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I was unsure what to make of Reynatis for the first few hours. It throws a lot of interesting mechanics at you but simultaneously adopts a linear pacing and environmental structure that you would expect to see in the PlayStation 2 era. When I reached the halfway point, I became invested in Reynatis and started really enjoying my time with the game. However, it undoubtedly has flaws and some notable graphical issues on the Switch, which will be a dealbreaker for some players.

Kazushige Nojima, who has been involved in Kingdom Hearts and the Final Fantasy franchise, is the scenario writer for Reynatis. And oh boy, it shows as the story here is stellar. While playing, I couldn't help but think that Reynatis must have gotten inspiration from the cancelled Final Fantasy Versus XIII game (which Kazushige Nojima was the scenario writer for) because there are some uncanny parallels here, which we will get into later.  

Reynatis is set in a world where magic is outlawed, and its use is strictly prohibited. Wizards conceal their powers from the public, and a night-time curfew is enforced to maintain law and order in Shibuya. There is also an illegal drug circulating called rubrum, and anyone who consumes it will eventually turn into a hideous monster.

In some weird ways, the plot feels like a bizarre amalgamation of Kingdom Hearts meets Tokyo Ghoul. That statement might be polarizing to some people, but these two themes strangely work together. On the one hand, you have overpowered warriors wielding magical weapons, venturing through portals to alternative dimensions. The other explores dark supernatural themes, as the urban city is troubled by gruesome half-human creatures, with ideals and philosophies constantly being challenged.

For the first half of the game, the story bounces back and forth between two characters, Marin and Sari, who have contrasting ideological beliefs regarding how magic should be treated and conducted. The story-pacing is a bit rigid, mainly because it frequently changes between both protagonists. One time, I played as one of the characters for less than 25 minutes before it jumped back into the other character's perspective. I really wished it stayed with one character longer. But as you might expect, their paths eventually intertwine, and they up as one big team, and that's when the game starts to flourish.

For wizards to conceal their identity, they enter a suppressed form, which, for some reason, means putting some hat or hood over their heads. If you are in this form, citizens of Shibuya will assume you're a member of the general public and will ignore you while you walk around. However, you can also enter a liberated form, which shows your true magical prowess in full swing. If citizens see you, you will start trending on social media, and if you reach the number one spot, the M.E.A. officers will hunt you down unless you go to a safe spot to lower the attention drawn to you. Think of it like the GTA wanted system.

Not only that, but the pressure of trending on social media will put stress on you, giving buffs and debuffs when you're in combat. To begin with, this stress system might seem like a big balancing act, and to an extent, it is, but its purpose is to give players options on how they want to play. You can play it safe by keeping your stress low and having many defence perks, or you can amp up the stress levels to strengthen your attacks but be more vulnerable to offensive blows. 

Reynatis, on surface value, seems to harbor a standard hack-and-slash combat system, like Kingdom Hearts, but it adopts a unique mechanic that spices up the fighting and revolves around constantly changing and adapting your playstyle. You can only unleash attacks when you're liberated, but being in this form will slowly deplete your MP. In contrast, if you're in a suppressed state, MP will slowly replenish, but this is the only time you can dodge attacks, which builds up your MP bar at a substantial rate. Essentially, the liberated state is offensive, whereas the suppressed state is defensive. It's an exciting system to play, but it will take a few hours before you start switching between states seamlessly.

At the end of the skirmish, you are ranked out of five stars, which will determine the number of experience points you will get from that fight, which is based on various factors like how many times you changed characters, the amount MP absorbed and performing certain moves. This encourages you to change the way you're fighting constantly. It's rather fun to try and aim to get higher star ratings, and the combat difficulty never gets too crazy that you feel like these aspects hinder you.

Now, the people who never got over the cancellation of Final Fantasy Versus XIII will notice that the combat system in Reynatis appears to have a lot of similarities. The main striking one is the main character. Marin's final menace attack is an animation of swords floating in the sky before they all fly towards the enemy, similar to Noctis in the Final Fantasy Versus XIII trailer. There was also a big emphasis on dodging incoming attacks back in the trailer, which is present in Reynatis. The atmosphere of the fights feels very alike, and I find it hard to believe that Reynatis didn't get some inspiration from Final Fantasy Versus XIII.

Although this is not the only game which has clearly inspired Reynatis, as when you reach just over halfway through the game, you will come across a cross-over-event with The World Ends with You, where you will bump into Rindo and Shoka in an alternative Shibuya. Without giving too much away, this side mission diversion is super enjoyable, and any fan of the franchise will get giddy from seeing this inclusion. It even has a boss fight featured in NEO: The World Ends with You.  

The environmental structure in Reynatis is worth highlighting. Let's start with the positives. Shibuya is phenomenal and perfectly captures the nightlife of the hustling urban streets of Japan. But the way the streets are designed is small and incredibly cramped. At first, I thought this might have been intentional in capturing Shibuya's real-life mood. However, at specific points in the game, you travel to different dimensions, which act as dungeons, but their paths are even narrower, and to make matters worse, the environmental backdrops are mediocre at best. All these flaws create an experience that mimics what you would find in a PlayStation 2 RPG, which some are bound to adore and others will loathe. For the most part, I liked many of these aspects, but I wish the areas you transported to had more life to them.

The aesthetics are another aspect that might be hit or miss for people. The entire attitude and atmosphere embodies an edgy persona from start to finish. This is to match the gritty and sombre tone of the plot, which it succeeds at. Some of the outfits are highly detailed and really give off futuristic urban street vibes. But the characters would look unpolished in cutscenes and in-game. I also observed what I believe may be a model issue with the character called Moa. Her hair would shake during cutscenes, which would be a bit off-putting.

I've been playing Reynatis on the Switch, so I can't comment on other systems, but there are a few issues. Firstly, the game crashed on me a few times, which was annoying, but luckily, there is an auto-save system, so I never lost too much progress. The main issue was the camera angle, which in some of the cramped environments is just pure bad. If I were playing in handheld mode on the Switch, this would be even worse, and sometimes I wouldn't even be able to see the character performing their move, so I always stayed playing on the dock. To its merit, the loading times were excellent and faster than I expected on the Switch.

Reynatis is the pineapple on pizza of RPG's this year. Some will love that Reynatis tries to implement various concepts while attempting to keep the magic that made some of the classic titles on the PlayStation 2 so renowned. Others will feel this type of RPG is a massive step backwards for the genre. Personally, I liked Reynatis, but the performance issues held back the experience for me.

Reynatis will come to the PS4, PS5, Switch, and PC in North America and Europe on September 27, 2024, and then in Australia on October 4, 2024.

The post Review: Reynatis Unapologetically Feels like a PS2 Game appeared first on Siliconera.

NIS America and Furyu’s next big game is going to be Reynatis, a JRPG with a story from Scenario Writer Kazushige Nojima. While Nojima’s work on entries in the Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts involved fantasy worlds and fictional locales, this one brings us into the heart of Shibuya. To better understand what that involved, Siliconera had the chance to ask a few questions about the game’s development.

Jenni Lada: What led to you working on Reynatis? 

Kazushige Nojima: My encounter with Creative Producer TAKUMI’s enthusiasm is what started things.

What was your biggest influence when writing the story?

Nojima: The town of Shibuya itself. It’s a place I’m familiar with, so I walked around it thinking about what kinds of things could happen in which places.

What kinds of efforts did you take to balance realism and magic and the supernatural in the story?

Nojima: Aside from the magic, wizards, magic organizations, and the other world that exists because of magic and monsters, I made sure to keep everything else grounded.

After launch, Reynatis is getting additional story episodes. What did the development and creation of those look like?

Nojima: I think FURYU Corporation is very generous. During development, we tried to make sure that no one would think, “Couldn’t this have been in the main game?”

Given these are post-launch story episodes, what sorts of opportunities came when deciding what they’d cover and address?

Nojima: Events that happened before and after the main game. I wanted to make sure all the side story-type content went into the main game.

Do you feel like you accomplished all you wanted to with Reynatis, or do you feel like there’s opportunity for more to be explored in a possible sequel?

Nojima: It’s always difficult to tell a linear story in a game with an open map structure. I encountered this issue with Reynatis, but I don’t think I quite solved it. I’d love to take another crack at it.

Also, we weren’t able to put in episodes for the individual characters, so if there were the opportunity to do that [it would be great].

Reynatis will come to the PS4, PS5, Switch, and PC in North America and Europe on September 27, 2024, and then in Australia on October 4, 2024. 

The post Interview: Kazushige Nojima Talks About Reynatis’ Story and Influences appeared first on Siliconera.

After getting a chance to watch an NIS America staff member play through the JRPG Reynatis, I was struck by the various forces at play in the game. In many ways, it seems like a player might need to balance certain elements, such as which mode to use in battle and their stress levels. While there’s still more to see and confirm, it seems like the sort of game where a player may need to pay attention.

During my hands-off preview session, I was able to watch an NIS America employee sample two sections. The first featured Magic Enforcement istration (MEA) agent Sari Nishijima work alongside her team Kiichiro Ukai and Masayoshi Dogo on a search for Wizarts, markings in the city enabling certain magical abilities and skills, around Shibuya. In the other portion, there was a briefer look at wizards Marin Kirizumi and Nika Meguro as the two happen upon each other in Shibuya and attempt to live freely as wizards. From there, brief glimpses of exploration and battle helped set the stage for the title.

One of the ways the balancing act in Reynatis came up in gameplay during the preview session involved actions wizards take. We quickly learned that Stress is a key factor. It’s caused by interactions with people in the city and around you, and reduced if you grab a drink. Petting cats around town was also mentioned as a way to calm someone down. 

It’s a critical element, since someone being stressed means they won’t be able to hide that they are a wizard. This will make them visible in the city, resulting in undue attention from people and the MEA and the inability to take on certain quests. Those additional enemy encounters can be dangerous, as if you’re stressed going into a fight, you will only be able to take advantage of Liberation Mode. This lets you use your magical abilities to slow down time, quickly attack, and deal major supernatural damage. However, you won’t be able to dodge like you do in Suppression Mode and enemies move faster. If your Stress is low, then you can switch between the two modes in a fight to more tactfully take advantage of each one to build up magical power and evade attacks before striking back hard.

There’s also the idea of some humans towing the fine line between safety and danger. This is due to the use of an illegal drug on the streets called Rubrum that allows someone without magical talent to see and use wizarts. During the Sari portion of the story on display in the hands-off preview, part of the mission involved her team of three investigating Wizarts and happening upon a human who had been regularly taking this drug. As a result, he’d hit his limit and, during the encounter, transformed into a monster because of that use.  

Part of that balance seems to be between real-world and fantasy elements too, from what I saw. The MEA building in one part of the preview seemed ordinary enough as Sari explored it, but there were also these magical Wizart and wizard elements. Their uniforms also stood out in a way normal governmental employees’ would. This doesn’t even get into the eventual NEO The World Ends with Youelements that NIS promised. But once someone heads out into the city, Shibuya looks as it would in the real world. While I watched the NIS America employee play and visit a store, familiar products showed up. There was C.C. Lemon, my favorite lemon-flavored soda and Yakuza series staple. BOSS coffee showed up as well. 

All of this makes me curious how difficult it will be to maintain these types of balances when I’m playing Reynatis firsthand. It seems like there’s a lot to manage here. Especially considering the penalties wizards can face if they get careless. 

Reynatis will come to the PS4, PS5, Switch, and PC in North America and Europe on September 27, 2024, and then in Australia on October 4, 2024. 

The post Preview: Reynatis Might Just Be a Balancing Act appeared first on Siliconera.

After Reynatis is released, a number of free updates will expand its story via character episodes and other additions. There’s no schedule for these nine extra batches of content, with NIS America only noting that people can expect them after the game is released.

Aside from how many there will be, most details about the free Reynatis updates and character episodes are vague. Some of the new stories will involve Marin Kirizumi and Sari Nishijima. One of the screenshots teasing the addition shows Marin fighting an unknown opponent. The other shows Sari walking past Kiichiro Ukai, who works on the M.E.A. with her. There will also be some sort of “secret” episode. 

Here are all three of the teaser screenshots.

We already knew about another piece of content that would appear for Reynatis. A Neo The World Ends with You crossover will be present in-game. When people go through it, they’ll meet the Reaper Shoka in-game.

Reynatis comes to the PS4, PS5, Switch, and PC on September 27, 2024 in North America and Europe and on October 4, 2024 in Australia, and nine pieces of free content will be released as updates. There's no roap for the additional updates yet.

The post Free Reynatis Updates Include Character Episodes appeared first on Siliconera.

After a brief appearance during the June 2024 Nintendo Direct, the latest FuRyu action RPG Reynatis received a demo available now on the Japanese version of the Nintendo Switch eShop. The demo or trial version is only available in Japanese and occupies 2.0 GB.

Only people with a Japanese Nintendo can the demo on their Nintendo Switch. Once ed into the console, any can access the demo. The content available in the demo comprises approximately the first hour of gameplay in the game, although the demo might differ from the final product.

The Reynatis demo allows people to check out the beginning of the first chapter, which starts with a lengthy cinematic and text introduction to the game, as well as a variety of tutorials that allow players to get a hold of the controls and learn the basics of combat and exploration. The demo starts with players controlling female protagonist Sari Nishijima around the area surrounding Shibuya Station and the iconic Scramble Crossing, and later allows players to try male protagonist Marin Kirizumi in a new area called the Dominus Forest.

Reynatis is currently in development for the Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, and PC, and its global release date is set for September 27, 2024. The game will launch in Japan on July 25, 2024, and a demo is now available on the Japanese Nintendo eShop.

The post Reynatis Demo Available in Japanese Nintendo Switch eShop appeared first on Siliconera.

NIS America and FuRyu announced the Reynatis release date and confirmed there will be a TWEWY crossover with NEO The World Ends with You. We will see it on September 27, 2024 outside Japan, following its July 25, 2024 Japanese debut.

The Reynatis NEO TWEWY comes following an April Fools’ Day 2024 joke that suggested the The World Ends with You series would end up tied to the new RPG. At the time, it just made the official website feature the other title’s key art. This is because both are set in the “real world.” The actual game will apparently bring in characters and enemies from the Square Enix title as possible encounters.

Here’s the key art for that announcement, which shows Rindo alongside Marin.

NIS America also confirmed everything in the Reynatis Limited Edition again. For $99.99, people get a copy of the game, an art book, a mini soundtrack CD, a multi- art print with characters from the game shown, and an acrylic art . 

The Reynatis globalrelease date is September 27, 2024. It will launch in Japan on July 25, 2024. People will be able to play it on the Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, and PC. 

The post Reynatis Release Date and NEO TWEWY Crossover Announced appeared first on Siliconera.

During the Japanese February 2024 Nintendo Direct, the new Furyu Switch, PS4, and PS5 RPG Reynatis appeared. Now NIS America confirmed it will appear worldwide and will show up on the PC via Steam as well.

There will be a bit of a gap between releases. In Japan, the Furyu RPG is expected to appear on consoles on July 25, 2024. The NIS America release window for the game is Fall 2024. This means it will likely show up sometime after September 2024. 

Here’s the official announcement trailer. People get an idea of what it is like to be a wizard named Marin who is suddenly in Shibuya and needs to decide if things should be handled without magic as a more ordinary person or if someone should fight with special powers. 

NIS America also shared the first screenshots for the game with us, which you can see in the gallery below.

This isn’t the only Furyu game NIS America will be releasing this year. It picked up The Legend of Legacy HD Remastered. That will show up on the PS4, PS5, Switch, and PC on March 22, 2024 outside Japan.

Reynatis will come to the PS4, PS5, and Switch in Japan on July 25, 2024, and it will come to consoles and the PC worldwide in Fall 2024.

The post New Furyu RPG Reynatis Heading Westward via NIS America appeared first on Siliconera.