ONI: Road to Mightiest Oni is a tale of wind and sky. Of a little Oni, joined by a mysterious spirit on an island where they will face trials in order to grow stronger.
ONI: Road to Mightiest Oni was developed by Kenei Design and published by Clouded Leopard Entertainment, a publishing group known to work with studios such as SEGA Corporation, Sony and SQUARE ENIX. The game was announced via a teaser trailer on 2 Sep 2021. It was released on 8 March 2023 and has seen a lot of negative reviews on Steam. Although most of the negative reviews only point towards a problem with performance issues rather than anything to do with the overall gameplay and appearance of the game.
ONI: Road to Mightiest Oni boasts a beautiful 3D landscape that has a Semi-open world feel to it with an amazing soundtrack and interesting storyline. From towering forests and rocky shorelines to the fields and mountainous trails. The overall visual style of the environment is visually pleasing to the eye. You can unlock new areas of the island by completing 12 trials in each area although you can just explore the individual area as much as you want before starting each trial. There are a total of 3 areas each with its own music and hidden secrets to find.
The story takes you on the journey of an Oni named Kuuta. The small Oni is not only a soldier for the Demon King’s army but also the sole survivor of a battle with Momotaro on Onigashima. Kuuta traveled to Kisejima Island to grow stronger so he could overthrow Momotaro, all in order to defeat Momotaro, who is both human and monster. On the island, he meets Kazemaru, a mysterious spirit who is able to extract the spirits from their enemies. Kazemaru becomes an ally that can be relied upon when entering the many trials.
In ONI: Road to Mightiest Oni, Kazemaru is not the only mysterious ally to appear; a young human girl named Kanna appears on the Demon training island. She has no idea how she came to be on the island. She and Kuuta become friends, but she also seems pained about the conflict between humans and demons. Between the beautifully sketched images and dialogue between the young girl and Kuuta, you will learn about the reason Kuuta trains so hard and why the girl has appeared on the island.
Just after the first few trials, a new character gets introduced in ONI: Road to Mightiest Oni. An Oni by the name of Zenisuke happens to be a traveling merchant. He tells Kuuta that while he can buy gear from him, he first has to pay his outstanding tab. This introduces the currency system. You can pay his tab with the mushrooms you can find around the island. You can also open chests to get a certain amount of mushrooms. He becomes instrumental in getting new gear by buying the gear.
After playing around in the Second area a little bit, you’ll eventually meet a Baby Boar. He offers to carry Kuuta around if he feeds him some mushrooms and finishes a trial for him. Racing across the fields, through the forests and cave becomes a faster task when Kuuta call and the Baby Boar comes running.
The levels themselves in ONI: Road to Mightiest Oni are all different, from the viewpoints changing to a soundtrack change, and sometimes just a change from battle-related levels to escort levels, making for an interesting and attention-grabbing gameplay. The tutorial is straightforward, and as new mechanics are introduced, it’s easy to learn what to do. However the game is definitely meant to be played with a controller rather than a mouse and keyboard because the controls are much smoother when using the controller. While using the mouse and keyboard, the controls seem stiff, especially the camera control.
Battle-wise. The game seems a little repetitive. When fighting with just Kuuta, you only use the four controller buttons separately. The buttons used are for attack, dodge, your ultimate ability, and destroying the spirit of your opponents. It does make it easier since you don’t have to learn a long list of combo attacks.
After Kazemaru joins you, it adds another mechanic to the game. You’re able to move Kazemaru separately to Kuuta. You are able to instantly take out smaller enemies while you dodge incoming attacks aimed at Kuuta from the much more powerful demons. Of course, this comes with some drawbacks; while this feature would be amazing in making the game a really good co-op, it’s a struggle sometimes to properly make use of Kazemaru’s abilities in the heat of battle when faced with an overwhelming amount of opponents. However, Kazemaru’s ability to heal Kuuta does come in handy.
One of the mechanics of ONI: Road to Mightiest Oni that was interesting to play around with was how you gained more health, instead of a level system where you have more health if you are a higher level. You instead gain more health by cleansing spirits that roam around the island and cleansing 4 spirits will give you one heart. This may seem like an easy or possibly trivial task, but it is the only way to get more health in the game, and getting the spirits to the shrine isn’t as easy as it sounds.
While transporting a spirit you have a chance to attract the attention of Kuron, and this monster can not be defeated, so Kuuta’s only option is to run away while dodging out of the way of Kurons attacks as you make your way to the shrine. Kuron loses sight of Kuuta if he gets too close to a keystone, so remembering where they are is important.
In ONI: Road to Mightiest Oni, you can level up your ultimate skills by completing challenges and earning red seals. Whether it’s just increasing the duration of the ability or sometimes its strength, depending on the ability being upgraded. There is a lot to do if you just want to explore and take in everything the island has to show. Even if it’s just running around and collecting little scraps of lore left behind by those who came before.
The first and only time a performance issue was encountered was in the second area, and the landscape is beautiful, with the mountainous area mixed with a cave and fields to explore. But the rocks floating above the fields tend to make the game jittery during combat and occasionally during exploration. It can make it difficult to dodge oncoming attacks depending on what viewpoint the level is set to, making those levels a little harder to complete.
The Sound engineering in ONI: Road to Mightiest Oni was really well done, from beautiful background music to even just the adorable sounds Kuuta and Kazemaru would make during levels and chatting with other characters. The choice of which song goes to a certain area was really done well, particularly during cinematic moments where you learn a little more about Kuuta and Kanna. The vocal music, especially Seiakusetsu by Kanna, really helps bring out the fact that Kisejima is a land of heartbreak and sorrow.
The animations in ONI: Road to Mightiest Oni are smooth, whether it’s combat or just running around the island exploring. The character designs of Kuuta and his friends are adorable. They lend to an almost whimsical feel to the game, from being able to change clothing appearance on Kanna to changeable gear for Kuuta. However, it would’ve been nice if the character models were a bit more expressive, even if it was just in body language.
The story itself has interesting plots and lore, some of which you can find all over the island as little points of interest. The story’s writing in some parts can seem a bit dry with word choice and phrasing but doesn’t detract from the storytelling. From just small conversations between Kanna and Kuuta to learning about the island’s history, there are many ways that the storytelling comes through.
Overall, ONI: Road to Mightiest Oni has a gorgeous semi-open world with an emotionally driven soundtrack. While the gameplay may seem lacking at some points, the story makes up for it with an interesting tale about a little Oni’s struggle to become strong enough to protect his people and about the friends he makes on the island. That is if your PC can handle the jitter that happens in the second area.
