The history of momotaro (the "peach boy") is among the most famous legends in Japanese folklore. Born from a gigantic peach after the prayers of an elderly couple, eager to have a child, Momotarō had soon become a strong and combative young man, and together with a curious group of allies - a pheasant, a dog and a monkey - He had managed to go to Onigashima, the island of the Oni, to defeat the orcs and steal their precious loot.
ONI: Road to be the Mightiest Oni sets out to tell the other side of the story: The protagonist, Kuuta, is the only Oni to survive the Momotarō massacre, and in search of revenge he goes to the island of Kisejima, full of evidence that will give him the strength necessary to defeat the orc exterminator. The video game produced by KENEI DESIGN in collaboration with SHUEISHA GAMES, published by Clouded Leopard Entertainment, starts from good basic ideas - also at the gameplay level - but presents numerous errors on multiple levels, and the overall result is compromised by a repetitiveness that does not leaves room for twists and surprises.
We talk about it in detail in ours. ONI review: Path to being the most powerful Oni.
An uphill road
The brief - and decidedly boring - opening video for ONI: Road to be the Mightiest Oni features a few scenes of the battle between the orcs and Momotarō, which ends with his and the latter's victory. extermination of the Oni. After this fierce fight, the orc Kuuta manages to escape and head to Kisejima, an island between the world of the living and the afterlife where the souls of the deceased are examined: those overflowing with earthly passions will be reincarnated on earth as Oni. Not only that: Kisejima is also a place of training and personal improvement. The presence of the souls of the dead makes their absorption possible, whenever they are defeated in battle: that is precisely the objective of Kuuta, who will use the spirits of the orcs defeated by Momotarō to turn his forces against the murderous hero.
Scattered around the small island are notes that tell backstories about Kisejima and the Oni, delving into the game's simple but interesting plot. In the distance, the silhouette of Onigashima stands out with its characteristic horns, identical to how we saw it in the unforgettable Ōkami. There are also some supporting actors, first Kazemaru, wind spirit ("kaze" means "wind" in Japanese, and you've probably already seen this word in the compound "kamikaze" or "divine wind") who will also act as Kuuta's ally during his numerous battles. The shopkeeper is there too. Zenisuke, which uses mushrooms, present in abundance at the foot of the island's trees, as currency: we can buy food from it to restore Kuuta's health and useful equipment to increase its parameters. we have then Kanna, a mysterious girl who lives in Kisejima. It's a shame that each character is poorly presented and the developers take for granted the bonds that are created between the protagonist and the secondary characters: Kazemaru follows Kuuta on his adventure for no apparent reason, while in the first scene of the interlude Se specifies that Kuuta and Kanna immediately formed a "particular bond" between the two. Which neither works nor convinces, given that on the screen we simply see encounters between characters who have no relationship with each other and who will only be partially "merged" by the story that follows.
orc beatings
Heart of ONI: Road to be the Mightiest Oni are undoubtedly the tests that Kuuta must face to become strong enough to challenge the cruel Momotarō. It is necessary to overcome all the battles in each part of the island (three in total) to unlock access to the next part; This system is poorly implemented, with a division of the territory based on trivial invisible walls that limit exploration. HE fight You start by getting to know the Oni spirits: the basic shapes of the enemies are identical to those of Kuuta, with an exclusively chromatic change, but fortunately there is no shortage of more original designs, especially in the boss fights, based on monsters drawn from rich Japanese folklore (by the way, the name "Komainu" should say something to Final Fantasy fans
Kuuta fights one club, and once enemies have been killed, he must destroy and absorb their soul, before it returns to the opponent's body and breathes new life into them. By holding down the attack button until the tip of the stick lights up, you perform a spinning attack, useful for taming the most tense situations; When the corresponding bar is full, the Oni can perform a special attack with various effects, depending on the one selected. Collaboration with Kazemaru is essential, controllable by pressing a specific button (which does not prevent you from continuing to move and attack with Kuuta): the spirit of the wind has the power to absorb the souls of enemies, but doing so consumes stamina, another indicator to take into account during combat. We find situations with many enemies on the screen that are not always legible, not to mention the rigidity of Kuuta's animations, very pleasant to see - like the rest of the cast, characterized by a recognizable and clearly Japanese design - but not so pleasant to see. control in fights throughout the approximately twelve hours necessary to complete the adventure. Furthermore, in more chaotic contexts it is difficult to maintain control of both characters, especially when the direction takes a top-down view (which is quite common when hordes of angry demonic spirits are sent against us).
To face the tests it is necessary to win hearts, which are earned by collecting souls distributed throughout the island. There are fifty-six in total and they can be tracked with the help of Kazemaru, whose head will light up a flame when you are near one of these spirits, hidden in the environment. Once you catch the leprechaun, he may chase you Fuel ("dark skin" in Japanese), a round monster with big teeth that must be escaped at all costs. The process is, in general, extremely repetitive and flash-free, and the collection of spirits seemed to us perhaps one of the most boring moments of the entire production.
A forgettable island
Unfortunately, ONI: Road to be the Mightiest Oni doesn't even stand out artistically. If - as we said - the characters were drawn with great care, the same cannot be said of Kisejima, aboring little island at a chromatic and environmental level. On PlayStation 5 we noticed quite a few technical problems, first of all a significant pop in the textures of the surfaces and shadows; There is no shortage of flying chests and other various bugs. It seems that ONI: Road to be the Mightiest Oni has remained in the prototype phase: the island of Kosejima is bare and poor, devoid of those devices capable of elegantly hiding any production limits.
It doesn't help one incomplete Spanish translation. Many texts have not been translated: it is strange to pick mushrooms and read "Got Mushrooms" on the screen and then the description of the mushrooms in question in Spanish. The same goes for the texts at the end of each battle, where we read "Mission completed" along with the completion times and other parameters of our performance, which however remain in English. On a musical level things are not better: the ballad heard in the first part of the island seemed completely out of place, with blatantly Western sounds and a male voice singing in English. All of this goes wrong with the setting chosen by KENEI DESIGN, not to mention that the song stops and starts again every time a battle is undertaken or there is an interaction with elements of the stage, ending up being annoyingly repetitive.
Conclusions
Tested version PlayStation 5 digital delivery PlayStation Store Holygamerz.com 4.0 Readers (5) 6.7 your voteONI: On the way to being the most powerful Oni has several good ideas, but fails to carry them out constructively, resulting in a product marred by enormous repetitiveness at any level. Despite Kisejima's small size, KENEI DESIGN and SUEISHA GAMES have failed to construct a lively and convincing setting, resorting to overused tools such as invisible walls to guide an experience that is generally not very pleasant. The design of the main characters and some bosses is still pleasant and we appreciate some solutions in the direction of combat, but in general there is little to save in Kuuta's journey.
PRO
- well drawn characters
- Story with an interesting premise.
AGAINST
- The technical sector is definitely below sufficiency
- Very repetitive combat
- Soundtrack not appropriate to the context.
- Monotonous and poorly guided exploration through huge invisible walls.
