The Legend of Momotaro is a classic in Japanese folktelling. An elderly couple find a giant peach in their garden or floating down a river near their home. Splitting it open, they find a young boy whom they adopt and name Momotaro (Peach Son). He shows incredible strength, felling trees with a single swipe of a knife at five-years-old. As a young teen Momotaro leaves home to fight oni, and along the way he befriends a talking dog, monkey, and pheasant, who join him in his fight against the oni on their fortress at Onigashima. It’s a story ripe for interpretation and retelling, and Oni: Road to be the Mightiest Oni by Kenei Design have realized this, as they have created a story not about Momotaro, but instead about Kuuta, an oni who is the only survivor of Momotaro’s attack on Oni Island and who vows to become strong enough to once again face and defeat Momotaro to avenge his comrades.
To this end he travels to the small island of Kisejima, where oni go in order to train and become stronger. Here he must face the spirits of defeated oni in two ways: facing them in trial combat, and rescuing them from Kuron, a monster that wishes to devour them. Kuuta is not alone on his journey, he is joined by Kazemaru, an oni ghost whose name means ‘wind’ (and for the record, Kuuta is written to mean ‘sky’), who acts as a secondary playable character. Kazemaru is able to leap out from Kuuta’s side mid combat to attack and stun enemies. Alongside Kuuta is also Zenisuke (his name contains a word for ‘money’) who acts as Oni‘s merchant and will sell Kuuta new weapons and shorts to give him bonuses in combat, like a club that throws like a boomerang, or pants which improve Kuuta’s speed.
Kuuta is on Kisejima to train, and this comes in the form of the trials. Around the island, flickering forms of oni will appear, and encountering one will send Kuuta into a trial where he must first defeat an oni’s body to expose their soul, and then destroy it before their body reforms. If you fell multiple oni at once and destroy their souls in rapid succession, you start a combo. This and your time is tracked for each trial. I’d say it’s purely for bragging rights except there is an in-game achievement system (in addition to the actual achievements if you’re playing on Steam) and there is an unlockable item for getting a high enough soul combo. After a few trials, Kuuta is joined by Kazemaru, then Zenisuke, and then he cannot continue in his trials because he doesn’t have enough hearts to challenge the next trial.
This introduces spirit rescuing spirits, which is done by searching Kisejima and when Kazemaru’s horn changes color, using him to expose the hiding spirits and catch them with the same stun move he uses in combat. This usually but not always starts a chase sequence where Kuuta must race to the aged mystic who doubles as the Oni‘s save point before a Kuron can catch him and gobble up the spirit. If Kuuta gets to the mystic before being caught, the spirit is rescued and he gets a quarter of a heart. Get four quarters, he gets a new heart. Spirit hunting, gathering mushrooms and looking for lost pieces of lore to fill in the backstories of several characters will make up the bulk of the time in Oni not spent in challenges, though simply exploring the island for its own sake isn’t a bad idea either. After getting enough hearts, Kuuta can challenge more trials, fight a guardian beast, and meet a mysterious girl and an adorable pig that serves as his mount, as well as gain access to more of the island.
Kisejima is a small mysterious island just off the coast of Japan but which cannot normally be seen or explored by humans. It is where the oni come to grow stronger, but is is also a graveyard of the oni who did not become stronger and whose lingering regrets and spirits persist. The island itself is actually very small, but it’s the perfect size to explore with Kuuta’s tottering gait and his boar friend’s somewhat improved trot. One minor irritant is that large sections of the island are initially locked off to Kuuta by invisible walls that only drop after completing enough of the Oni Trials, though I suppose this is the only thing keeping you and Kuuta from scouring the island for mushrooms and spirits and wrecking the early game’s balance even worse than it’s already possible to do with what you find in the starting area. The island is designed in a way such that each area has its own unique style, starting with a standard light forest, but also sporting windswept fields of wheat and mysterious zones of gravity-defying giant stones.
The art style is like a cross between Okami and Breath of the Wild in all the best ways, sort of like a cartoon version of woodblock carvings. The music in combat and during chase sequences is pretty good, the one complaint I have against it is that the main world theme with lyrics gets very repetitive so it would be nice to fade those out rather than keep them playing. I usually listened to something else while I was on the main map but turned the music back on for the trials.
Now, let’s discuss those trials. To start they are very simple: Kuuta and Kazemaru go against several waves of oni spirits, but very quickly wrinkles get added in. Some of these are very basic, like enemies who must be knocked down, then attacked multiple times to reveal one of several souls, or enemy commanders who must be defeated, to more complicated ones like needing to protect Zenisuke during a trial or trying to defeat a rare demon who runs away from you while all the other demons try and kill you. Then there’s the perspective change. While most combat in Oni is over the shoulder with a freely controlled camera (well, except when you’re controlling Kazemaru at the same time and then he controls the camera whenever he strays towards the edge of the screen) several trials will change the perspective, turning combat into, for example, a top down or side-on view to change the combat experience and keep you on your toes. Kuuta himself only attacks with a club but he has a dodge roll and several super moves, from an area of effect burst which also gives invincibility to a doppleganger move and a speed boost. Kazemaru can be controlled at the same time as Kuuta to stun and damage enemies, but he has to manage a stamina meter before he has to return to Kuuta to recharge unless he gets a tasty soul to chow down on. There’s no auto lock-on, but this did not seem to be any hindrance, especially since an early game club you can buy has a 360 degree finishing move.
Oni is not a long game, a little over 30 total trials and about 10-12 hours of gameplay, but it’s actually very chill. It’s a good stop and start game, as it’s very easy to both pick up and put down without losing progress, especially as the game offers an autosave in addition to three manual saves. I didn’t have any slowdown issues myself on PC though I have heard of it happening, so if you’re worried about that, just pick it up on console instead. Kuuta doesn’t care what path you take so long as you help him become the mightiest.
Tim played Oni: Road to be the Mightiest Oni on PC with a review code. Oni: Road to be the Mightiest Oni is also available on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5.
