Game Freak's Beast of Reincarnation Reviewed on PS5

Game Freak Steps Out of Poke-Ball Territory

Game Freak, the studio behind one of the most recognizable franchises in gaming history, has quietly shipped something very different. Beast of Reincarnation, published by Fictions for PlayStation 5, is a post-apocalyptic action RPG set in a Japan swallowed by nature. No Pikachu in sight. According to a review published by Push Square, the result is a game that is “nearly in full bloom” but not quite there yet.

The premise is striking. Players take the role of Emma, a woman cursed by a plant-based blight that robs her of human emotion but grants her extraordinary combat abilities. She is paired with Koo, a large wolf who is himself one of the dangerous plant-animal hybrids, called malefacts, that have overtaken civilization. Together they work to defeat the titular Beast of Reincarnation and protect what remains of humanity. It is a lean, melancholy setup, and the game reportedly commits to it with sincerity.

More Sekiro Lite Than Dark Souls Clone

The Souls-like label will follow this game around, and Push Square reviewer Stephen Tailby acknowledges the influence. But he pushes back on the comparison fairly quickly. The game is “not as intimidatingly difficult as FromSoftware’s efforts,” he writes, and does enough of its own thing to avoid feeling like a copycat. The more apt comparison, he suggests, is Sekiro, specifically because of how central parrying is to combat.

The mechanics lean into that idea hard. Emma has no stamina bar, so she can swing freely, but landing parries is where the real rewards pile up. A successful parry builds enemy stagger meters faster than regular attacks, refills Emma’s Entanglement Gauge for her own special moves, and earns Koo a point of FP to spend on his skills. The window for landing a parry is described as generous, which lowers the barrier for players who typically find that mechanic punishing. Even so, the review notes that parries still feel satisfying to land, which is the trickier thing to get right.

Koo’s command menu adds a layer that nudges the game toward something slightly turn-based in feel. When selecting one of his abilities, time slows dramatically. Enemies each have a weakness to a specific status effect, which means building a varied loadout for Koo pays off over the course of the game. Both Emma and Koo unlock new skills as the adventure progresses, giving players a reason to keep tinkering with their approach.

Open Zones With Nushi Boss Hunts

Structurally, Beast of Reincarnation is built around a series of open zones. Each map has a presiding boss, called a Nushi, that serves as the main objective. Players can follow the critical path or wander off it to find optional mini-bosses and items. According to the review, there are real incentives to explore, and the environmental design holds up reasonably well across a range of settings, from ruined grassland villages to a large underground settlement.

The traversal system gives Emma some vertical options. Using her hair, she can extend roots to the ground and launch herself upward, or create a horizontal bridge to cross gaps. Tailby notes that some maps make better use of these abilities than others, and that areas can sometimes feel a little static outside of combat encounters.

The Souls comparison was always going to be a blunt instrument for a game this specific in its inspirations and goals. What Game Freak appears to have built is something more approachable than the genre standard, more mechanically textured than a simple action game, and rooted in an aesthetic that is genuinely its own. Whether the bloom fully opens depends on how the rest of those zones hold together, but the foundation that Push Square describes sounds like a studio stretching itself in ways that are worth paying attention to.