Continuing the cycle of rebirth.

The JRPG genre is one that’s gone through immeasurable change in the few decades that it’s been around, but there’s something about the ‘old school’ style of 90’s turn-based RPGs that still holds a lot of sway with modern fans. To cater to this demographic, Square Enix formed Tokyo RPG Factory in 2015 to produce a new Chrono Trigger-like release called “Project Setsuna” which was then released the following year under the name I Am Setsuna. Two years later, Tokyo RPG Factory followed this up with a spiritual successor called Lost Sphear, which continued the concept of Setsuna while fixing many of the issues that fans and critics found with it. Now, Tokyo RPG Factory has produced Oninaki, which notably breaks away from studio tradition by scrapping the turn-based battles in favor of a faster paced, action-focused battle system.

We’ll get one thing out of the way up front: Oninaki is a heavy game. Right in the opening scene, we’re greeted with a sequence in which our main hero Kagachi loses both his parents at a young age and is coldly berated for grieving their parting. See, when a person dies in the world of Oninaki, their soul eventually passes on and enters into the cycle of reincarnation, but if that soul is held back—be it by lingering regrets or the grief of their surviving loved ones—the soul becomes ‘Lost’ and runs the risk of mutating into a monstrous Fallen creature. To prevent this, the Watchers have been formed, who travel between this life and the next to assist Lost souls in completing their passage into death.

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