Beast of Reincarnation Review – Game Freak’s Boldest Swing Yet

Game Freak is stepping far outside of its usual comfort zone with Beast of Reincarnation, an ambitious action RPG packed with fast-paced combat, exploration, crafting, and one very good dog. It is easily the studio’s most ambitious project yet, and you can see the influence of games like NieR: Automata, and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, throughout the experience. The surprising part is just how well Game Freak manages to pull it all together.

There are some rough edges, but Beast of Reincarnation quickly became one of those games I kept wanting to come back to. So, how well does Game Freak’s biggest departure from Pokémon actually hold up? Let’s get into it.

Game Name: Beast of Reincarnation
Platform(s): PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC (Steam)
Reviewed On: PC
Developer(s): Game Freak
Publisher(s): Fictions
Release Date: August 4, 2026
Time Played: 32 hours (Completed)
Price: $59.99

Beast of Reincarnation has you playing as Emma, alongside her faithful dog-like companion, Koo, as the pair are tasked with stopping the threat known as the Beast of Reincarnation. Sounds simple enough, right? Except this creature is a Malefact, and has the potential to end the world. To reach it, Emma must hunt down other Malefacts known as Nushi’s, absorb their power, growing strong enough to eventually to take on the Beast of Reincarnation. Emma is a human hybrid known as a Blight-stained and because of this, she is treated as an outcast by the same people who now need her to save what remains of humanity. Oh, and Emma is also pretty much an emotionless blank slate when the story begins.

Beast of Reincarnation is not simply an action game, but also a journey about discovering who you are, understanding what it means to be human, and helping people who have spent most of their lives shunning you. Simple, right?

Putting That Sword To Good Use

I know a lot of people are going to look at Beast of Reincarnation and immediately claim that it has Soulslike combat, but I am going to deflate that nonsense right now. No, it does not. This is nothing like a Soulslike, nor does it feature Soulslike combat. Sure, it shares a few surface-level elements with those games, so I get why people are going to make the comparison anyway. Yes, this game is very much an action RPG with hack and slash elements, but a Soulslike it is not.

The combat in Beast of Reincarnation is fast and feels closer to NieR: Automata, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, or even Stellar Blade. Emma has one primary attack button, a dodge that can become a perfect dodge, and a block that turns into a perfect block / parry when timed correctly. Sure, you can try to rely on blocking, but it will only get you so far. If you are someone who does not enjoy parrying, this game may not be for you. I am just being honest, as you will not get very far without learning how to do it.

Parrying breaks an enemy’s posture, opening many opponents up for instant-kill attacks, and stunning everything else, including bosses. It is also one of the primary ways you build the meter needed to use Koo’s abilities. Thankfully, the timing is nowhere near as demanding as something like Sekiro. Parrying is forgiving enough that it eventually becomes second nature, with fights practically turning into a rhythm game, going between parrying and attacking. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the system, especially compared to other games that rely heavily on the same mechanic.

It’s also worth explaining how the system actually works, since calling it forgiving doesn’t tell the whole story. A perfect parry means you take zero damage, full stop. But if you miss that window, it simply counts as a regular block instead of leaving you completely exposed. As long as you have bars in Emma’s gauge, blocking still negates all damage, it just costs you a bar to do it. Run out of gauge, though, and blocking will no longer save you from taking a hit until a bar refills, which happens automatically. So, you can absolutely miss parry windows and still come out unscathed, as long as you’ve got the meter to back it up. Though, the game does have an issue where if you fail to block or parry, you’ll can eat another attack in rapid succession.

Boss fights are enjoyable, especially as they increasingly test you on everything you’ve learned up to that point, from parrying at the right moment to making proper use of Koo and the synergy between the two of you. They also deliver plenty of those “oh, there’s a second phase” moments that always manage to keep you on your toes. And yes, there are even a few encounters where you’ll find yourself fighting two bosses at once. Fun stuff.

On top of all that, the controls themselves feel great. I never ran into a single issue with input responsiveness or button mapping while engaged in combat, which matters a lot in a game this reliant on tight parry timing.

You And Koo Too

Your partner, Koo, makes combat considerably more interesting, as you are not only upgrading Emma throughout the game, but Koo as well. Their abilities and attacks depend on how you develop both characters. Attribute points are used to improve Emma’s core stats, while shared skill points are spent unlocking abilities for both Emma and Koo. It is incredibly important that you do not ignore Koo’s upgrades, because doing so is basically asking for a bad time. Koo is already useful when attacking enemies independently, but he can also provide several defensive and support abilities.

Koo is fantastic as a supporting character and clearly the best doggie, as he can heal Emma, taunt enemies to pull their attention away from her, unleash specific attacks at your command, or even lock enemies in place. Selecting one of these abilities slows combat down, not stopping it, giving you time to decide which skill you want to use. But if you take too long deciding, you will eat a hit that knocks you right out of the command menu, so you still need to make those calls quickly.

Outside of combat, he’ll point out items and other useful stuff and even bring stuff to you if you bypass it. You can even pet him and try to get him to talk to you and even clean him up. In terms of secondary characters, Koo has solidified himself as one of my favorites, and it’s not just because he’s a dog. Ok, maybe it is.

Traversal and Exploration

The maps in Beast of Reincarnation are large and filled with plenty of things to keep players busy. There are enemies to fight, resources to gather, hidden areas to discover, and useful items scattered throughout the world. Exploration is a major part of the experience, and checking every corner is one of the best ways to make Emma and Koo as strong as possible. It is also how you will discover new weapons and gear, materials for upgrading your mobile headquarters, and fruits, vegetables, and seedlings that can be used to grow your own food.

Thankfully, the game also features a map that permanently marks any point of interest you have discovered, so if you need to backtrack later, or if there is an elite enemy you were not strong enough to defeat, at least you will know exactly where it is. The map also lets you fast travel between any of the campfires, which serve as more than just safe points. You can rest, upgrade weapons, mess around with your skill tree, and more.

Emma may not have a mount like Torrent from Elden Ring, but her Malefact powers give her several useful traversal abilities. She can perform an extended jump that sprouts roots to shoot her into the sky to reach distant platforms, use her hair like a whip to attach herself to specific points, and even turn that hair into a makeshift bridge. There are plenty of locations that initially look impossible to reach, only for Emma’s abilities to provide a way forward.

The game also places a huge emphasis on verticality, creating that satisfying feeling that you can go almost anywhere you see. The environments are open and give you plenty of freedom to wander away from the main objective, which I appreciated. One of my favorite locations in the game featured a broken-down span bridge, where the top layer featured enemies where you can attack head-on, or sneak around and get some stealth kills. Another was a desert where adventuring to the craters on the outskirts would present areas where elite enemies would ambush you.

During my time with the game, I frequently ran off in random directions looking for anything that caught my attention, and I was often rewarded for doing so. I discovered elite enemies, secret areas that turned into small quests, useful rewards, and several locations that simply looked amazing. Seriously, I was getting Elden Ring vibes at times, and that is saying something.

Gathering and Cooking

At times, it feels like Game Freak decided to toss every possible mechanic into Beast of Reincarnation just to see what would stick. I say this because the game includes gathering, cooking, farming, crafting, weapon upgrades, ammunition crafting, and improvements for your mobile headquarters. You can discover recipe books, gather fruits and vegetables, collect materials for improving your headquarters, and craft bolts, arrows, and other useful items. There is a lot going on, but the cooking system was what caught my attention the most.

While Emma has someone else prepare the meals, eating certain dishes provides permanent bonuses to health, attack, defense, and other attributes. As long as you have found the correct ingredients, cooking becomes an important part of permanently strengthening your character.

Emma also becomes hungry while exploring the world, and while you can ignore her hunger, keeping her fed allows her to recover health during combat, reducing how often you need to rely on healing items. Feeding Emma also improves her rapport with Koo, giving the mechanic another purpose beyond simply restoring health. It may sound minor but considering how important Koo is both in and outside of combat, building that relationship is worth paying attention to.

Seriously though, the cooking and eating is an overpowering aspect of the game. I spent a lot of time hunting down ingredients so I could make dishes that would give me a major power advantage, since you can’t really power level in this game.

Art Direction and Sound

Visually, Beast of Reincarnation is stunning. The character designs are genuinely well drawn and animated, Emma and Koo included, though I will say a lot of the enemies you run into start blending together after a while. Reused models are nothing new for this genre, but it is noticeable here.

Where the game really sells itself is the world. Everything has this dystopian, end-of-days look to it, like you are wandering through the last gasp of a dying world. It fits perfectly with the story Game Freak is telling, because you basically are humanity’s only hope at this point, whether you asked for that job or not.

The music is dangerously close to NieR: Automata, to the point where I was like “this theme is familiar.” There is really only one main theme carrying the exploration during the overworld and it does tend to get annoying after a while. Thankfully it does vary once you start progressing into the dungeons and instances of the game, with more variety towards the end of the game. Several key boss fights are a completely different story, though, as they tend to ratchet up the music.

Put it all together and the vibe I kept coming back to was that same influence. Not in a derivative way, more like Game Freak looked at what made that game special and asked how they could do it even better. Most of the time, they pull it off.

How Long Does It Take to Beat?

By the time I finally defeated the final boss and sat through the very lengthy credits, my playthrough of Beast of Reincarnation clocked in at roughly 32 hours. I definitely could have finished the game sooner, but that really wasn’t how I wanted to play it. I spent a lot of time exploring, hunting down hidden elite enemies, searching for recipes and ingredients, checking out areas that looked interesting, and generally poking around anywhere the game gave me an excuse to go. Still, failing to explore means you’ll miss out on a lot of stuff, including side quests that you’ll only unlock after stumbling into locations or asking a friendly NPC.

If you’re mostly focused on the main story, I could easily see someone finishing Beast of Reincarnation faster than I did. However, if you’re the type of player who likes exploring every corner, taking on optional challenges, hunting for upgrades, and seeing what the world has hidden away, expect to spend around 30 hours or potentially quite a bit longer. There is plenty here to keep you occupied if you aren’t in a rush to reach the end.

Can You Pause The Game?

Yes, you can pause the game in the event you need to walk away. You have no idea how much I appreciate that.

Performance

I played Beast of Reincarnation on my PC, equipped with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090, an AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D, and 96GB of DDR5 memory. I initially played with Nvidia DLSS set to Quality and ray tracing enabled at 4K, which provided high frame rates throughout most of the experience, ranging between 90 and 120 FPS with no frame rate cap. Switching to native resolution with no upscaling dropped that to around 80 to 90 FPS, which was still solid given that ray tracing was enabled.

I then gave the game a try on my laptop (Intel Core Ultra 9 285H, RTX 5070 Ti, 32GB), and for the most part the game played just as good. Running it at 4K, I had to dial the settings down to medium-high to hit 60-70 FPS, while playing at 1440p got me 80+ frames per second at high settings. As always with PC gaming, your results may vary depending on your setup. The game also supports FSR 1, FSR 3, and TSR, although Intel XeSS is not included.

Right before this review went live, a patch was released that should also help with performance, but I didn’t get the chance to test it out.

Yes, There Is Some Jank Involved

Beast of Reincarnation has a lot going for it, but unfortunately, it also has a fair amount of jank. There were times when I was fighting multiple enemies and the camera would completely turn against me, leaving me unable to see what I was attacking or what was attacking me. Even after disabling automatic targeting, the camera would sometimes remain locked onto one enemy while another was busy beating the crap out of me.

The lock-on and camera were clearly built with single-target fights in mind, not juggling a pack of attackers. This results in encounters that feel less like a genuine test of skill and more like a fight against the camera itself, which is a shame, because the actual combat underneath it is so good.

Collision issues were another concern as I performed a perfect dodge underneath a boss and the game seemingly became confused and Emma ended up getting stuck under the boss for a second, the screen went black, and I was suddenly dropped into a completely different position. It is frustrating because these are exactly the kinds of issues that can drag down an otherwise amazing experience.

The Lack of Accessibility Is Frustrating

We’ve seen plenty of games released over the past few years that include accessibility options for players who may need additional assistance, so seeing Beast of Reincarnation launch with virtually nothing in that department is frustrating.

I’m not asking Game Freak to make the game easier or hold anyone’s hand. Accessibility and difficulty are not the same thing. Giving players more options to customize how they experience a game simply allows more people to play it. For a game this ambitious, the lack of meaningful accessibility options feels like a major oversight, and I really hope Game Freak addresses it in a future update.

Final Thoughts

I am not sure why people are surprised that Game Freak has worked on something outside of the Pokémon franchise, as this is far from the first time the studio has developed another type of game. That said, this is easily its most ambitious project to date, and it pushes the developer far outside of its usual comfort zone. To which I feel that Game Freak has largely nailed it.

The combat is fast, responsive, and surprisingly satisfying. Exploring the world constantly rewards curiosity, while Emma and Koo make for an enjoyable pair both in and outside of battle. The art direction and boss music are genuine highlights, and the cooking, gathering, crafting, and upgrade systems can feel like a lot at first, but they also give players plenty of ways to strengthen their characters and prepare for the challenges ahead.

The camera problems and collision issues do prevent the game from reaching its full potential, and getting stuck under the map is the kind of bug Game Freak needs to patch fast. Still, none of those problems stopped me from wanting to continue exploring the world, hunting Malefacts, and seeing where Emma and Koo’s journey would take them. If you can tolerate some rough edges at launch, Beast of Reincarnation is absolutely worth your time. If you would rather wait for a patch or two to smooth things out, that is a completely reasonable call too. Either way, Game Freak proved it can step outside of Pokémon and deliver something genuinely exciting.

And Koo is the best boy ever.

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Review Disclosure Statement: Beast of Reincarnation was provided to us by Fictions for review purposes. For more information on how we review video games and other media/technology, please review our Review Guideline/Scoring Policy.