Onikira – Demon Killer Review

You would not expect a studio from Ireland to nail a Japanese-style, side-scrolling fighting games. Yet Onikira is just that. The fighting mechanic is not too deep; the story is a classic tale of hero VS demon; and the game is gorgeous. Really gorgeous, I mean damn! Yet a few pitfalls stop this being a truly amazing game.

You play as a character called Jiro, son of a samurai who is out to kill demons. That’s really it. There is plenty more depth to the story, however I was lost during the cutscene by how pretty it all looked. The story contains the classic ‘demons are summoned from the underworld and you must defeat them’ story. Nobody really plays the fighting games for the story, but the story does enough to pad out the game’s fighting with beautiful visuals and environments.

The fighting is the game’s staple, and the fighting is done really well. Combat locks you into areas with glowing blue tentacles and enemies spawn within this area. There are a range of enemies to fight starting with basic enemies moving up through shielded enemies. The fighting is well-balanced, quick paced and you never feel truly overwhelmed. I felt the fighting was almost a little easy, Jiro is quite quick and dashing prevents damage so with a little time you’ll find yourself near invincible.

There is plenty to like about this game. Mainly the stunning artwork and environments. The beautiful cell-shaded environment just pushed me to keep playing. The depth is used effectively and the looming beasts and mountains in the background really gave you scale. This is backed up by a phenomenal soundtrack and sound effects. The soundtrack supports the atmosphere in the environment and effects such as blade strikes and fire sound realistic. Even the small mechanics implemented make the game better. In the tutorial the game will pause at the correct moment to allow you to master strikes. The environment has secret areas such as behind photo frames (hint) and for all you achievement hunters there are plenty of achievements abound.

Unfortunately this game falls over on several mechanical issues. What is worse is that these issues are fixable, and should not really have made it to full release. The most noticeable feature is that there is an annoying crackling sound which creeps in to the menus sometimes and ruins your hearing if you’re wearing headphones (hint.) Some of the achievements are broken. Not unobtainable, just some of them appear at the wrong times or for completely different achievement goals. The shop menu texts are overlays, and the text is of various different sizes making it difficult to use; as the menu is an overlay you can lay menus upon menus and ruin your game.

One of the worst features is that the combat arena within the game is broken. The combat arena is meant to be like any other arena: battle enemies under certain conditions. However the arena seems to have not been tested. Enemies spawn phenomenally quickly at the start causing quite serious lag. Restarting the challenge puts a new set of overlays over the old ones. It seems as though the developers did not fully test the game before full release.

For a game out of early access basic functionalities and features should be working, there is a whole part of this game is not working. This was rushed out for the final release and it pays for it now at the review stage. This game is a one-time-play game which is a shame as even just a difficulty option would have created replay ability. Even with this, the first shot through the game is fun and well worth for the beauty if you can avoid the crippling screeches. This game gets a 3. It is, even broken, definitely worth a viewing.

Disclaimer:All scores given within our reviews are based on the artist’s personal opinion; this should in no way impede your decision to purchase the game.