This review may end up being less of a review and more of a editorial response. EGM (April 2001) gave Oni for PS2 some wowingly low scores... about 3.5 out of 10. Which, by my numbers, makes it three times as good as Superman 64. Or any of the Game Boy Powerpuff Girls games. Ouch.
But anyway, I don't think this game sucks that bad. It's certainly better than Silent Scope or Fantavision.
First, the background. Oni (which means 'demon'... but could also be a veiled binary pun: zeroes and ones, get it?) is an anime-themed third person action game, with the combat divided equally between gunplay and fisticuffs. You are Konoko, who is some sort of manmade bioengineered cyborg killing machine. The story advances with the help of a highly typical stream of characters... the cold, suave jet-black-hair leader... the mistrustful white haired scientist... the affable, cutesy girl-robot sidekick... Do I need to continue? If I told you who was "evil" and who wasn't, you could probably come up with the plot on your own.
The controls are dicey at best. Once you get the hang of the dual analog setup (left stick for movement, right stick for look/direction), you'll have no trouble getting around. It's shooting and fighting that's the problem. Since you have to use both sticks at once - and the shoulder buttons for jumping and firing - it is quite a numble-fingered feat to be able to come up successful in a major fight. Most hand to hand situations will turn Konoko into a whirling dervish of fists and feet. If you're lucky enough to trigger a special move during all that, so much the better. When fighting multiple enemies, my strategy is to keep them at alternate angles from me, so I can knock them down one at at time, and then keep knocking them down in sequence as they stand up. (Honestly, I love the hand to hand stuff. I don't care that it's tough to pick and choose your attacks, because I just slam the buttons anyway. It's fun to be surprised by a cool-ass move that you didn't know you could do. What does get frustrating is that the dual analog controls and the floaty camera make it really easy to completely lose track of who you're fighting... and he always seems to end up right behind you.) Forget about using the charging run; it's impossible.
As for weapons, Konoko can only carry one weapon at a time, which sucks. And ammo is limited, which sucks again. Forget about aiming weapons while running; there is no lock-on mechanism. Better to get your shots in when they're not looking and then hide behind something until they come at you. See fighting tip above.
The levels are huge, but save points are scarce and un-marked. I like all the sneaking around, but most level progress comes from flipping switches on computer terminals. Ho-hum. When you're walking, the camera works well, making walls and objects transparent so you don't get any weird, Tomb Raider-style zoom ins. The transparency feature also lets you exploit some clipping bugs, so you can look through solid objects at certain camera angles. Hey, I'll take any benefit I can get! Graphically, it's very nice for a first-gen game... a nice combination of clear textures and shapes with a subdued, dystopian color palette. Although many rooms are big and empty, many other have lots of great details, like the office rooms and airport terminals. Another dopey dichot-Oni.
There's a whole bunch of stuff I ignore though... like stupid computer monitors that call up screens of dumb text. I assume it's supposed to be advancing the plot and exposing deep secrets about Konoko's shady past. I couldn't care less.
My suggestion is to set the game on easy and get to it. And once it's done, it's done. In easy mode, you'll be able to take a lot more damage, so the cheap shots caused by lousy controls won't seem so bad. Although there are no settings to change the fact that there is no multiplayer mode and incredibly awful load times. I also found quite a bit of slowdown when being confronted by 5+ enemies in a biggish room.
But really, this isn't a 3.5 PS2 game. I enjoy it despite the convoluted combat mess.
