The first thing one notices when they start Oni is that it is presented as a Japanimation story, apparent in the opening cartoon sequence, the Japanimation style of the in game graphics, and the plot itself. Fans of Japanimation will no doubt be infatuated with Oni. In fact, at many times the story resembled that of the Manga film “Ghost in the Shell”. Set in a bleak future, you take control of Konoko, the purple-haired heroine who is the latest crime fighting addition to the TCTF. The Technological Crimes Task Force is a futuristic police force who busy themselves attempting to shut down a rather large crime organization know as the Syndicate. I don’t want to delve into the story of Oni too much since a lot of it is revealed while you play the game as Konoko slowly uncovers some disturbing truths about herself and her past. As I said, the plot is very much like a Manga film, replete with a mixture of Japanese and English names, writing, and characters.

Move over Lara Croft…Konoko has arrived. The action takes place from a third-person view much like Tomb Raider and Rune. In fact, anyone who played Tomb Raider and thought it was a little boring (as did I) may find Oni a bit more up their alley. While Konoko can uses a variety of weapons during the game, she can only carry one at a time and ammo is very limited. I usually kept weapons for combating other weapon bearing enemies from a distance, since trying to close with an enemy while under fire is often fatal. For the most part, combat is all hand-to-hand, up close and personal. Konoko is a martial arts expert, but then again so if everyone else in the game apparently. Fans of Martial arts games like Tekken or Mortal Combat could get a lot of fun out of Oni, since Konoko can deliver a number of very impressive combo moves. Unfortunately, while these combo techniques are visually impressive, many of them are difficult to execute quickly, especially when you have one or more enemies slapping you around. For the most part I stuck to punching and jump-kicks, and threw in the occasional Double-Spin kick or Rising Fury punch when I could. New special moves are revealed as the game progresses so players will always have something new to try out. There is no separate control for blocking, although Konoko will automatically block incoming attacks…at least that is the theory. The truth is I found the enemies to be very efficient at blocking while Konoko couldn’t block the vast majority of punches and kicks throw at her. This turns out to be very frustrating later on in the game with some of the tougher enemies, who seems to block all of your attacks but hit you with ease.

Controls for the game use a combination of keyboard and mouse. The WASD movement pattern commonly used by such games is included as the default configuration, with the mouse controlling turning and attacking. Actually, I am not being quite accurate when I say that this configuration is the default option; it is actually the only option. The ability to map your own controls is not supported, which I find to be totally unacceptable. Granted, the controls in Oni are laid out in a fairly logical manner, I do not care for the assumption that all games will like it. Also, there is no option to increase or decrease the mouse sensitivity (at least not that I could find). The mouse sensitivity has been set at a decent level, but again assumptions have been made. Considering this a warning that if you like to map your own controls, Oni is not there for you.