Awakening, a somewhat eventful awakening

Unknown 9: Awakening is an “Action-RPG” that offers an engaging story, but with some inappropriate gaps for a big one like Bandai.

And if we shed a little light on the creators and publishers of Unknown 9: Awakeningexpectations are skyrocketing. To start the developer study, it is Reflector entertainment. It is a studio founded in 2016 and acquired in 2020 by Bandai Namco as part of the strategy of developing 50% of its content outside Japan.

Another fact that raises the “threshing“is it behind Unknown 9: Awakening Neither more nor less than 120 people worked. Overall, expectations going into this title were high. In some aspects of the game all of these resources are visible, but in others they are not.

A solid and fresh story.

The story of Unknown 9: Awakening follows Haroona, a young woman from the streets of Calcutta with supernatural abilities that allow her to manipulate reality. His powers give him the gift of “tearing” reality and peering into another dimension known as “the other side”.

We will accompany Haroona in the “awakening” of these powers and how they will increase as we progress in the story. Haroona’s future will lead her to cross paths with Leap Year Society (LYS), an organization that seeks to maintain the balance of the world in the face of the threat of the “Ascendants”, an extremist and dissident branch of the organization itself. Leap Year Society (LYS).

In general the narrative are powerfulcoherent, full of good and surprising twists and turns. It is divided into several events that take place in different areas and environments. These will take us to places as diverse as the desert, the jungle, the city of Calcutta, the mountains, the valleys and the ruined villages.

Technical aspects.

The conceptual art of Unknown 9: Awakening. Here again you can see with which muscle the game counts. This concept art is pretty cool. The “driest” parts like the desert are very well recreated. With a spatio-temporal location that transports us to the middle of the 20th century in a spectacularly recreated postcolonial India. The sets are full of people, objects, machines and details that manage to create the atmosphere desired by the studio.

However, regarding gameplayonce the first glance has passed, the problems. All these well-recreated scenarios are quite linear, the level design is very flat and not at all surprising. With a few exceptions, they are generally boring. Interaction with objects is zero. Our character’s falls are not possible and the edges of the cliffs are just invisible walls.

There are a lot of people in the streets of Calculate They don’t do anything, they don’t even walk, it’s not possible to interact with any of them or pass between them. They are scattered throughout the city, transforming them into new impassable walls that limit exploration and send us back, those linear scenarios.

Disappointing fights.

The fight also features some very antagonistic light and dark. For starters, it’s deep. Haroona’s abilities grant Unknown 9: Awakening of a combat system which, in terms of concept, is one of the strong points of the game. We can face enemies by manipulating the environment, controlling them with our powers and possessing them as if we were a spirit , we can focus encounters on stealth techniques, finishing them all from behind or being direct with a punch.

However, the study was not carried out perfectly and problems arose. The fights are not very dynamic, rough and not at all fluid. THE movements tanned unnatural of our characters doesn’t help. Technical unemployment in general is very poor in this regard.

The character modeling is also very poor. This is something unthinkable for a title that boasts of telling the image of Mother Chalotrathe dear Yennefer from The Witcher series. The drawing of the protagonist’s face is disastrous, the modeling of her body does not improve either. The factions don’t exist, the features and details are there and it seems like we’re dealing with a title from ten years ago.

After many hours of play, I don’t understand how a title that left a good portion of the budget to be able to use a familiar face, didn’t devote time or resources to some sort of technique.capture the movement» to recreate movements or faces.

Conclusion

Unknown 9: Awakening It’s a half-baked game. On paper, everything looked like a triple AAA title. A big company behind it all like Bandai Namco, a famous face like the beloved Yennefer from The Witcher and a team of 120 people working for many years. All this potential is palpable in certain aspects of the game like the story, the art and a fairly deep gameplay concept.

However, in other aspects the game feels like a low-budget, poorly crafted title. The graphics are disappointing, the character modeling and gameplay execution aren’t up to par, and it suddenly makes us wake up from the dream that Unknown 9: Awakening could have been.

s