With the Beast of Reincarnation set for release in a few weeks, I was able to get an early hands-on session with the game today, and I came away impressed.

Following games like Nier: Automata and Stellar Blade , Beast of Reincarnation follows a similar functional path. It’s very much a highly skilled action game featuring parrying mechanics, but it’s coupled with some nice exploration and wonderful art direction.

Set thousands of years in the future, the Blight has wiped out most of civilization, and while the name sounds gruesome and terrifying, the Blight itself is verdant and filled with flowers.

You play as Emma the Sealer, who is partly infected with the Blight, and are accompanied by a similarly Blight-inflicted dog called Koo.

Koo is also rather adorable and acts more like a giant puppy than a Mononoke Hime -esque wolf. The Studio Ghibli connection does feel quite palpable, though, in terms of art direction and general inspiration at least. Not to mention that the back story does feel very much in line with something like Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind .

One minor niggle is that the pathing for Koo sometimes has the giant dog zoom up into your rearward camera, and that can be a little off-putting, but you can also give commands and have Koo assist in combat.

Traversing large open levels, you investigate the cause of the Blight, which on the level I played turned out to be a giant reindeer boss, which I promptly took out.

While I am not overly fond of parry mechanics in games, I enjoyed the setup here. The attacks are heavily telegraphed, and the timing window for a successful parry is mercifully humane.

The parry/guard is mapped to the left shoulder button, with the attacks on the right shoulder and trigger buttons respectively, so there’s nice symmetry.

Emma can also use her “hair” to vault into the air and create bridges, as well as act as a Blight-infused grappling hook so you can zoom across levels.

It all plays very smoothly and feels surprisingly coherent.

I say this because the studio behind this game is Game Freak, of Pokémon fame, and for a first time out doing a very different type of game than they are known for, they have done an impressive job.

In any case, I will be reviewing the game prior to release, so stay tuned for a detailed breakdown of how the game plays then. Thus far, though, I think this could be rather special.

Beast of Reincarnation is released on August 4 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.

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