wise I think it had a lot of untapped potential, which made it fall down in the end.

The latest game from Square Enix, Oninaki hooks you in pretty early with a plot about reincarnation and people tasked with guiding lost souls on to their next life. You play as one such person, a Watcher named Kagachi, blessed (or cursed) with the ability to travel to the other side, speak to the dead and find out what’s preventing them from moving on. This ability was done really well and became a large part of the gameplay and story.

For every location you visit, there’s an alternate version where lost souls dwell, and the transition between the two is pretty seamless. I found it really interesting to complete quests for the dead rather than the living, and also to see the societal impact of an ideology based on reincarnation. That being said, the story lacked detail at times and could have been expanded upon a whole lot more. What starts out as a great concept doesn’t follow through to the ending, which felt more like an unwanted surprise party than a fulfilling finale.

Plot holes aside, Oninaki has a unique and memorable battle system that goes some way in making up for its shortfalls. Kagachi can recruit certain lost souls to fight alongside him as Daemons, and each has a unique weapon class, ability, battle moveset and skill tree. There are 10 Daemons to unlock – including four that feature in the main story – and this makes for truly versatile gameplay. Four Daemons can be in your party at any one time, meaning you can mix and match to find what suits you, or choose strategically based on the situation. Personally I favoured Izana (scythe and warp) and Rigan (twin blades and combat roll) for their speed and reach. I also loved Zephyr (fangs and double jump) and Treize (chain whips and air attack), especially the latter which just took me back to the days of playing as Velvet in Odin Sphere Leifthrasir. The battles were a good combination of hacking and slashing fun, and using satisfying skills to slay the hordes, but don’t expect anything too challenging.

Building up the characters and optimising their weapons and abilities was really enjoyable, but at the end of the day the game just wasn’t long enough to make the most of it. The same goes for the Daemon Lore system, a great idea that’s not as well executed as it could have been because of the time restraints. Essentially, this feature lets you gradually unlock the memories of your Daemon partners, and learn details about their time in the world of the living. This made me really excited at the outset, but even focusing on just four of the ten characters, I only unlocked two to three memories each. It feels like I was promised a story here and the game didn’t deliver – I would love for there to be a conclusion of the Daemon’s stories that is attainable in a first playthrough.

Even as I write what’s wrong with this game, I can’t help but like it and remember what’s right. If nothing else it’s really fun, and I recommend playing it. After all, where else can you experience reincarnation while talking to dead people, riding on the back of a majestic wolf and summoning bad-ass sidekicks?

Genre: Historical Fiction, romance Rating: 6.5/10

Impressions: Robust plot, cliche romance

Blue Rose gave me the distinct impression that I was living vicariously through its characters to experience the French Revolution. The violent fall of the French monarchy is not a pretty sight to behold, and Forsyth makes no apologies for this, instead she seems to revel in it. There’s an honesty and a bluntness in her writing which gives it all the more impact, and I often felt as though I was looking at something I shouldn’t be, and yet couldn’t look away.

The story fluctuates between beautiful and gruesome, tumultuous and pensive, but maintains a fast pace throughout. It’s interesting to witness the clear contrast between the higher and lower classes, the rising tensions sparked by dissent, and the stirrings of revolution. Blue rose poses interesting ethical questions like: what does justice look like? Can vengeance do good? Is violence acceptable if it creates change? But most importantly, I think it really succeeds in humanising historical figures such as Marie-Antoinette and Louis XVI, before and during their fall. Seeing the Reign of Terror in this light makes feelings of sadness, empathy and horror unavoidable.

The historical aspects of this novel and the movement of the plot created a page-turner of a book, but it was let down by the romance. I have no qualms with romance in fiction, or with the star-crossed lovers of Blue Rose – French aristocrat Vivianne and Welsh gardener David – but their relationship seemed one-dimensional. Over the five-year period of the novel, there’s an incessant pining for a love lost, however the love itself fell flat. For me, the relationship between Vivianne and David seemed brief and underdeveloped, and didn’t create a passion that would believably be felt for five years. I wanted them to be together for the pure fact that Vivianne was so desperately unhappy, isolated and deserving of love, but what was between her and David seemed more like puppy love than the real thing. It needed to be built upon at the outset and given more depth to successfuly carry through the whole novel.

It was frustrating to read some beautifully crafted sentences directly followed by cliches, but overall this was an entertaining read and the positives outweighed the negatives. It gets a 3.5/5 for me and i’ll be looking into what other works Forsyth has to offer.

Story Mode

Literature, gaming, photography

Tag: New release

Review: Square Enix’s Oninaki

Review: The Blue Rose