Pop quiz: Do we really need another action title depicting slick looking characters with shiny weapons raining hell on an army of undead? Answer: Hell yes. Otogi is the brainchild of From Software, makers of the stellar Armored Core series and the not so good Forever Kingdom. Otogi falls in between these two extremes, but it’s more good than bad, fortunately.

The big pull of Otogi is the stunning graphics. Anyone who can say with a straight face that this game looks anything less than brilliant is either a liar or partially blind. Although a lot of the levels aren’t particularly big, they feel a lot larger than the actually are. What will impress you the most about the game is the art direction of the stages and characters. The world of Otogi is a mythical place that fancies itself on being extravagant and full of life. Even in the early stages when there’s nothing going on, the game gives you this organic atmosphere that things aren’t quite as they appear. Although there are over 20 enemies in the entire game, the real showcase for Otogi’s graphics are the boss creatures that you have to face at the end of many levels. Everything from demons to centipedes to black widows that are easily 10 times the size of our hero Raikoh is thrown at you, and make for some of the most epic battles I’ve experienced in a long time. Speaking of Raikoh, he’s oddly the worst thing about the eye candy in the game. Not that he has a horrible design, it’s just that he’s so bland in his movement. When you look at heroes such as Dante from Devil May Cry, they have little nuances that really complete their character. With Raikoh, he goes through the same motions without too much flair for the dramatic. It’s a shame, since the art in the game (especially the hand-drawn stuff you see intermittently during the game) is excellent.

The core gameplay is focused around hacking and slashing enemies until they perish before you. Not that it’s a bad thing, but it can get repetitive midway through the game, where there are close to 30 stages. You have two buttons dedicated to attacking, one for jump and another for your magic spells. The left and right triggers handle targeting and dashing respectively. A unique concept in Otogi (which is also found in Sega’s Shinobi) is that your life is also your magic meter that you use to dash and summon any of the 12 spells you can arm yourself with in the game. This makes managing your life meter a lot more complex than in most action games. You can’t go nuts with dashing or magic spells because you run the risk of dying, but you don’t want to be a sitting duck for a barrage of attacks either. Many of the missions focus around killing off all of the demons infesting the area (or as the game puts it, purifying the land), but many more will have you complete specific objectives, such as protecting an individual or destroying a sacred object.

Other than that, you also have to free the souls of the world that are trapped in various structures in each of the 30 levels. This requires a lot of time and patience, but luckily you can always go back for that elusive soul you missed the first time around. It also gives you a good reason to wreck havoc on everything in the area, as every building, tree and temple is completely destructible.

Otogi also throws a lot of RPG elements into the game with the ability to gain new weapons and accessories during the game. Each of the 30 weapons that you can wield has different attack, defense and weight attributes assigned to them as well as other attributes. For example, the Three Winds Staff raises your attack power with every successful attack until you are hit, while the Orchid Malevolence sword actually takes away your life with every hit. This means that while you may want to equip yourself with the most powerful sword available, it may not be suited for the upcoming battle because of the side effects it may have. The weight attribute also affects Raikoh himself. The heavier the weapon, the slower he moves around the battlefield. This also applies to accessories, which add to your total weight but give you protection against certain elements, such as ice and fire. You can even incur status disabilities, such as Silence, which restricts you from casting spells.

The biggest knock against Otogi is that it is way too repetitive. With 30 stages and not a whole lot of options available to you as far as attacks go, gamers can get real tired of this game near the end. It would’ve been a different story had each weapon given you a different set of attacks, such as the spear giving you a pole vault-like move to launch you into the air with a kick, or a small sword that would act like a boomerang. Sadly, a lot of the weapons are very similar in their function, no matter how different they look from each other or their accompanying attributes. It’s basically a lot of “weak attack, weak attack, strong attack, dash” repeated until you finish the level, or some other combo attack.

Despite the gameplay losing its taste rather fast, Otogi has a lot going for it for those who love a challenge and need a graphical showcase for their Xbox (as if the other titles weren’t enough). The stunning visuals make this a feast for anyone playing or watching, and the challenge is high enough that it definitely warrants more than a rental. For a first installment of an ongoing series - the second Otogi has already been announced - it does a very good job of establishing the foundation of the franchise and putting it on a focused path. Let’s just hope that the sequel fixes up some of the shortcomings of the first game.

· · · Reno