Beast Of Reincarnation Reveals More About Game Freak Than Pokémon

Welcome back to Remastered, which is now back on its weekly schedule. If you aren’t already subscribed, consider doing so for free or supporting me on Ko-fi.

This week, I’m sharing my thoughts on Beast of Reincarnation and Game Freak’s history of games unrelated to Pokémon. I also have a giveaway for Montabi, a Pokémon-inspired roguelike I really enjoyed from this past week. Read on to see how you can get that code!

With Beast Of Reincarnation, Game Freak Puts Passion Over Pokémon

Game Freak has been working on Pokémon for over 30 years now, delivering some form of Pokémon game or expansion almost every year during that period. Surprisingly, that is not all they’ve made in that time. Every few years, a game like Pocket Card Jockey or Tembo the Badass Elephant will emerge and try something new. Beast of Reincarnation, which launched on August 4, is Game Freak’s attempt to make a mature action game that can go toe-to-toe with the likes of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice or Devil May Cry V.

The results are just okay. Beast of Reincarnation is far from a perfect game, with a janky camera and an overwhelming amount of derivative ideas overshadowing a thoughtful story and flashy combat. It is Game Freak’s attempt to make a “normal” AAA action game, and the results are kind of adorable, if nothing to write home about. 

It also got me thinking about Game Freak’s recent history of games that aren’t Pokémon. Most do not receive great reviews, but you can feel the true gaming passions of Pokemon developers when you play them. While Game Freak will likely never create anything else quite as ubiquitous or long-lasting as Pokémon, we can learn a lot about the studio through their work on games like Beast of Reincarnation.

Game Freak has been transparent about its Gear Project initiative. As this Digital Trends interview explains, anyone at Game Freak can pitch an idea internally. If there is a groundswell of support by developers and approval by studio leadership, a prototype will be developed, and the game will be greenlit. Since 2010, this process has given us games like HarmoKnight, Pocket Card Jockey, Tembo the Badass Elephant, Giga Wrecker, Little Town Hero, and now Beast of Reincarnation.

Gear Project titles, with the exception of Pocket Card Jockey, have a Metacritic average in the low 70s. While Metacritic scores are not an end-all-be-all signifier of game quality, the aggregated reviews show that none of these projects have captured hearts like Pokémon. Yet Game Freak continues to make these games, at least for now. This indicates to me that Gear Project also serves an important role internally, as a way for developers to break free from the tedium of making Pokémon games.

Beast of Reincarnation is a more violent and rewarding of quick reaction times than a franchise aimed at kids like Pokémon ever could. When I play Beast of Reincarnation, I see a studio desperate to make a game more like the ones they enjoy playing, rather than the one they’re consistently hired to make and remake.

Like many Japanese developers I have interviewed in the past, Game Freak was hesitant to name video game inspirations in interviews with Polygon or Game Rant. Instead, they shifted to discussing the thematic influences of films like Blade Runner and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.  Those movies impact the narrative and world of Beast of Reincarnation, but from the gameplay, it’s clear that Game Freak and its co-developers were inspired by some of the most popular action games of recent years.

It’s not a full-on Soulslike, yet the parry-driven combat and campfire-dotted regions of the game evoke games like Elden Ring and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. The way it blends real-time action, QTEs, and menu-based combat is reminiscent of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and the Final Fantasy VII remake series. The fluidity of its combat, soundtrack, female main character, and existential themes harken back to beloved games from the past decade like Neir: Automata and Stellar Blade.

With Beast of Reincarnation, the creative team in charge of the project at Game Freak had the space to create an action game that goes far beyond what even a real-time Pokémon Legends game could do. There are original ideas peppered in there too (I love how you can seamlessly spawn vines to climb on), but this very much feels like Game Freak trying to prove itself in a more traditional action-RPG space.

Looking back at previous Gear Project titles, I can see a similar passion and urge to express creativity. With Tembo the Badass Elephant and HarmoKnight, James Turner could direct his artistry toward creating mascot-driven platformers that pay tribute to genre favorites. Pocket Card Jockey allowed the studio to explore their love of solitaire and horse racing at a time when gambling-related mechanics were being cut out of Pokémon. 

I also believe developers need to refresh themselves by occasionally making games that differ from their usual fare. Giga Wrecker director Masayuki Onoue confirmed that this is an effect Gear Project has in an interview with VGC:

“Gear Project has helped me become more creative. I’ve now seen the whole process of creation all the way to marketing and selling the game to players. I can now bring that know-how back to the Pokémon team and try to create something different for Pokémon.”

Video game companies are increasingly focusing on fewer, bigger franchises. With a six-year development timeline, multiple co-dev partners, and a mid-development publisher shift, I amm sure that Game Freak spending valuable time and resources on Beast of Reincarnation wasn’t the most efficient way to operate the studio while Pokémon Winds and Waves remain in the works. However, I’m still glad some developers at Game Freak were able to make this game of their own, and not lock themselves into a single franchise.

Pokémon will remain the franchise that defines Game Freak, but you can learn a lot more about the developers at this studio by playing these other games. Beast of Reincarnation shows us the movies and games that the studio's developers actually enjoy engaging with, and this is much more revealing than yet another formulaic, if entertaining, Pokémon game. Even though I don’t love Beast of Reincarnation, I can really respect its humanization of the developers behind a game series I have been playing  as long as I can remember.

What's Old Is News

Super Mario Sunshine, Thimbleweed Park 2, and more

• A retro gaming store in Wisconsin discovered 97 copies of a previously undocumented variant of the Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt game bundle for the NES, Nintendo Wire reports.
• Lumines Remastered got an Android and iOS port with a free trial.
• Hamster Corporation released TX-1 as part of its Arcade Archives Initiative. 
• Legendary adventure game developer Ron Gilbert announced Thimbleweed Park 2, a sequel to his 2015 throwback to 1990s adventure games. It will launch on PC in 2028.
• D-Hopper and Zero Racers, two previously unreleased Virtual Boy games, were added to that system’s Nintendo Switch Online catalog.
• Super Mario Sunshine is coming to the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack’s GameCube catalog on August 13.
• The Atari World Championships were announced by Atari and Twin Galaxies.
• The Kill Krush & Destroy series’ multiplayer updates finally entered an open beta after a delay from their original June 2026 release window. Ziggurat also committed to releasing both games physically once the update is out.
• I was on my friend Max Roberts' Max Frequency podcast. Go listen to that if you want to hear me expand on my thoughts about PlayStation going all-digital, Xbox's layoffs, and more.

Montabi: Just as Beast of Reincarnation is a mashup of different action game ideas, Mankibo and Akupara’s new game doesn’t hide its inspiration. Montabi has the grid-based tactics of Mega Man Battle Network, the creature-collecting of Pokémon, and Slay the Spire’s roguelike structure and card-based combat. It’s a lot to take in at first, as each of the titular creatures has something unique about its deck, but it’s incredibly rewarding to master.

Battles can take a while, but constantly repositioning myself and my creatures gave me the same satisfaction as a strategy game in a roguelike deckbuilder. Montabi also features some of the best “Fakemon” designs I have seen in any of these recent Pokémon-inspired games. If you are the kind of player who likes to wrap their head around a complex yet rewarding roguelike, then Montabi is worth checking out.

I can actually help you with that too, as I have an Xbox code to give away. The first person who subscribes to Remastered and replies to my Bluesky post about this article with their favorite non-Pokemon Game Freak release will get a digital Xbox copy of Montabi. Good luck! 

That’s all for this week’s Remastered! If you enjoyed what you read and aren’t subscribed, consider doing so. If you are already subscribed, you can support independent games media by leaving a tip on my Ko-fi.