Reynatis is an action RPG developed by Natsume Atari and FuRyu. Companies that re well known in Japan for working on varius games like Power Rangers, SpongeBob, Medabots and plenty of others. The studio has been around for more than 35 years
and have been releasing games since then. Reynatis was first announced in February 2024 during Nintendo's Direct. With the game reveal came the announcement of two Colossal names that were involved with the project. Legendary Scenario writer Kazushige Nojima and iconic composer Yoko Shimomoura.
The game was imidietly noticed by certain fanbases as it was looking very close to two other iconic franchises, the Kingdom hearts
and Final Fantasy.
The game director,Takumi Isobe, said that this was expected as the works of Tetsuya Nomura (known for Kingdom hearts, Final Fantasy Vii/XV, World Ends with You etc) was what inspired him to create his very own game. In April 1st, the Reynatis Twitter account shared their
key art which included characters from Neo the world Ends with you(TWEWY). The same thing happened on Neo's account that shared their box art which included the Reynatis characters. Everyone took it as a nice gesture from the two since the games seemed to share a common theme and area(Aka Japan's Shibuya). A few months
after, it was revealed that the April fools post turns out to be true as a Reynatis x Neo TWEWY trailer was revealed indicating that there would be side content where the two worlds meet each other. Takumi Isobe was also lucky enough to meet with Tetsuya Nomura and have a talk with Nomura saying that
if Reynatis performs well, perhaps there can be more future collabs beyond Neo TWEWY.
The game was first released in Japan in July 2024. The western release came two months later in September 2024 in the following forms:
Standard
Included the game alone
Deluxe Edition
Included the game, a mini art-book and a digital code to download Reynatis songs .
Collector's Edition
Included the game, an art book(bigger than Deluxe), an acrylic Art print, a multi panel art frame, a digital code for the Soundtracks and a physical Music disc in a Collectors Box
Story of the Game
The story of Reynatis takes place in Japan's Shibuya and its narrative is based on a Fantasy based on Reality which was Nomuras goal with the notorious game Final Fantasy vs Xiii which never saw the light of day.
In the universe of Reynatis, some people who have a near death experience can be re awaken as wizards capable of casting magic. To keep wizards under control an organization known as M.E.A was formed. Think of M.E.A as wizard police.
Anyone caught using magic who is not from M.E.A would be consider a threat and will be caught. Aside from the wizards M.E.A is responsible for protecting it's citizens from Rubrum also known as rub. Think of Rubrum as a strong type
of drug. Noone knows where it came from, but once someone becomes addicted to it has a chance of losing themselves and turn into Lost who have lost their will and will try to harm everyone to get more rub. They will even attack people
who re wizards because their blood shares the same scent as rub.
Enter Sari, the first of the protagonist. Sari is a member of M.E.A who recently became a squad leader. Sari's team is sent to patrol around Shibuya in order to keep it safe. Sari has strong feelings regarding the rub and she will follow the rules
in order to make sure no more people will suffer from rub. According to her, her younger sister met a guy who gave her rub and they were both gone. This is what motivated her to join M.E.A and climb the ranks. She believes that M.E.A will be
able to discover the origins of rub as M.E.A can access Another. Another is a world parallel to Shibuya that can only be accessed by wind gates. They appear randomly around the world and once they appear they ll remain open for a while
before completely dissappear. Her team consist of Ukai, a wizard specialised in long range attacks and information gathering and Dogo, a powerfull wizard specializing in close range attacks using nothing but his fists. At first Ukai joins because of
orders where as Dogo, was more or less threaten into joinning. Despite that he sticks with Sari as his goal is to help people with his Magic which matches Sari's desire for a rubless world.
At the same time we re introduced to Marin, our second protagonist who came to Shibuya with one goal,to become free. In order to achieve his freedom he believes that he ll have to become the strongest wizard. Marin doesnt know much of himself
as part of his memory has been gone since his awakening as a wizard. Marin doesnt know what made him come to Shibuya but he remembers a spell that can open a portal to another known as the wind forest. Marin Traverses the forest until he comes across a gate.
He seems to know that he has to open these gates in order for the wind to blow into the world. The problem is, he needs atleast one more wizard in order to open the gate. Upon leaving the gate, Marin meets a wizard known as Nika. The two dont exchange much
in their first encounter but promise to meet again tommorow. The next day Marin encounters Sari's team who were patrolling and start a fight amongs them. Nika appears last minute to help Marin escape as the fight will bring more unwanted M.E.A staff.
The two then have a brief encounter with members of the city watch. Normal citizens who act againts the wizards. After helping a helpless citizens who was accused of being a wizard simply because of a wizard relative, a person known as Muchiro
approaches Marin. He says that he is the leader of a group known as Owl. A small guild that regroups stray wizards and help around Shibuya. He proceeds to explain Marin that Nika is part of his group alonside another member known as Moa. He
asks Marin to join him with the following offer, Marin can help Owl and continue trying to be the strongest and Michiro will provide info to the wind gates that he is aware of. On the other hand, Sari's team enter into a political drama duo to some events that
occured and find themselves againts M.E.A. A group of wizards known as Guild approached M.E.A with the goal of forming a trouce in exchange of stoping the production of rub. They reveal that rub is being made in the rub factory in another but dont go into details
as to how. The trio take shelter in the abandoned Church which is where Owl's heaquarters are. Eventually the two teams clash and the former M.E.A members are blackmailed with bomb necklases into helping Owl.
Sari learns that Owl is helping the rub addicters to reach their goal before dying/becomming lost. Essentially people choose to take rub in order to get their revenge. These people will contact Owl, tell them that they have been under rub and they will most definetely
go berserk at a place when they finish their mission. Owl then is set to kill the person who contact them and prevent the identity. Owl refers to those people as fools, who knowingly take rub knowing that they will die. Sari questions them, and Moa reveals that its a terrible
thing and only when rub goes away, will the people be peacefull. Sari couldnt believe this side of Shibuya, as she never knew this in M.E.A and suggests that the only way rub will go away is if the Rub Factory cease to exists.
Eventually the two sides form a legit team as their goal alligned and trust was slowly being build amongs the members.
During the mission to stop the factory, the heroes find themselves into something bigger called the Reynatis. The day that all magic will dissappear and everyone will lose their powers. The only way to "survive the events" of Reynatis is to have a
specific Chalice. The heroes refuse to believe that theres no other way and now know that they ll have more to deal with.
Will they succeed on stopping the rub?
Will they escape the fate of Reyatis?
Will Marin succeed on becomming the strongest and achieve his freedom?
Thoughts on the story
I honestly enjoy the story of Reynatis but then again Kazushige Nojima knows how to write a cool and interesting plot. The idea of the plot starting from something small that leads into something bigger its not something unique as we ve seen plots
like these in games like Persona, Final Fantasy and many others, however its execution was fun an kept me interested throughout especially since i learned what Reynatis meant. Aside from the main plot there are certain subplots that were also interested
regarding the heroes. Having six main heroes meant that some did not receive the same attention as others, and in my opinion thats not a bad choice. Characters like Ukai and Dogo have a straight narrative and believes that are believable where as Marin at first
also comes out as the typical character of i want to be the strongest type of hero who keeps to himself. However his mystery and character grow with the plot. Moa and Nika have their own subplots regarding the story events, Nika's is more towards the
Ruburum plot whereas Moa's is more related with the events of Reynatis. Sari's is interesting as her believes and motives reminded me alot of Suzaku from the anime Code Geass who became a member of MEA in order to climb the ranks and be able to make changes from the inside.
Near the end and with the introduction of Reynatis we see her react differently than expected which was once again very good. All of their relationships can be found with more details within the messages they exchange. For example, Sari's empathy is way more visible
in the text exchange with Nika than their dialogog exchange during the story. Moreover the heroes more "goofy" side is once again visible in the texts.
Gameplay
The game is an action rpg where the player gets the control of all six of the heroes, Marin, Sari, Moa, Nika, Dogo and Ukai. Usually the player has to form a party of three unless its limited duo to story narrative. The player controls one hero during exploration. Each hero has two forms,
Suppressed and Liberated. When traversing through Shibuya, the players should be in their Suppressed form which hides their face and conceal their identities. When suppressed, the players can freely traverse Shibuya and interact with NPCs. With a tap of a button the hero enters
Liberated which is their wizard form. When Liberated the players can move better and see magical items hidden within the real world. However, the players should avoid using that form as the public will be amazed by them and start photographing the heroes. That will trigger a social media reaction
where NPCs post that they witnessed wizards at your location. A trent will occour that will be counting down towards the popularity. Every time the trending goes up the heroes will be under stress and if it reaches no1 on trend the heroes will remain on Libarated form(unable to return to supprassed)
and overpowered members of M.E.A will come to your location to fight you. To avoid this encounter, the players should enter the suppressed state and leave the area(through loading zones) or go into the hidden spots represented by an Eye. In case you think you ll never use liberated form in public, be aware
that rub addicts will smell your blood and come to battle you which will cause you to transform. On the other hand, when the player is in another, they can choose to keep any form they wish without any repercussion.
Explorring Shibuya can help the player by coming accross graffiti arts known as Wizzarts. These wizzarts allow the players to gain buffs through passive and active spells. The player can interact with them and then access them through the menu. During enemy encounters the player will always control
one party member and can always swap to another one with a tap of a button. When swapping heroes, the character who you controlled prior will temporarily remain on the battle field attacking enemies. Each hero has an HP bar and an MP bar. Using the Liberate form consumes mana(MP) and using Wizarts drains it even faster.
When a player runs out of Mana they revert to their suppressed forms. Whilst suppressed, the MP is slowly recharging but perfect dodging or parrying enemies will steal MP and charge your bar faster. If the MP bar is full and you re awaken your character time will freeze as your wizard is in the zone and will be able to attack
faster. Doing combos and receiving damage will reward the player with their ultimate attack known as Final Menace which will consume all the MP bar and deal heavy ammount of damage.
Defeating enemies levels up the entire party with the active members receiving slighly more. This is good because none of your party will be underleveled at any point. As mentioned each of the heroes have their own speciality. Marin and Sari are perfectly balanced combining range and close attack with Marin having the most skills.
Nika is a summoner whose attacks are mainly summoning creatures that help her attack enemies. Ukai uses his guns for long range attacks and freezing spells to freeze anyone who might be approaching his location. He is mobile and can easily create a gab between him and his targets. Mo is a slow character, however has the highest damage
as she swings around a giant hammer and most of her wizarts help her swing it faster or create massive AoEs. Last but not least Dogo is also close range hero with fast close range punches. Its worth mentionning how certain spells can be equiped to toher members as well. For example most summonning, trap and projectile spells can be
equiped to every hero. The players can spent EXP points to power up their wizarts. Hero specific wizarts have more levels to be unlocked for the certain hero. E.g The blade projectiles are maxed on Lvl6 for everyone except Marins whose max is lvl9.
Around Shibuya the players can stop at a restaurant and purchase food items which usually restores the parties HP. They can also take take out items which can only be used during exploration. Furthermore, the map has plenty of vending machines from which the players can purchase foods and drinks. Vending machines drinks help reduce stress.
Stress causes various effects for the cast. When they re not stressed, they have extra shields, the more stress they become their defense gets lowered and their attacks higher. Drinking the beverages reduces that ammount. Take out items, are usually items that can be used on combat, such as healling, temporar buffs and even ressurect.
At some point through the story the players will get access to the Babushka woods. The players can exchange their items collected in another for various in combat items and even Wizart unlocked space. Each hero can equip two active skills and only one passive. The Babushka Tree cats, can unlock more spaces for the passives ones which
can total up to five slots.
Thoughts on the Gameplay
I quite honestly enjoyed the gameplay of Reynatis. I wouldnt say its hard but i wouldnt say its easy. The mechanicks of the two forms are unique and quite enjoyable. The player i found enjoying the least was Moa because i prefered the faster combat of the other heroes. Each hero has nice unique attacks that made their combos look
significally different than the others. Additionally, the players have seperate animations from when they dodge/parry attacks with Moa's being my favorite as she will bring out her mobile phone and take a selfie with the monster. The balancing of Mp is something i easily got asjusted so i never had the issue of spamming attacks and
quickly swapping to suppressed to avoid them. In terms of compat zero complains.
Exploration was my problem with the gameplay. It doesnt reward much aside from the wizarts and the areas in Another are plain and boring. The text system, was fun in the beginning but i became a hater eventually. Texts are important for the character building and the problem is you triggered them randomly by walking near NPCs with green
speech bubbles. The you have to open the phone and scroll down to find the message. I would ve much appreciated if the message that i unlocked appeared at top and not somewhere random. If you want the trophy you have to get alot of messages and pause the game all the time untill you scroll down to find it. Another thing i did not enjoy is
the post game content gates. Without going into details some of the post content gates have side missions which if you get high enough level you can barely trigger them since enemies will die before you even do something.
Post Game Content
The heroes have alot of things to do during and after the main plot of the game. Players can go around completing side missions. By pressing a button the phone will come up with an application that is pretty much filled with requests for help. When the player selects a mission they will have to go and find the NPC
who request the help or find the location which is being specified on the mission. There the players will usually go back and forth for a fetch quest leading to a fight with enemies. Some missions are a continuous where as other are more simple. More missions are unlocked by proceeding with the story. They also reward
the players with Exp and help reduce the Malice around Shibuya. Reducing the Malice help the players obtain powerfull spells. Around Shibuya there are Graffiti arts known as Wizarts. These are the spells the players can equip to the party, both active and passive. To obtain them the players have to
track them and simply interact with them. Some grafity are blocked with mist and cannot be unlocked until the Malice level is lowered. By obtainning all the Wizarts the player can empower every character to level 99 which is the max. Every time a hero levels up, they obtain points which can be used on a spell to empower it.
When the player maximizes all the wizarts on all Characters, a hidden wizart that grants infinite Mana will be unlocked. Around Shibuya gates to Another will be spawn that have their own mission and criteria to be met. The players can go in with any party and clear the objectives in order to fully clear the Another.
Additionally, the players can search for all the Secrets reports scattered around Shibuya and in Another. These reports just help to establish more of the lore before and during Reynatis whilst also having hidden details written by NPCs during the Game. For example, how did the Owl leader feel about Marin during his recruit.
More story events can be found within the phone messages. Random NPCs have a green speech mark which upon interacting will sent a message to the phone. The players can then open the message and see various interactions between the heroes. Casual conversations such as fashion talks, more serious regarding elements within the plot
or simple character building. Last but not least, extra episodes can be accessed in Owls HQ. At the door the players can access the TWEWY mission and at the Laptop they access episodes released after the games launch. As of December 24, there are three episodes that take place during the early stages of the game where we get to see
one of Saris missions, we get to see Dogo as a captain and Marins group going for sweets. However, there are two stories that take place after Reynatis with shocking reveals. It seems like the team will be releasing more episodes with time.
Sound and Graphics
Reynatis weakest elemnt is none other than its animations. It honestly looks like something that came out of the PS3 era. The good thing regarding the visual department of the game is by far the hero portraits in the bottom
each time the heroes talk with each other. Those key visuals are the same as the ones found in the art book and the ad campaign. Furthermore the character designs of the main cast are also well designed with unique silhouettes
that stand out. Last but not least, Shibuya looks very good, with a nice art directions and real buildings that agreed to be included in the excact location such as Burger King, Adidas and 109. On the other hand comes the world of
Another. Plain boring design that is pretty repetitive with the only difference being the colors in the background. The enemy design is very limited and you always get to fight the same enemies over and over again. Narratively,
certain designs made sense whereas the creatures in Another could ve been more creative. Furthermore, there are not many CGI cutscenes and everytime something action takes place, the players will get a black screen with audio playing
before revealding to us what happened and leaving it all to our imagination. Last but not least, the heavily advertised TWEWY collab, although good also felt short. The collab only has 2 Noice(enemy in TWEWY) design that
appear over and over again. The Models of the two heroes from Twewy look polygony and dont even move their mouth when speaking. To add oil to the fire, the last TWEWY cameo, Sho, was literally a zoomed out PNG picture.
On the sound department the game doesnt dissapoint. As mentioned there were a couple of musical pieces composed by Yoko Shimomoura, and as expected she delivered some very good songs which are of the same quality as the ones found
within Square Enix's biggest projects. The game consist of famous voice actors such as Marin being voiced by none other than Chiaki Kobayashi(Mashle, Stark(Frieren)), Sari's Akari Kito(Nezuko),Ukai's Natsuki Hanae(Okarun, Tanjiro) and others.
All the voice actors delivered their lines in a professional manner and its worth saying that the entire game is fully voice acted with only minor side quests being muted. During the TWEWY collab, songs from Neo will be heard during the 40 min mission
however none of the cast from neo says any words. During the mission only the 2 members from Reynatis will make sound effects. If i had a complain regarding the audio of Reynatis, that would be the fact that heroes during the gameplay will usually
say the same three lines when changing party members or casting their ultimate attacks.
Final Thoughts
In conclusion, Reynatis is a fun game that makes its inspirations very visible. The story is one of its strengths as the main cast is interesting and the whole narrative will keep you invested. It has some nice ideas that are well executed and
some plot twist that you may see them coming or not. Ofcourse i have to mention the additional(2) episodes that since were added created an unnecesary confusion. Unless new episodes come out this ending will leave a bitter sweet taste, unless you accepted
the main scenario as the end of everything. Gameplay wise the game doesnt dissapoint in terms of action however it could always use more enemy variety with unique gimmicks. The audio department is once again one of its strengths as it has some good OSTs,
excellent voice acting and sound effects. The visual department on the other hand is one of its weakest part as it looks like a PS3 game than a PS5 one. Ofcourse budget was limited as this is a new IP from a company known to play it safe with Badget. The world of
Shibuya is close to the real life one however Another looks and plays like a Ps2 games with straight lines that spawn enemies. Most of the side content falls into the repetitive cycle but most have an interesting plot regarding the lost and the fools. The game can
be completed within 20hrs and 26 if you re going for the platinum trophy.
This is a video with my Honest review close to when i played the Game
