Retro Review - Oni

New year and a new Retro Review. Normally when I do some review of a video game, they are always of titles that I played many years ago and I play them again to remember certain things or also they are of games that I know because I have heard of them in videos or I have read of them in internet pages, but I have kept them in a list to play them in the future. However, the game that I will tell you about today, is one that I had never heard or read about, but it was the plot that caught my attention, since this game is inspired by and takes many elements from Ghost In the Shell, both theme and aspect, it is very similar to this mythical anime, so it immediately caught my attention and a few days ago I finished playing it.

Today's Retro Review is about: Oni.

Oni's argument takes certain elements from the mythical Ghost In The Shell, both its futuristic world, since Oni is set in the year 2032, as well as elements of espionage, total government control over the inhabitants, corruption, mafias, among other things. Our main character is called "Konoko", who is an agent of a group of special forces called "TCFT", whose purpose is to fight against those who commit technological crimes. However, the previous main purpose of the TCFT, was through their spy forces, to infiltrate countries and thus obtain and control them at their convenience, that is, they planned a total control of the world, through espionage and betrayal. However, due to the great control that the government has over humanity, people are receiving all kinds of abuses, since they are constantly being watched and controlled. But a ray of light for humanity and a change in their lives is going to happen, as new members of the TCFT have now switched sides and are on the side of the people. Now, Konoko's main mission is to infiltrate the world government in order to subtract the plans that the great leaders have in store. Oni doesn't hide his inspiration and although his argument is not as deep as Ghost In The Shell, it is undoubtedly a game that the little he does, he manages to capture very decently.

As for the graphic aspect, although it doesn't stand out much, Oni, manages to create a futuristic atmosphere quite right, since clearly you can notice in the first levels that we are in a game that is several years in the future, although there are also many elements that look "old", so to speak. The stages are large and are divided by rooms, many of them are very well decorated, but some others are very large, but there is not much in them, so they are very empty and with few things that make them stand out. Oni, besides having a plot and setting inspired by Ghost In The Shell, its main character, Konoko, has many physical similarities with the main character of the anime, Motoko Kusanagi, since both characters have purple hair and other similar characteristics in terms of physical appearance.

The character designs in general are quite good, but they are quite static, except Konoko, who in terms of mobility is quite agile and moves with a certain level of "naturalness" although in terms of mechanics he is a bit rough in certain aspects, although I will talk about that a little later. Oni, also presents an anime style, since within the game, we can see representations of the characters in anime format (and here is where we see more the similarity between Konoko and Motoko), generally, these anime style designs, have a style of those anime series of the 90s. The design of several enemies, especially common enemies, is quite basic and in these enemies the movements are often a bit erratic and look very rigid, in others, there are better designs, very original and with that cyberpunk style so characteristic of Ghost In The Shell.

The music in Oni will sound in certain moments during the game, generally, being a game in which also the stealth is a very important part to complete the missions, Oni absent the tunes during great moments of the game, which, is an aspect that I do not like so much, I would have liked the melodies to play longer during the game, besides this, they are not a very energetic type of melodies, many of them, with soft tones, and with the use of synthesizers, manage to recreate that futuristic atmosphere with which so much is associated to this type of musical genre. I played Oni in Spanish, so the voices of the characters are perfectly in that language, but most of the interpretations of the characters are quite amateur, many of them do not have that professionalism that can be seen in other games that have been translated into Spanish, there are very few voices that stand out for having a great job of voice acting, however, it caused me a lot of laughter to hear some of the interpretations of some characters, because despite not being a professional job, it is certainly a rather comical aspect of this game.

Oni is a game that encompasses several genres, among them we have: adventure and stealth game, action, third person shooter, even beat'em up, since our character is able to perform hit combos. Konoko is able to move with great skill, can jump and flip, run quite fast and using a series of combos attacking enemies, can throw the enemies, hit them with a series of combos very easy to do among other things.

We can also play with stealth, since Konoko can go slowly so that it is not detected and attack our enemy when he is unsuspecting. Oni was a game that was released both on PS2 and for Pc, I played the PC version and used keyboard and mouse, and without any doubt the worst aspect of this game is the camera, the jump of our character and the hit-box of some boxes in which we can jump to reach higher places. Konoko's jump, although it is quite fluid and helps quite a lot even to perform attack combos, is quite imprecise and more than once, I get frustrated when trying to climb to certain places, on the other hand the camera often fails and is controlled very regularly, and finally the hit-box of certain objects, even enemies, fails and that is another point that I get frustrated several times.

One point in favor is that we can count on various types of firearms, using them is quite satisfactory due to their variety, in addition to the typical energy and life enhancing items. However, Oni is a game that is a bit boring, since many missions are repeated, mainly, we have to go to a place and activate certain switches to unlock doors, and thus advance to the next place, and then find the object or information that the mission was assigned to us. We will do that during several missions, the only thing that changes is the scenario.

Oni, is not an excellent game, but despite being quite monotonous, I do not regret having played it, as I liked very much its futuristic aesthetic, very cyberpunk and very technological, with a story, quite typical, at least a few hours of entertainment are assured. Although I would not play it again.