I walked into EB one day, loaded with extra change and gift certificates. Going around to the Bargain Bin, one particular case attracted my eye. It was excessively shiny, and... well... shiny. I mean, I recognized the title of the game from somewhere. But damn, it was shiny! So I bought it for a neat $5, and I played... and played... until about 3 months later I wrote this review. Nice story, huh?

As I recall, this is first-gen PS2 graphics. Or was this game for PC first? I forget, and honestly don't care. The levels in this game are huge, expansive, and designed by a freaking architect. Yes, a real life architect. Anyway, the graphics are meant to mirror the anime style of design. This is made obvious through cut scenes where characters stand still and deliver long monologues. Joking! Well, it's true to a degree. The story is carried out by cut-scenes where the in-game characters stand there, static, and an avatar appears next to text. While some may consider it bland and lifeless, I love the large, expansive levels. Putting personally preferences aside, the graphics are good, yet not great.

Here I have also heard various opinions. Many seem to really enjoy Oni's audio. I find it mundane and mediocre at best. On occasion, music will appear. Nothing impressive to be seen or heard here. Sound effects work well (i.e. thwap, smack, etc..) And then there's the voice acting. I know they were trying to make it an "anime game", but they went a little too far. They felt it necessary to add overly-mediocre and cheesy voice acting in addition to already pitiful dialogue. I mean, come on. Dubbed anime has made leaps and bounds in the past 5 years. The dialogue is memories of the bad times. Curses!

The heart of Oni is in it's exploration and it's combat. Exploration comes as a curse to some, a joy to others. It's rather necessary, considering the size of Oni's levels. In terms of combat, well, it was enjoyable. For the fighting game fan in you, there are plenty of moves to learn and master. For the button masher in you, there's the left mouse button. Regardless of whether you button mash, or master moves, this game has a nice level of difficulty. I kept coming back to it for the simple joy of it's challenge. Some of which comes from the sparse number of save points. Fun yet dull, weird.

It controls like an FPS, yet it's a martial arts based third-person action game. Somehow, it works. I don't quite know how they did it, or what the hell they were thinking, but it worked. This is the one area of Oni that I'm rather impressed with. Is it worth buying just to see how it controls? Ummm... Seeing as I paid only $5 for it...

Was this seriously made by the same guys who did Halo? Actually, it wasn't, turns out they were two different teams up until the last few months of development. It was an ambitious game, probably done with a lot of thought and aspirations, but it doesn't really work as well as hoped. *sigh*

+ Control, how'd they do it?

- Bland gameplay

- VOICES! AUG!

? Is a five foor drop really too much for a super-human to fall? Really?

Overall (not an average): 5/10
You get what you paid for.