Oni Review

There is a good chance that the designers actually had PC players in mind when they designed the interface (surprise, surprise), because they've included Mouse Look! The keyboard buttons are familiar enough - they're based on the classic WASD setup, but the complicated way in which Konoko performs certain combo moves gets a tad overwhelming at times, and it just screams "joypad!". Again, more evidence of consolitis! Double-tap left, and then crouch right. Then hit kick-kick-space-punch-kick and jump right, and you'll do the special "Konoko Flaming Fist of Sudden or Delayed Impact of Dragon Power - A Gallon of Opponent's Blood" move. Yeah, I'm exaggerating, but how long should it take you to remember such a multitude of weird key combos during gameplay?! Most of the time, when surrounded by a horde of bad guys looking to gang rape my poor Konoko I just started slamming on any goddamn button available in this game in order to bail out of trouble...

OK, OK. Maybe I should give the Bungie crew a break, because I must admit that after a while I even got used to the controls and started to like the fact that I have so many different moves at my disposal. So, my grudge with the interface has more to do with the steep learning curve, than the way it was designed. Having to coordinate your key clickage to perfection in order to get through a mission can be frustrating at times, but the ass whooping sensation you get more than compensates for it. Kicking the crap out of people in Oni feels sweet. If for no other reason, then because the animated fight moves appear smooth and nasty (and they sound good, too).

And let's not forget that Oni features weapons, and plenty of them -- ranging from energy to standard nuts and bolts guns like Uzis and pistols. The weapon design is creative and it shows a lot of attention to detail. There are several moves you can use to kick an opponent's weapon out of his/her hand, and they work both ways, which is a nice touch by the developers. Guns like Uzi recoil when fired and your aim gets worst if you run and fire or strafe and fire. Also, the developers have achieved a nice balance between the fighting and shooting segments by carefully controlling the amount of available ammo and by incorporating the aforementioned option to kick your opponent's weapon out of his/her hand. Once you get comfortable with the controls and you learn how to best utilize specific weapons, you'll realize that Oni isn't all that bad, despite its discouraging PS2 related drawbacks (hmm, in fact I could even call it fairly addictive). And I almost forgot to mention the surprisingly clever AI. Enemies are very smart, make no mistake about it, -- they hear you, see you (you might wanna try to sneak up on them a few times - Thief style), they'll duck and try to get the upper hand by grabbing your gun. This important gameplay element really helps enhance the game's main selling point - kicking, punching, and shooting at the bad guys. The amusing (pure) action gameplay is the only reason, and a good enough reason for Oni to get an above 70 score.

However, some of the mission design - the stuff you have to do is highly unoriginal and mainly consists of jumping over obstacles, cracking the damn consoles, and opening doors... This of course spells out LINEARITY in capital letters, which means you can forget about Oni if you're looking to play an innovative PC action adventure. The focus in Oni is, as I said on pure action gameplay, and the rest of the elements including the Japanese copycat story just fall way behind. And even the good action in the game unfortunately suffers from symptoms of consolitis.

So, should you part with your dineros for Oni? Heck, it's hard to say... Go back and read the review again if you're still not certain, because I can't tell you anything more than what I have already written in this review. I'm just as puzzled as you are.