Review #494: Oni

Ohno.

Rockstar's logo is on it, but it's nowhere near as good as most of their games.

 Oni was originally a PC game of which I had very fond memories. It was a fun third-person shooter with surprisingly solid melee combat and cool aesthetics. As of today, now I consider it a subpar third person shooter with clunky controls and a steep difficulty curve.

 Set in a somewhat futuristic world, you play as Major Kusanagi expy Konoko who works for the TCTF, a futuristic police-like entity under the command of Daisuke Aramaki-wannabee Griffin. There's a terrorist named Muro who the TCTF is particularly keen on catching, who has a peculiar interest in Konoko. The story is anime sci-fi dribble that's not very interesting but does have some neat twists and turns, even if the story doesn't flow very well since it seems to lack a few scenes connecting every chapter. No, a hand-drawn image doesn't work well as an epilogue for each.

The platforming, oh god the platforming. At least most of it is optional, only needed if you want some goodies.

 What made Oni stand out back in the day was its mix of third-person shooting with some very crunshy melee combat. Konoko has a vast array of moves, she can run, dash, slide, roll, block, jump, side-jump, back-jump, and flips to her jumps, perform various throws on her enemies as well as mix punches and kicks together to create different combos, and you'll earn new moves as you go through the game. The combat feels great, landing blows feels crunchy and the animation is fantastic. As for weapons, Konoko can carry a single weapon with her, and there're a lot of different kinds to experiment with. There're two ammo types so you can probably stick with your favorite for a while.

 It sounds great, and it is... on a PC. The controls on the PS2 are horrible, there're four different presets and none feel particularly comfortable, although config 2 worked for me. But that doesn't fix how finicky movement is, the game requires a few jumps as well as careful avoidance of lasers, but it's hard to do thanks to how clunky movement is. And the right analog stick, used to aim your guns, is too stiff to work well, so guns, which should be a major help, get relegated to close-range alternatives, most of the time. Sliding, a key-move to disarm enemies, is tough to perform since in order to slide you need to dash, which requires tapping twice on the analog stick, but it can be tough for the game to register your input correctly.

The animations are top-notch.

 Oni is by default a hard game, but the framerate issues and control issues make it a chore on the PS2. I played on the Normal setting and regret it immensely, play on easy, trust me, don't put yourself through needless torture. As a matter of fact, I used cheats. I don't regret it, I'm not even ashamed of it, the game demands too much but the controls are a huge handicap. Near the end of the game there're a couple of laser sections that are just a pain in the ass to nail correctly with Konoko's clunky movement, so I just popped the invincibility cheat and dashed through them and then turned it off. Sue me. Checkpoint placement can be rather mean too, and sometimes enemies will just catch you off guard with overpowered weapons and one-shot you. I swear, it's not even fair how tough the game gets. Play on easy, cheat, do what you will, the game isn't worth the time required to learn where enemies are hiding and in which order to tackle them.

 Oni has some fantastic ideas, and some great mechanics, like the melee systems. But the difficulty is too unfair to be any fun when you're fighting the controls as much as you are fighting your foes. It doesn't help that the PS2 is too busy dropping frames! If you want the proper Oni experience, one not hampered by horrible controls, go with the PC version and play Oni the way it was meant to be played.
 4.0 out of 10