ONINAKI

Oninaki certainly has plenty of ambition, promise and talent, but unfortunately, it didn't substantially deliver on any of them. There are many layered game mechanics and an intriguing story that don't stand a chance against extremely easy and repetitive gameplay. It's quite obvious that the development time and budget were limited, which results in an experience that is mediocre at best, regardless of how great this could have been. The almost-AAA price of $50 makes it a hard sell that should only be considered by determined fans or those who have played and enjoyed the demo.

Oninaki has big goals, but it isn't able to follow up on them. While it has an exciting premise and even some cool systems to explore, it ends up mired in the sameness other games in the genre have. It's less RPG than dungeon crawler, and given that most of your time is spent trawling locations talking to people and then setting out on missions, the story has little time to play out at a comfortable pace, leaving you with more questions than you started with.

Overall, Oninaki isn’t a bad game, but it’s not going to wow you in any way. Its story is interesting but presented in a way that fails to truly grab your attention; like the recent Crystar, it stands out by not being cheery like most JRPGs. But what really cements it as a ho-hum action RPG is its combat, which never develops quite as you’d expect it to despite its fairly unique Daemon system. With some additional tweaking, including making its combat a bit more fluid, Oninaki could have been something special. As it is, it’s simply okay.