Beast of Reincarnation Review: Sharp Parrying

Beast of Reincarnation is an action RPG from Game Freak, the studio behind Pokémon for almost three decades, published by Fictions. It launched on August 4, 2026 on PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC, and landed on Xbox Game Pass on day one. You play Emma, a young woman shunned by society because she carries the Blight, who crosses a Japan of the year 4026 with her dog Koo. This is OtaHub's full Beast of Reincarnation review, built from official information, published reviews and player data. The short version: it is not polished, but it does things many games in its genre have not managed.

Beast of Reincarnation Quick Facts

Setting and Story: Japan in the Year 4026

The Blight disaster turned the world into wasteland, forests sprouted from ruins and corrupted creatures roam everywhere. Emma is a Sealer: she absorbs the power of the Nushi, giant creatures taken over by the Blight, to move closer to her final goal. Her surrogate sister Kagura and Brad stay with her at the mobile base, and a character named Violet is visible only to Emma.

The core idea, as the developers describe it, is "one person, one dog" saving the world. The emotion lives there. The storytelling is weaker: several critics found the pacing slow and muddled, the supporting cast thin and the dialogue scenes long. RPG Site, by contrast, felt that grief and suppressed emotion are handled well through the friendship between Emma and Koo. OtaHub leans toward the second view, on one condition: you will be reading English or Japanese subtitles, because the game has no Vietnamese.

Combat: Parrying at the Core, Koo as the Twist

On a DualSense, Emma has sword combos, block and parry, dodge and ranged weapons. Timing a parry matters more than dodging, and each successful parry builds Fluorescence points. Those fuel Koo's Bloom Arts: you pick a move from a turn-based menu, time slows and Koo unleashes things like acid sprays, root traps or healing. Steam calls this a hybrid of action and turn-based RPG combat, and that label is fair.

Emma also uses her "Blight hair" to climb, swing and make temporary footholds, so moving across the map has its own rhythm. Eurogamer called the combat and traversal "exhilarating", and nearly every review, including the low ones, concedes that point. The game offers adjustable difficulty, which helps newcomers to the genre.

Mobile Base, Cooking and the Exploration Loop

There is a light survival layer: Emma and Koo only regain health on their own while the hunger gauge is not empty. Kagura cooks food from ingredients you forage, giving stat bonuses, and on the Cleanse Walker base you can grow crops and raise chickens for more recipes. Rapport with Koo grows through petting, treats and baths, then unlocks more skill slots. These are small touches, but they make Koo feel less like a combat tool and more like a friend.

Exploration is semi-open, scattering upgrade materials, hidden bosses and healing shrines. This is where the problems show: RPG Site played about 40 hours and found the middle stretch padded, with bosses and areas that feel alike. Some Metacritic users also complain about reused assets, facial animation and uneven difficulty.

Visuals, Sound and Technical State

The art direction is the most praised part: forests bursting out of wasteland, an old bridge sitting in mist, a red sunset over a steel tower. Wikipedia notes that the aesthetic is compared to Studio Ghibli films such as Princess Mononoke, and PCGamesN praised the soundtrack and art design. On the downside, RPG Site found character animation a little stiff, some textures muddy and indoor lighting odd. It saw no major performance problems, but other reviews cite camera trouble, target-lock issues and frame drops.

Game Freak has patched steadily since launch. Update 1.0.7 adjusted the camera, text size, the parry window while Emma is taking damage and enemy balance, and set cutscenes to Performance mode by default; the studio said frame generation and skippable cutscenes would follow. On August 13, director Kota Furushima apologised that parts of the game had not been enjoyable enough and promised to keep working on it.

Strengths and Weaknesses

What Critics Say

Metacritic on October 3, 2026: 71 on PS5 and PC (Mixed), 75 on Xbox Series X, with a user score of 6.2/10 from 426 ratings. Individual scores: GamesRadar+ 4.5/5, RPG Site 8/10, PCGamesN 8/10, Shacknews 8/10, Push Square 7/10, Destructoid 7/10, PC Gamer 73/100, IGN 6/10, GameSpot 6/10, Eurogamer 3/5 and Video Games Chronicle 3/5. VGC called it the studio's best non-Pokémon game and said it deserves a follow-up. According to Wikipedia, about 55% of critics on OpenCritic recommend it, a modest figure.

Steam players were split on October 3, 2026: 3,713 positive and 2,586 negative reviews out of 6,299, rated Mixed.

OtaHub's take. Our 8.1 sits above the 71 average, and we accept that gap on purpose. The low reviews fault the story, pacing and lack of polish; those problems are real and are listed under weaknesses. But the high reviews all praise the same two things: parry combat and the Emma-and-Koo pair. For OtaHub, that is the main experience, so your own score may land lower if you put story or technical polish first.

OtaHub Score

The overall score is the weighted average of the four criteria, with up to ±0.2 editorial adjustment. See our review standards.

Who Should Play Beast of Reincarnation?

Play it if you like parry-focused combat, love a human-and-animal companion duo, or already have Xbox Game Pass and it costs nothing extra.

Wait for a sale or more patches if you mainly want a deep story, dislike repeated bosses or expect a technically finished product. You will also need to accept that there is no Vietnamese language option.

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources: the Beast of Reincarnation Steam page (price, specs, languages and user reviews as of October 3, 2026), Metacritic, Wikipedia, PlayStation Blog, RPG Site, The Shortcut, PC Gamer and Push Square. The score is OtaHub's editorial judgement, set against our Review Standards.