Otogi: Myth of Demons

"None shall pass...Well this game doesn't get a passing grade either."

Otogi Myth of Demons, a game based heavily on Japanese mythology and folklore. Otogi is a highly destructible action title by Software. Otogi blends heavy action with some rpg elements. One plays the game as Raikoh, an undead warrior, whose job is to eliminate the forces of darkness. As one can tell, the story is rather shallow and uninteresting. When I first heard about this game, and its Japanese mythology roots, I was very excited about the possibility of a well written story. I knew I wouldn't be blown away by the story because action games rarely do that, but when it comes to story telling, Otogi is one of those titles that does an extremely poor job at conveying the story. I wouldn't really mind this had the gameplay mechanics held together, but unfortunately Otogi is just one big mess.

Otogi's beautiful environments are only made better, by the fact that one can destroy mostly everything one sees. Otogi looks very smooth and pretty. It has an environment that is enriched with beautiful Japanese scenery. The game runs at a very smooth frame rate. The animation of the characters attack is quite solid. The game sports a very nice look, with some very good looking cut scenes.

The one thing that Otogi fails in doing is, the gameplay mechanics. Otogi has an extremely unbalanced difficulty, and very repetitive level designs. These two problems intertwine, which ultimately leads to Otogi being a failure. The levels forces one to destroy most of the surrounding environments in order to gain experience. And since one can expect to die quite a few times, one can imagine the pain in playing through that level once again. The gameplay mechanics in this game is a broken mess. One can simply smash buttons together and expect results, but once there are hoards of enemies, and the lack of a block button, one can expect to be defeated easily. One can also take the fight to the air, and can stay in the air almost entirely. Also I found the most effective move to be the power hit. Every time an enemy approached I used this hard hit to knock enemies back. I did this continuously and found it to be a complete drag.

Voice acting is pretty much nonexistent. The voice acting for the most part is awful. From the woman that tells one his or her mission to one of the most repetitive lines in the history of video games. None shall pass, oh brother, I listened to this line so many times, and every time I think about that line it makes me cringe. The music is fairly solid, but nothing spectacular.

The game is very short and repetitive. One can expect to shelve this away once one is done. The game consists of many levels, but each level is very short. One can beat this game in one sitting or a rental. I wouldn't mind it being short, had it been any good, but unfortunately that is not the case.

Otogi does present itself with some very beautiful and lush backgrounds. The highly destructible environments were pretty cool at first. The Japanese mysticism is a big plus, but Software did not utilize it well enough. They had a chance to make a game with a very rich story, but they failed to do so.

All in all Otogi fails in many aspects. I didn't find much fun in this title, and the gameplay mechanics felt broken. If one could find it cheap, then one might pick it up, but one can beat it in a rental. The concept was there, with the destructible environments and Japanese mythology, but the execution was very poor. In the end Otogi is a decent action title at best.

Pros
+ Japanese mythology
+ Beautiful environments
+ Highly destructible environments

Cons
- Repetitive combat system
- Unbalanced difficulty
- Sub par voice acting
- The game seems to be soulless
- Poor level designs
- Lack of a block button hurts the game

Graphics - 9/10
Gameplay - 3/10
Sound - 5/10
Value - 2/10
Presentation - 3/10
Overall - 5.5/10

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 02/19/05