The studio behind Pokémon struggles to find its voice in Beast of Reincarnation

You have to imagine that the team at Game Freak is bursting with ideas. The studio puts out new mainline Pokémon adventures with a machinelike precision. But every so often it launches a curious experiment, whether it’s an action title about a militarized elephant or turning horse races into a card game, showing that it’s capable of more than the latest generation of pocket monsters. That’s part of what makes the idea of Beast of Reincarnation so enticing. Here is an established studio breaking free of the franchise it has become known for to make its take on a blockbuster action game. Unfortunately new ideas are in short supply in Beast, and aside from its slick action, there’s little that hasn’t been done before.