For good and bad.
I love a good walk and talk. Some of my favourite television series — most notably, Star Trek The Next Generation and Buffy the Vampire Slayer — always used the technique to convey copious amounts of exposition as Picard and Riker exited a turbolift on the way to a transporter room, or as Buffy and Giles made their way to the library.
I bring up the concept of a walk and talk from a 90s TV show now as Unknown 9 Awakening not only embraces this style of narration, but a lot of design and system choices from games of the 90s as well, for better or worse.
In case you’re not aware, Bandai Namco and Reflector have teamed up for Awakening, just one bit of media in the larger Unknown 9 universe. If you’re so inclined, you can delve into novels, comics, and a podcast that all contribute to the larger world, though I can confidently confirm that you don’t need to engage with everything to understand what’s going on in a single work.
With that said, Awakening follows Haroona, a relatively new Quaestor — or a magician, of sorts — who has a natural ability to transverse the Fold, a mysterious dimension that overlaps with our reality. The Fold is a source of limitless power, so naturally there are Quaestors that want to do evil things with it (aka the Ascendants) and those with far more noble intentions (the Leap Year Society).
I know all this as Haroona engages in many, many walk and talk instances with her colleagues, each dishing out juicy nuggets of exposition with each exchange. While there were potentially far more effective ways of delivering this knowledge to the player, I’ll admit it’s all easy to digest and had me interested in the world from the get-go.
Those narrative dumps exist — much like the Fold — in between the gameplay loop, a rather linear path of traversal that’s dotted with enemy zones that require both stealth and combat. In terms of stealth, Haroona can peek into the Fold to reveal opponents and spot collectibles, and throw a telekinectic pebble that distracts foes as she slips by. She also has access to a cloak which renders her invisible.
On the combat front, Haroona pairs a heavy and light attack with abilities that let her push and pull enemies (use the Force, Luke!), and Umbric projectiles that will effectively stagger an enemy so you can then deliver a powered-up combo. Perhaps most importantly, she can also step into enemies, taking control of them to set up combos before disconnecting and watching the chaos that ensues. As I said in my preview, there’s almost a puzzle element involved in stepping, making instances feel like they’re turn-based affairs.
Of course, all of the talents I’ve mentioned can be upgraded and specialised as Haroona grabs special collectibles dotted in the world. This allows you to adapt according to your play style, embracing combat over stealth, or vice-versa.
Combat can be fun when you’ve sorted what abilities work best for you, and especially so once you’ve figured out how cooldowns operate. Unfortunately, combat encounters generally drag on and on; more often than not, you’ll find yourself just tackling wave after wave of the same types of opponents. The sameishness of these encounters — even as I was actively attempting to defeat baddies in new and different ways to bring some diversity to the mix — makes combat stale rather quickly.
Reflector also tries to add some spice to encounters by adding new enemies as you progress, and in doing so likely realised that Haroona wasn’t powerful enough to take on the monster closets before her. To assist, the landscape has been littered with destructible items, power-restoring canisters, and other similar items that feel like a solution to that design problem rather than something that makes sense within the world.
I also encountered many weird bugs in my playthrough, including quite a few instances when using Umbric abilities on enemies would effectively break them. I’d constantly push or pull enemies and have them end up in no-play zones. The bad guys would act as if they were entirely off the playfield, either paying me zero attention or sometimes even dropping into a T-pose.
In some instances, I’d have to wait until I’d earned back enough power to either push or pull them back to reality as most encounters force you to eliminate all bad guys before you can continue on.
I also encountered a weird bug where the back button stopped working in Awakening‘s menus — I could progress further into them, but never backwards (with Circle on my DualSense). I got paranoid the button was broken on my actual controller, before realising it worked fine in the PS5’s UI.
Segments that have you walking through the Fold also were problematic to me. In these sequences, there’s a pale blue tinge on everything in the world, and that filter cancels out telltale signs on ledges and the like that signify Haroona — who cannot jump — can climb something.
While most of what I’ve just described above is attributable to glitches, there’s lots that has to be chalked up to questionable design. I refer specifically to the aforementioned monster closets, linear paths, and locked doors that mysteriously open after you’ve dispatched all nearby baddies.
It’s these decisions that make me feel like I’m playing something from the late 90s or early 2000s — and while that might be damaging to some, I’m sure others would consider that part of Awakening‘s charm.
All up, Unknown 9 Awakening is a competent title with some outdated and flawed designs, but with a larger universe and lore that is undeniably compelling. It’s well worth dealing with the rough edges if that idea excites you (especially at its reduced price tag!).
Unknown 9 Awakening heads to Windows PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X, PS4, and PS5 from today, priced at $69.95 AUD.
Unknown 9 Awakening was reviewed using a promotional code on PS5, as provided by the publisher. Click here to learn more about Stevivor’s scoring scale.
 |
Unknown 9 Awakening18 October 2024PC PS4 PS5 Xbox One Xbox Series S & X
|
This article may contain affiliate links, meaning we could earn a small commission if you click-through and make a purchase. Stevivor is an independent outlet and our journalism is in no way influenced by any advertiser or commercial initiative.
