Beast of Reincarnation Review: What is the story-driven action-RPG from the creators of Pokemon like?

The Japanese studio Game Freak is best known as the creator of the iconic Pokémon media franchise. Since 1996, the studio has developed as many as 40 Pokémon games for Nintendo, so they certainly know their way around the series. Over all these years, the studio has only ventured outside its comfort zone three times to try something new, but these were modest side projects, such as the platformer about a “Rambo elephant,” Tembo the Badass Elephant.

And now, in 2026, Game Freak has unveiled Beast of Reincarnation — a large-scale and ambitious story-driven action RPG with an estimated budget exceeding $20 million, more than any Pokémon game has ever cost. The game is the studio’s first project for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S and only its fourth game for PC. Long before release, journalists had already described Beast of Reincarnation as a crucial project for Game Freak in its attempt to step out of Pokémon’s shadow. Let’s see whether the creators of Pokémon can make something good besides Pokémon.

The concept for Beast of Reincarnation was born during an internal studio brainstorming session in 2020. Of course, we have no idea what form the original pitch took, but what we ended up with is a 25–30-hour project that blends elements of several genres. It is an action RPG with a combat system built around parries, soulslike elements, and even some tactical mechanics.

According to the story, humanity has been devastated by a disease in a post-apocalyptic future: the Blight, which transforms all living things into aggressive monsters known as malefacts, from which branches and roots grow. The source of the infection is the powerful Beast of Reincarnation, which appears once every hundred years to destroy all life. You play as Emma, a young exile capable of absorbing the Blight. By order of the ruler, she must destroy the Beast’s offspring, known as nushi, and the Beast itself, accompanied by her loyal white dog (or wolf?) named Koo.

There is no open world. Instead, the game features semi-open areas with underground sections and elevated platforms that Emma can launch herself toward almost like a jetpack. Except she doesn’t have a jetpack: she can grow a tree branch from her own hair and use it to propel herself through the environment. Chests and loot are scattered around the locations, while there are no traditional side quests — the game keeps you moving along a fairly linear path. Chests mostly contain consumables and recipes for food and weapon upgrades; you won’t find some overpowered super-weapon inside, as weapons are awarded through the story. Objectives are presented clearly and simply: “kill all enemies,” “open the door,” “find three keys,” and so on. In short, you won’t get lost.

Killing enemies grants experience points that can be spent on upgrading skills, following the classic action RPG formula. The skill tree — and it is literally a tree — is remarkably extensive, and both the heroine and her dog can learn new abilities. You start with three skills, and each new level unlocks additional ones. On top of upgrading weapons, armor, and individual abilities, you can also queue up new skills for research at the base while you are away from home. Speaking of which, the game features a hub with companions, cooking, growing seedlings, and even a shower.

The game’s director is Kota Furushima, who spent many years working on the combat systems for the Pokémon series. He has openly asked people not to classify the game as a soulslike. But how can you avoid doing that when it contains so many characteristic soulslike features: “bonfires” where you can upgrade skills, two-phase bosses, enemies that respawn after the player dies, and combat built around perfect blocks and parries?

However, hardcore players may be disappointed: Beast of Reincarnation is more of a “souls-lite,” an easier take on the soulslike formula. As is customary for the genre, successful parries build up a meter for a super attack, activate abilities, and leave enemies vulnerable to finishing moves. But on normal difficulty, the parry windows are as wide as shop windows rather than the narrow openings you get in Stellar Blade and some other soulslikes. Both bosses and regular enemies also have fairly limited movesets — just two to four attacks. Once you learn the timing, you’re basically guaranteed to win.

The game’s difficulty is artificially increased through the extreme damage dealt by certain enemies — some mobs can kill you in two hits — as well as attacks performed in groups. Boss fights, meanwhile, are short once you learn the timing, but they are rather dull: bosses repeat the same three attacks, a couple of missed hits sends you back to the checkpoint, and the lock-on system makes it impossible to see attacks coming from “off-screen.” If you’re looking for games with a well-balanced difficulty curve, check out our ranking of the hardest games.

The enormous Koo is not only the game’s main source of cuteness, but also a full-fledged combat companion. To make sure players don’t forget about him during fights, the developers added a tactical pause, similar to the one found in Final Fantasy and several other games. Pressing a button opens a tactical menu while time slows down, allowing you to order Koo to attack an enemy, set a trap, heal you, and so on. To keep players from relaxing during the pause, the developers also added QTEs, similar to those in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33: press the button at the right moment to increase the damage dealt to the enemy.

The resulting combat system may be stitched together from several borrowed mechanics, but it is fairly dynamic: if you make full use of your abilities and combine your own attacks with commands to Kuu, you can turn every encounter into a genuine action spectacle. In practice, though, there is little reason to do so: most mobs can be beaten by simply mashing attacks, while bosses can be taken down with basic quick strikes as long as you parry at the right moment. Overall, the combat may appeal to fans of character action games, but soulslike fans will probably find it too easy. For more soulslike games, check out our ranking of the best games similar to Dark Souls.

Game Freak’s management has never hidden the fact that, despite the investment, Beast of Reincarnation is ultimately a side project for the studio. The top priority remains the next entry in the Pokémon franchise, scheduled for 2027. Only a small team of managers worked directly on Beast of Reincarnation, while most of the technical development was outsourced. Why does that matter? Because the game’s technical and visual condition leaves a lot to be desired.

The game is extremely demanding on hardware: to maintain a comfortable 60 FPS at 1080p, you need a graphics card around the level of an RTX 3060, while hitting the same frame rate at 1440p already requires an RTX 4070. At the same time, it is unclear what the game is using all that hardware power for. There is no open world, while the graphics are roughly on the level of NieR: Automata — which, let’s remember, was released back in 2017.

Why does the game look so… washed out on the supposedly all-powerful Unreal Engine 5?! Perhaps the problem lies with the outsourced developers. Or maybe, as players have suggested on forums, Game Freak is once again overloading the hardware by hiding objects beneath the map while they are being rendered. That’s the kind of workaround we get in the age of high-tech game development. There are even suspicions that running the game at higher visual quality would make a comfortable frame rate impossible. You can find more optimized games in our ranking of the best-optimized PC games.

Imagine you’re a factory worker who has spent years eating nothing but borscht in the company cafeteria. Then, on a business trip, you discover a buffet. Your eyes widen — there’s so much delicious food around, and you want to try a little bit of everything! That’s essentially what happened to Game Freak. After taking a break from churning out Pokémon and receiving a substantial budget, the studio decided to take a little from every plate. Character progression from action RPGs, combat from soulslikes, the setting from NieR: Automata, boss hunts from Monster Hunter, a story about an infection borrowed from countless other games, tactical pauses and cooking from Final Fantasy… And the end result is rather bland. The whole dish could have used some extra spice, but there isn’t any: in none of these areas does the game manage to stand out from its competitors.