A picturesque world that’s riddled with pitfalls - ONI: Road to be the Mightest Oni quick review

PLAY IT OR SKIP IT?

Skip it, unless it’s on sale. I liked so many things about ONI: Road to be the Mightiest Oni, from its gorgeous art style to its simple combat to its terse storytelling. Unfortunately, my experience was constantly marred by frustrations. At one point, I encountered a game-breaking bug that I could only fix by uninstalling the game, deleting my save file, and starting fresh. During the first few hours of gameplay, I listened to the single looping overworld track so many times that it’s going to be stuck in my brain forever. While I occasionally enjoyed my ONI experience, it’s not a title I can recommend.

TIME PLAYED

I spent around eight hours with ONI, which was enough to get me through several boss fights and the first twenty-five missions of the game. During this time, I was also able to complete several sidequests and purchase some weapon and armor upgrades. Most of the map is blocked off by invisible walls at the start, but those walls come down as you clear missions; I managed to unlock two new areas by the time I stopped playing.

WHAT’S AWESOME

• Breathtaking visuals. ONI is an absolutely stunning game, with charming character designs and beautiful environments. The lighting changes throughout the day, allowing you to see the same areas in different ways. While the art style is fairly simple, it’s perfectly executed. I was constantly stopping my gameplay to take screenshots or see characters from a different angle.

• Varied combat. There are plenty of demons to slay in ONI, but I didn’t find any of them in the game’s overworld. Instead, I accessed combat segments through missions. Some missions simply asked me to beat up a few monsters, but I found the objectives to be pretty diverse overall. I experienced escort missions, sidescrolling battles, and even top-down fights that had me slashing through waves of enemies, musou-style. Not every mission is a winner, but I appreciated that there was so much to do.

• Simple storytelling. ONI doesn’t have much of a plot, and its sparse style of storytelling won’t work for everyone. Rather than tell a big, epic story, ONI occasionally has brief cutscenes where characters talk about their interests or share brief memories from their past. I didn’t encounter any big twists or jaw-dropping moments, but still found some of these short scenes to be surprisingly evocative.

WHAT SUCKS

• Repetitive music. Even though there are quite a few songs on the ONI soundtrack, the game inexplicably loops the same vocal track over and over again. If you don’t turn off the music, you’ll spend hours listening to the same lackluster song. I eventually heard a few more background tracks, but the original song still repeated whenever I walked through certain areas. After the track looped for the hundredth time, it started to feel like a cruel joke.

• Invisible walls. While it’s normal for sections of a map to be blocked off at the start of an open-world game, ONI uses invisible boundaries to keep you out rather than coming up with a more natural explanation for why areas are inaccessible. I was especially frustrated by this while scanning the map for certain items or running away from giant demons. There were also a few points where I didn’t realize I’d unlocked segments of the map until I walked into them.

• Slow progression. At its best, ONI feels relaxing, but in many cases, it feels like there are unnecessary barriers to progress. For example, to start a boss fight, I needed to add two more hearts to my life meter. To do this, I had to scan the map for spirits, successfully locate one, catch it, and guide it back to the nearest save point without being caught by the huge, spirit-eating demon that occasionally chased me down. Each spirit unlocks a quarter of a heart container, so you’ll have to repeat this eight times before you can take on the next boss.

• No checkpoints in missions. While some of ONI’s missions can be completed in less than a minute, others take much longer. If you fail a mission, you’ll have to start over from the beginning, and any healing items you consumed during the mission are gone for good. It feels awful to screw up at the end of a lengthy mission, especially when it’s an escort mission and your failure is (partially) out of your control. Some missions have unclear objectives, making the lack of checkpoints even more irritating.

💬 Will you fight to become a powerful demon in ONI: Road to be the Mightiest Oni, or is this a journey you plan to avoid? Share your thoughts in the comments!