Unknown 9: Awakening is a third person shooter developed by Reflector Games. This is their first game that expands on the Unknown 9 universe and was published by Bandai Namco on 18th October of this year, the universe itself is already being expanded upon through various other mediums like comics, novels, podcasts, web series etc. Unknown 9 Awakening is available on platforms except the Switch.
The Narrative Is Lacking Some Depth
We play as Haruna, who is played by Anya Chalotra, she is most known for playing Yennifer from Netflix’s Witcher series. We have the ability to control “am” which basically lets us perform supernatural feats such as push and pull objects or people, break open heavy doors or walls, stun enemies etc.
The overarching view is that in this universe, life occurs in cycles, after a set amount of time the life on earth gets wiped out only to start fresh from scratch. A particular tribe of people figured this out and proceeded to prepare 9 people from the tribe to be kept alive if a cycle occurs tasking with trying to stop these cycles once and for all.
We are tasked with trying to stop someone named “Vincent” from going for a power grab by becoming one of the leaders of a present powerful tribe. As the narrative unfolds it never manages to latch on to a central point, we constantly get thrown plot twists as we reach a chapter’s end in the game.
Surprising Amount Of Technical Issues
While some would forgive the developer as this is their first game, the fact that the base price of Unknown 9 Awakening is 50$ makes forgiveness less likely. The most noticeable piece of technical mishap is how awkward the combat looks and feels.
Her punches don’t feel like they are landing, almost as if she doesn’t want to punch or defend herself against those that want to kill her. When we do hit an enemy, the reactions look out of place with a hint of an overreaction almost.
It also does not help the fact that at times our character would get stuck on terrains seemingly without any cause, some environments look unfinished and worst of all random crashes which lead to questions regarding the game’s optimization or lack thereof, some would say it’s “unknown”.
Looking At Combat And Progression
The system we see is nothing new, there are perk points, skill trees and finding “runes”. There are 3 skill trees to invest into which are for melee combat, our supernatural powers and stealth. Skill points which are needed to use in the skill trees are unlocked through exploration and completing chapters.
Combat mostly depends on the player and what skill tree they have invested their points into, for those who invested heavily in melee combat are likely to charge forth on the enemies, while those we invested in stealth will tend to prefer the passive playstyle.
This shows some level of replayability as players will be willing to start another save file where they take a different route. Where this falls apart is the extremely limited enemy variety. Almost all of the enemies we fight at the beginning of chapters remain unchanged throughout the end.
Where it gets really fun is the ability to temporarily possess other people or enemies, where it gets extremely fun and useful is when we’re fighting multiple enemies. Possessing them and then changing their attack direction always yields funny results. It gets even more amusing when we get the skill to possess a chain of people leading to endless possibilities of combos.
A Valiant Attempt On First Try
Unknown 9:Awakening is a valiant attempt at a first try, while it is not perfect and has some semi-major bugs that need to be fixed it is overall a good game with amazing gameplay. If Reflector can fix the bug issues on time, it is likely to change the current perception it has from the eyes of the consumer.
Reflector has created a perfect jumping on point for those wanting to get into the world of Unknown 9, since the point was to make each piece of the unknown 9 stories as standalone experiences. Hopefully they can experiment more with the expanding universe and improve the systems on their next game.
