With the demand for strong leading ladies being what it is in this day of age, Oni’s main character, Konoko, is a welcome addition. This girl is tough, and while she does wear some pretty tight combat outfits, she wasn’t designed to flaunt her body. The strange thing is that her character still remains a very empty one. Most of her interactions with the game’s other characters are extremely understated and reveal little about what people want to know about her. Part of this appears to be an effort to create a bigger mystery around what Konoko exactly is. The supporting characters allude to certain things early in the game but the cut scenes are careful in what they reveal. The story does have a similar feel to Cameron’s Dark Angel series, which airs on the FOX Network.

Aside from the scant number of storytelling sequences, a lot of the background info is found on terminals and data cubes scattered between areas. Most will probably not take the time to read these since they are packed needlessly with odd words and acronyms that have been placed to fit the context.

The Oni Universe is presented in an anime-style, with lots of solid color textures and animation-inspired character models. These models look and move really well during combat. The idle animations for soldiers is primarily restricted to ‘relaxed’ and ‘alert’ but during combat all of their attacks are quite fluid, and the same goes for Konoko, who has a nice little library of unique moves to pull from.

The artistic style doesn’t work so well for the environments. Most of the textures are used quite a bit, and every area does feel very gray. The structural design of each area does make up for the textures in some respects. Some rooms are especially fun to fight in because they are not designed for fighting, so the player must use the moves to get the advantage in a fight. Most of the rooms, however, are designed with large open areas for hand-to-hand combat to take place in. This works for the gameplay but it makes even the varied combat maneuvers feel very routine. There are also some glitches such as heavy clipping and an odd flicker problem.

Being this is a title that is set to fit in the ‘Action’ genre, a somewhat empty story can be replaced by a healthy dose of cinematic flair. In most cases a lot of sensations can be presented by dramatic camera angles, wonderfully scripted events, and highly detailed settings. Bungie has managed to create situations that are absolutely devoid of dramatic camera angles and detailed settings, and the mission scripting is pretty skimpy too. Story sequences are restricted to real-time cut scenes involving poorly animated character models conversing with out of place portraits representing each character’s voice at the top of the screen. The voices used in Oni are about the same quality as those used in Monolith’s Shogo, and they do fit the anime-style of the game.

For the most part the camera is locked tightly behind Konoko, and this is a feature that can occasionally prove cumbersome to players facing enemies from the front and behind. This is the default, and only camera view that is available. It would have been nice to have a bit more room to see behind. If ever there were an example of uninventive mission scripting Oni would be it. The mission goals in this game remind me a lot of the classic PC title 'Doom'. A lot of switch flipping, some routine sequences, and door finding. Beyond that the missions are pretty routine, beats up any enemies found, flip switch, find door/boss.

Even with this play upon the ultimate mission structure cliché, it was nice to see Bungie avoid the crate issue. Instead, innocent bystanders and fellow police offers are the ones carrying health and ammo. There are even some situations where you must save the civilian before they can help you. These small mission bonuses may be subtle but they do help add a little bit of diversity to objectives. Aside from that bit of interaction the areas are really empty feeling because the building structures may be nice, but aside from a few of your standard ‘jump’ obstacles there is very little to actually interact with. This being said, combat has very little to do with where the player is. Positioning around stairs and on ledges is still important, but for the most part it doesn’t matter where a person is fighting. In the end it comes down to the player’s skill with the combat system.

The combat is what really grabs this game and barely keeps it from sinking into oblivion. A decent hand-to-hand combat system making an appearance in a genre dominated by guns is really a sight for sore eyes. The combat in this game is just plain fun thanks to the uneven odds and skillful artificial intelligence, not to mention the serious amount of damage the player is capable of dishing out. As the game progresses the combat skill of the AI increases at a very smooth rate making a perfect match between the game’s difficulty and the player’s experience. Bungie has also packed in a few verbal taunts that can be used before or after fights. It doesn’t provide any lasting effect, but it sure gives some satisfaction.

Even as the game just starts Konoko has moves that cover almost every attack vector. She can punch and kick in all four directions, perform some disarming techniques, and let all sorts of jump kicks fly. As the game progresses the player is awarded with new ‘combo’ movies that are either more powerful or produce a desired effect. For example one move kicks the enemy in the family jewels, stunning them long enough to do even more damage.

Of course Oni does tend to take the opposite extreme, as I found weapon combat to be a bit frustrating. The enemies have some killer aim, and can get off many more shots before the player is able to get a few well-aimed shots off. This is of course resolved by closing distance with the enemy but in my experience it is just as safe to dodge weapon based attacks by dashing towards the enemy. Other equipment like the force field belt, and an overdose of hypos provide the extra boost to accomplish this sort of thing without taking a scratch. When fighting off armed enemies it is best just to disarm them and then take them hand to hand. The troops themselves actually don’t lose much of an edge when this is done; they just lose a lot of range. The AI’s combat abilities are actually very good and provide a good challenge, and even though they have the numbers, Konoko is still faster, stronger, and packing a lot more moves.

Success during the game places heavy reliance on the control scheme. The layout should be familiar to PC gamers that have played third-person action titles in the past, but as one left-handed player pointed out, the inability to easily change the control scheme presents a hassle for people who simply cannot deal with the standard scheme. It is pointed out in the readme file that points out the procedure to customizing the control scheme, but they couldn’t have made it any more inconvenient. It is really an annoying addition to the games list of shortcomings

The bottom line is that I did have fun playing Oni, but that was only because of the decent hand-to-hand combat system, which presents some interesting and challenging situations. Since this is an Action title, the combat alone might be enough for some, but as games like Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, No One Lives Forever, and Deus Ex have proved in the past, you can have an action packed game without skimping out everything else.