When Tokyo RPG Factory released its first game, I am Setsuna, the mission statement was making games reminiscent of Square's golden age of RPGs. It was a lofty goal from the get-go, but the more of their titles I play, the clearer it becomes that you need more than Active Time Battles to inspire nostalgia - if anything I'm now more convinced than ever that they really don't make 'em like they used to.

Tokyo RPG Factory's latest, Oninaki, takes place in a world ruled by the belief in death and reincarnation. I'm always interested in JRPGs that handle death, since some of them - chiefly Final Fantasy 10 and Tales of Berseria - offer interesting angles on the topic, studied through the lens of Buddhism and Shintoism. Oninaki, on the other hand, has nothing interesting to say.

It does in fact have so little to say that after 30 hours with it I'm not sure what the plot was, or if there was one as opposed to a sequence of various tasks. You take control of Kagachi, a white-haired boy who after the death of his parents joins the Watchers, a group of people with the ability to walk between the world of the dead and the living. If someone dies with regrets, they stay behind as a ghost instead of being reincarnated, and so the Watchers take on any problem that may keep someone from peacefully passing on. This isn't quite at the level of "oh no, I've left the oven on", but too often, especially in case of ghosts you randomly come across, all you have to do is visit a specific place on the map again so that they can see it one last time.

Read more

Here's some good news for those of you intrigued by Toyko RPG Factory's upcoming endeavour, Oninaki - Square Enix has released a new free demo to let you try it before you buy it.

The studio's first foray into the action-RPG genre, Oninaki is reportedly inspired by classic 16-bit turn-based JRPGs. The demo lets you sample the opening part "of an epic tale about life, death and reincarnation", with any progress made transferrable should you like it enough to invest in the full game.

You can also try out the Battle Mode, too, where you can "enjoy thrilling combat using an upgraded character possessed by four daemons that perform different job roles".

Read more

I Am Setsuna and Lost Sphear developer Tokyo RPG Factory has announced that its new action-RPG, Oninaki, will be coming to Switch, PS4, and PC on 22nd August.

Oninaki tells the story of Kagachi, a young Watcher charged with ferrying Lost Souls from the world of the Living into the afterlife, known as the Beyond. "After meeting a mysterious girl named Linne," explains publisher Square Enix, "his fate becomes entwined with blood and death."

As Kagachi's adventure unfolds, his path will cross the likes of Kushi, an "exemplary Watcher and trusted leader", a kind-hearted Watcher named Mayura, and the malicious (and presumably considerably less kind-hearted) Night Devil, who hails from "a forgotten time".

Read more