ONINAKI
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.
Steam User 197
First and foremost, I'm going to say . The most contentious thing about the game seems to be the combat, and the best way to know if it's something that you're good with is to try it out. One detail I will add that the demo probably won't showcase well is that while the demons will feel fairly sluggish when you first acquire them, they do begin to speed up and feel more fluid as you upgrade them; new skills unlock, additional mods like penetration on attacks or attack chains become available, cancels become available, etc.
Game falls heavily on the RPG side of ARPG so while there is loot and drops that can be socketed with mods and such, I only really recommend it if you're going along for the story (which is an interesting story about loss/letting go and a society that's been built around reincarnation) and not so much if you're looking for a hack and slash loot game.
Each demon has a backstory that is told as you use their weapon, gain affinity, and unlock more about their past. If you've ever played Lost Odyssey, they're similar to the Memory vignettes found in that game.
Edit: Small note about the demo that is worth mentioning. At the time I played it, controller support had the confirmation buttons reversed from what is displayed on screen/is set to Japanese standard (B confirms, A cancels). This makes interactions awkward. This has been resolved in the release version.
Steam User 141
Oninaki is worth a playthrough, but is very disappointing. The game's story is really interesting and surprising for a good chunk of the game, despite how tropey the cast can be. But the plot moves along at a steady pace and will likely keep your interest. However, it veers into typical JRPG territory later, with a lot of convoluted, vague nonsense that's never explained. The story also has a lot of plot holes and things that make literally no sense that the game never addresses.
The combat is solid, if unremarkable. You're mostly going to be mashing the attack button and using skills that cooldown fairly quickly, many of which are fun to use. You get a different attack and skill tree for each of the game's ten stan, er, Daemons. But there's not a lot of reasons to use any aside from the one you start with. She's one of the best and has a dash move and a basic attack that moves her in the direction you attack. Most of the other Daemons just plant your character in place, which isn't useful.
Beware, though, this is a pretty short game. The story probably won't take most people more than 15 hours unless they grind to max out the other Daemons. There is an endgame "dungeon" once you beat the game. It randomly picks one of the game's areas for you to fight enemies in. You do four of these and then a boss floor with a save point opens up. This is okay if you really want more combat, but it's not any harder than the main game. You will keep leveling up and finding new weapons, though, so if that sounds good to you, there's that.
The game also has some pretty big controller issues. My Dualshock 4 was unusable with the game and thought I was pressing two buttons at once for some commands and wouldn't recognize others whatsoever. I've seen people on the forums say they had similar problems with an Xbox One controller as well. A 360 controller worked perfectly, though. Someone in the forum mentioned they went into big picture mode and changed the settings to their controller and it worked, but I have yet to try that. Anyways, I had a good amount of fun with this one, but it could have been a lot better.
Steam User 30
TRY THE DEMO first !
Pros:
I've really enjoyed the game, combat is really fun switching classes (Daemons)
good upgrading system, amazing Animation Skills.
Cons:
The Story is interesting but poorly written, bad enemy variety
took me 30hrs to finish the story! you could sink more (MANIAC)
is it worth the full price? NO!
Steam User 18
Really relaxing game, pretty cool environments and satisfying boss kills.
Story line could be more engaging, but it gets there, and the main character could have been a bit more memorable...He doesn't get there.
I would recommend if on sale to at least give it a try!
Steam User 18
A nice, not very complex RPG with an interesting combat system, a grim plot, but with simple graphics and good, but rare music. I recommend, but only at a discount!
Steam User 16
The mixed reviews are justified. Buy only on a deep sale (or like I did in the FF12/DQ11 bundle) The foundation for the game is decent but all together isn't that fun or well thought out.
Before you start there are two things you need to do
1. Force turn off Steam input per game. Controller support is strange in this game and varies for people. The controller as is did work but none of the triggers worked. Doing this made the game work perfectly.
2. Use this mod -
The gameplay is the main problem with the game. It is all the same and with potentially a lot of grinding. There are 11 character play styles to use. The problem is they all level up individually and all start off extremely basic. So do you want to grind out a basic and boring start or just continue using what you have? You should since all of them are pretty fun once they get going with the scythe girl being a clear favorite. Using the above mod does cut out a lot of the grinding but it is still there. The gameplay loop is always the same and combat is fairly simple.
I enjoyed my time with it but have no real interest in finishing the game.
Steam User 12
After "I am Setsuna" and "Lost Sphear" comes ONINAKI. A fun, but very flawed game not unlike their predecessors.
Overall, the story was alright but not that interesting. The story revolves around the concept of life and death and how we shouldn't mourn the dead because it makes them cling to the world of the living. It throws plot points at you to keep you engaged, to then throw out said plot points only 30 minutes later. Characters get introduced here and there and quite randomly killed off for no rhyme or reason. This makes it very hard to connect with any character, because you know they just end up at the bottom of the plot barrel in a few hours. In general, the story's alright but forgettable.
Graphics and music I have very little to say about. Graphics are very much alright and some locales even look pretty, but there's nothing that stands out. Most of the music is just unimpactful piano tracks that do nothing to keep you immersed, they're just there.
Lastly, the switch to action based combat is a nice change from what the previous two games offered and I think this is what made me enjoy this game more than the previous two. It makes things just a bit more fun from what is overall a pretty bland game.
So, all in all I did enjoy some parts of this but it's very mediocre. I can't really recommend this at $50, but at a (much) lower price point I would say this is worth a purchase. I have put 40 hours in this game and done most content except the side-quests.
Note: At the time of writing, this game is suffering from major controller issues. It's very hit or miss whether your controller will (stay) work(ing). Luckily for me it mostly worked fine, sometimes only needing a restart when my controller randomly stopped working properly. Sadly, seeing as there is very little to no post-launch support for these games, I wouldn't count on this ever getting fixed.