Beast of Reincarnation doesn't believe in quiet beginnings.

Its opening hours throw you into a storm of ideas: a doomed future, ruined landscapes, towering machines, cursed creatures, magic hair powers, a loyal giant dog, mysterious children, punishing respawns, dramatic bosses, and a looping pop soundtrack that somehow floats above it all.

At first, it feels like too much. The game borrows openly from action-adventure giants, and early on, it struggles to find its own voice. But once the systems settle, something more interesting emerges beneath the chaos. Beast of Reincarnation is messy, uneven, and occasionally frustrating – but it's also energetic, stylish, and surprisingly sincere.

Game Details

Developer: Game Freak.

Publisher: Fictions.

Platform played: PS5.

Release date: 4 August 2026.

Available on: PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.

A Ruined Future With Strange Beauty

The story takes place in the rainy post-apocalyptic summer of 4026. Humanity has changed beyond recognition. Emotions have largely been abandoned, and some people have even moved their souls into mechanical golem-like bodies.

A plague-like corruption now spreads through the world. It can push golems into violent frenzy and transform smaller creatures into Malefacts: aggressive floral hybrids with vine-like limbs, leafy growths, and a disturbing mix of beauty and decay.

At the centre of the story is Emma, a hunter with neither heart nor soul. She travels across a devastated Japan in search of powerful beings known as Nushi. These massive creatures rule over each semi-open region and often feel like part animal, part natural force. Around them, the game builds a larger mystery involving the Beast of Reincarnation, its return after a 100-year slumber, and whispers of a place called Shambhala.

The setting has strong visual ideas and a memorable atmosphere, but the story is not always easy to follow. It delivers lore, flashbacks, emotional beats, and world-building in uneven bursts. The result can feel crowded, especially early on, when the game is still trying to explain what it is.

A Game Full of Familiar Influences

Beast of Reincarnation is clearly shaped by several major action games. Its lush post-apocalyptic landscapes recall worlds where nature has swallowed abandoned cities. Its katana combat is built around timing and parrying. Its respawn structure, stealth touches, grappling movement, and difficult encounters all feel connected to modern action-RPG traditions.

There is also a strong monster-hunting rhythm. Each region gradually leads toward a confrontation with a Nushi, a huge creature designed to be the dramatic centrepiece of that area. These battles give the game its biggest moments and show where its ambition works best.

The downside is that Beast of Reincarnation takes time to feel like its own thing. In the beginning, it can seem like a collection of borrowed mechanics placed side by side. But the longer the journey continues, the more its own personality starts to emerge: strange, melancholy, earnest, and more emotional than expected.

How the Journey Is Structured

The overall structure is easy to understand. Emma enters a new region, explores ruined landscapes, fights smaller enemies, solves light obstacles, and moves toward the local Nushi.

The regions are semi-open, although some feel much more open than others. They take the player through abandoned rural settlements, overgrown city streets, flooded subway stations, sharp skyscraper ruins, ancient temples, rugged mountains, and wild spaces where nature has reclaimed the remains of civilization.

Each Nushi encounter usually follows a clear pattern. The first fight introduces the creature’s attacks and movement. After it retreats, Emma completes more objectives before facing it again in a larger and more demanding rematch.

Defeating a Nushi gives Emma new abilities and sends her back to the walker, a mobile hub where she can rest, upgrade equipment, grow crops, recover after battle, spend time with allies, and bond with Koo, her enormous dog companion.

Traversal Is a Real Highlight

Movement is one of the game’s most enjoyable systems. Emma’s magical hair abilities give exploration a strong sense of speed and flow.

One ability launches her upward on a column of corrupted strands. Another creates twisting hair-vines that form bridges across wide gaps. A third works like a grappling tool, pulling Emma toward distant points and letting her move quickly through vertical spaces.

These abilities are not overly complicated, but they are satisfying. The best areas use height well, turning broken structures, cliffs, and ruins into playgrounds for fast movement. When traversal clicks, it gives the game a sense of freedom that helps soften some of its weaker level design.

The only odd detail is Koo. He is huge, loyal, and always nearby, so it is difficult not to wonder why Emma cannot ride him. Still, even without that option, the movement system remains one of the game’s strongest features.

Combat Can Be Excellent

Combat is where Beast of Reincarnation comes closest to greatness.

Emma has access to ranged tools, but her katana is the real centre of the battle system. Fights revolve around slashing, dodging, positioning, and, most importantly, parrying. Guarding attacks drains the Entanglement meter and can leave Emma staggered. Successful parries, however, build the meter and eventually allow her to trigger a slow-time ability that opens a brief but powerful attack window.

Parrying also generates the energy needed to use Koo’s support abilities. Koo can bite enemies, restrict their movement with vines, and help restore some of Emma’s health. At first, these commands feel more complicated than they need to be, but once the rhythm becomes clear, they add an interesting tactical layer.

The game also includes elemental tools, food bonuses, equippable gems, automatic consumables, core upgrades, and Bloom Arts, which unlock powerful combo attacks. It is a lot to process, and the game does not always explain it gracefully. But when everything comes together, combat can feel genuinely thrilling.

A perfectly timed parry against a towering Nushi, followed by a slow-motion counterattack and a burst of floral energy, is exactly the kind of moment that makes the game shine.

The Frustrations Are Hard to Ignore

The problem is that the combat does not always behave as cleanly as it should.

The camera can be difficult, especially during battles with large Nushi or groups of smaller enemies. The lock-on system does not always feel reliable and can switch targets at awkward moments. Turning it off can help in some situations, but it also creates new problems.

This matters because the game demands precision. If an enemy attacks from off-screen or its movement is hidden behind heavy visual effects, missing a parry can feel unfair. Since Emma can die after only a few hits, unclear attacks quickly become frustrating.

On PS5, some important actions can also feel inconsistent. Healing, dodging, and activating slow-time do not always seem to register as smoothly as they should. In a game built around timing, that kind of inconsistency can make failure feel less like a player mistake and more like the game slipping out of control.

The World Looks Better Than It Feels

The landscapes can be beautiful, but exploration is not always rewarding.

Many regions look striking from a distance but feel empty in practice. There are not enough memorable landmarks, enemy variety is limited, and side paths rarely offer rewards that feel essential. The respawn structure also suffers because long return routes often involve crossing spaces that do not offer much of interest.

Traversal helps, especially when Emma’s hair abilities are working smoothly. Completion-focused players may still enjoy searching every corner. But too often, the world feels stronger as an image than as a space to explore.

There are also technical rough edges. Emma can catch on environmental geometry, hit invisible walls, or move through areas that feel less polished than they should. Some textures and surfaces can appear rough or unstable, which adds to the sense that parts of the game needed more refinement.

Accessibility Options

The game includes subtitles with a speaker-name toggle, camera and aiming sensitivity sliders, a camera shake slider, separate volume controls for effects, music, speech, and interface sounds, Japanese and English voice audio, and multiple text language options.

Where the Game Finds Its Heart

Despite its problems, Beast of Reincarnation is difficult to dismiss. There are moments when it feels clumsy, unfinished, and exhausting. But there are also moments when it becomes strangely beautiful.

The best battles have a fierce rhythm. The best traversal sections feel graceful and fast. The best story moments reveal a softer emotional core beneath the strange lore and heavy systems.

Emma’s journey gradually becomes a story about identity, connection, community, and belonging. That emotional thread gives the game more weight than its chaotic opening suggests. Its world is broken, its characters are damaged, and its systems are often uneven, but there is a real tenderness beneath it all.

Koo also gives the game warmth. He is not just a combat tool or a companion creature. His presence helps humanize a world that can otherwise feel cold and strange.

Beast of Reincarnation is not a clean victory. It is crowded with ideas, unevenly paced, and held back by camera problems, technical issues, unclear tutorials, and exploration that often feels too empty.

But it is also exciting, emotional, and far more memorable than its flaws might suggest. The combat can be exhilarating, the movement is genuinely enjoyable, and the story eventually finds a surprising amount of soul.

This is a flawed action RPG, but not a hollow one. It borrows heavily, stumbles often, and asks for patience. Yet when its best parts come together, it offers something intense, strange, and heartfelt. For players who can tolerate rough edges in exchange for ambition and sincerity, Beast of Reincarnation has a broken but beating heart.