Oni

aka: Aoni
Moby ID: 3242
Windows Specs
Buy on PlayStation 2
$20.00 used, $299.99 new on eBay
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Description official descriptions

It's 2032. The planet is now ruled by the World Coalition Government which annexed 80% of the countries, with the remaining quickly dragged into the WCG. While their official goal was to solve humankind's problems, it was about money. Massive spending bankrupted poorer countries, and soon all traces of individual government disappeared. For those who were poor, the situation didn't improved one bit, and for the richer, maintaining the status was done at the expense of their privacy and personal freedoms. To make things worse, life outside the major cities, far from the atmosphere processors is nearly impossible, as the so-called "Wilderness Preserves" are poisoned, and those who venture into them risk a painful death.

Konoko, fresh out from TCTF (Technology Crimes Task Force, a secret police to take cyber drugs and weapons from the streets, as well as explore the induced technophobia to operate and investigate on a blank check permission) academy is placed under the command of Terrance Griffin and Dr. Kerr and linked to a SLD - an android - called Shinatama, who is neurally linked to her. However, Konoko knows next to nothing about her past, other that she was orphaned at the age of three and felt "different" to other people while was being brought up under the wing of TCTF. After many years in training, she has finally the chance to prove herself to Griffin and the TCTF, and so, heads for a warehouse rumoured to be under the control of the Syndicate, a criminal organization which grew exponentially after a young man called "Boss Muro" climbed to the top of the organization.

Inspired by the classic Anime series Ghost in the Shell by Shirow Masamune, gameplay is a mix between generic third-person shooter and a classic beat'em up. While Konoko has at her disposal several hand-to-hand acrobatic moves (with more unlocked as the player advances), she can also find weapons in the levels, and the decision to go armed or bare-fisted is only up to the player. Each weapon either draws from ballistic or energy cell clips, the number of rounds in each clip depending on the weapon: a Black Adder (a short, one-hand machine gun like an Uzi) can get 30 rounds from a ballistic clip, while a Mercury Bow (a sniper railgun sans scope) only two. Combined with the limited availability of clips, this adds a strategic element to the game, as the player can only carry a weapon at a time, so if a powerful weapons runs out of ammo, the player must choose between keeping the weapon and fight hand to hand with the enemies until Konoko finds fresh ammo clips, or discard it for a lesser gun that uses different ammo. However, if the player runs out of ammo completely when facing a tough challenge, Konoko can "overdose" on hypo sprays (used to heal damage) by using them over her natural health bar, which provides her with faster movement and tougher blows.

Spellings

  • Они - Russian spelling
  • 奥妮 - Simplified Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

171 People (122 developers, 49 thanks) · View all

Project Lead
Producer
Design Lead
Art Lead
Sound & Music Lead
Testing Lead
Engineering Lead
Executive Producer
Artists
Original Concept Art
Additional Concept Art
Particle System Art
Character Animation
Cutscene Animation
Character Modeling/Texturing
Object Modeling/Texturing
Level Modeling
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 72% (based on 60 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.5 out of 5 (based on 84 ratings with 8 reviews)

A very engaging game that blends hand to hand combat with gunfighting.

The Good
The best part of the game is the plot line of a futuristic science fiction bordering on cyberpunk. The plot is carefully crafted and all the elements like consoles, news etc. supplement the plot line perfectly. The game also features a great sound track and imaginative weapons for gun fights.It has a great hand to hand game-play and the levels give a sense of a large real size of buildings. It gives every bit a sense of being part of a good Japanese anime. The entire game is played in third person camera.

If the cheats are enabled in the game and one can switch characters and also switch fighting styles correspondingly. One can experiment with ninjas, henchmen or the antagonist himself.

The Bad
The ending was abrupt. It left me wanting a cut scene at least. After an engaging adventure the game story ends without any closure.

I also found two combat moves with similar key mappings. This created some problems during game-play.

One cannot save games at will. The game auto saves at predetermined checkpoints.

Once a game is started, the options menu disappears form the main menu.

The Bottom Line
The game has a very nice story to it with the protagonist discovering more about her dark past as the game proceeds. The first thing one realizes is the sense of space in the levels. The levels are huge and adds to the realism of the adventures. There is a interesting blend of hand to hand combat and futuristic weapons. The sound effects and game music blend well with the levels and situation.

Windows · by DS___ (7) · 2014

Oni, while not as great as it could have been, is a very good game

The Good
I completely disagree with the criticism of this game on the Featured Game column. The criticism states that Oni looks great but plays poorly. I claim the reverse is true. Oni's graphics were drab and disappointing (except for the smooth and varied animation), but its hand to hand combat system created a playing experience that is both unique and superior to most other 3d action games. Intuitive controls (after a short adjustment period), a great range of effective movements and intelligent enemies combined to create some of the most thrilling fights i ever had in an action game, 1st or 3rd person. the save system works perfectly most of the time, with the duration between saves short enough not to frustrate, long enough to be challenging.

The Bad
I expected much more from the story, which was left underdeveloped and cliched. the game's environments were its weakest point - repetitive, underwhelming, with very little interaction.

The Bottom Line
no game is like Oni, no computer combat is like going 1 on 3 in Oni and throwing your opponents left and right, and no gun toting two bit hero can equal heroine konoko's combat fury and finesse. the game does not live up to its full potential, but it is a remainder that new gameplay experiences can still be created if designers stop thinking by the formula. if you're tired of aiming and shooting, strafing and blasting, get Oni and teach those goons a thing or two about female power.

Windows · by ududy (57) · 2001

Probably the most entertaining game I ever played

The Good
This game is just great. Why, you ask?
Well it's certainly not the graphics, or the music, or the sound... I just don't know. Oni is cool, and that's it. It's like the Fonz.

Oni is a 3rd person perspective action game with a strong influence of 'oriental-pop' aestethics (namely, manga/anime). We play the role of a purple-haired girl called Konoko, the top-of-the-notch special agent for a law enforcement organization called the TCTF, with genetically enhaced physiscal abilities and all.
Every city in the world is enclosed in a 'bubble' inside which gigantic atmosphere processors create a safe environment for human beings, since the 'world outside' has become a deadly poisonous place.
The game starts with a brief training course, after which Konoko's first-ever field mission takes place: the hot pursuit of the leader of the terrorist organization known as The Syndicate, a mysterious man called Muro. Throughout the fast-paced pursuit, Konoko will get to uncover the secret plans of Muro, as well as his origin, his true nature, and some other dirty secrets that will give place to a few —hopefully surprising— plot twists, involving even her own nature and little-known past.

Gameplay-wise I would say Oni places somewhere inbetween the likes of BLOOD OMEN 2 and MAX PAYNE —which has been by the way developed by the same people, Gathering Of Developers (GOD).
Now, the first of those games is strictly a close-hand combat game, while the second is more of a shooter kind of game. Oni has both combat options, and that's where its greatness begins, we have the option to choose in which way we get to dispose Konoko's enemies, whether from a distance, or getting our hands dirty.
However, although Oni might be played as a shooter game, it's pretty clear from the very beginning that the idea is to use close-hand combat. In this aspect, the games succeeds brilliantly, implementing the most smart and user-friendly combat interface I've ever seen.
We've got two attack keys —punch and kick—, and the possibility to combine them in a lot of different ways, in order to perform a large number of combos. Not only that, but combining the two attack buttons with any of the movement keys, we get to perform a lot of other attack/evasion moves; some moves even are a combination of attack AND evasion.
We could think of Oni as a 3rd person perspective action game, in which the combat sequences have the complexity level of games such as Street Fighter...
OK, maybe it's not THAT complex, but it's certainly pretty close, for a 3rd person perspective game. And it's cool because the fights in Oni can involve as much characters as we bump into in a certain area. Sometimes there even will be one or two that will actually be fighting in our side.

So, the combat sequences are undoubtly one of the things that make this game stick out notably. Even when I had learned a LOT of moves, every now and then I would pull out this OTHER move that I even wasn't aware was possible!
What's more, throughout the game Konoko will keep learning new moves to add to her combat 'portfolio', which will surely keep renewing the fighting.

Related to this, I must say that I LOVED the control interface. The implementation of the mouse in Oni's control interface is one of the 2 best I've seen in a PC game. I didn't even need to finish the complete training to get really comfortable with the controls, and never got an issue to report about this. Pretty soon I was confident enough to perform all kind of circus numbers with this agile heroine.
For some people it might take longer to get used, specially to the combat moves and the combos, but once you manage to; you have to agree that Oni's control interface is as smooth as it gets.

Next, the difficulty level. I'm 27 years old as of June 2003, and I've been a videogame player for about 16 years. I don't know if that has something to do or what, but I noticed that videogames are so STUPIDLY EASY nowadays. The only thing to spice things up is the implementation of a 'hard' mode, which more often than not consists of ridiculous things like requiring 300 hits to kill a boos, taking a good half hour to win the final fight. This way, 'hard' difficulty level in most games doesn't win you out of difficulty, but because you simply get bored of hitting keys/buttons for that long.
I readed some guides/walkthroughs to games such as SILENT HILL 2, in which the author strongly advices to avoid fighting the enemies, and I wonder why should anyone do that? They are SO easy to beat! And this happens over and over again, with almost every game on the market today.
Oni, however, has the most balanced difficulty level I experienced in a long time. It's hard enough to put a true challenge, but not too hard as to get you frustrated.
In Oni, we don't have the freedom of saving at will, but the game will do it upon reaching certain areas, and you know what? I think that is a good thing. The savepoints are far enough from one another as to keep with the difficulty level, but not as far as to make you replay a too long stage. It's not frustrating, and it eliminates this 'kill one guy, quicksave; oops, got hit, quickload' sickness so common nowadays.
We are too spoiled by 'quicksave', and we're getting too lazy.

Another thing I liked a lot is the lenght of the game. There are about 13 main levels, and each one is divided in 4~5 sub-levels. Combined with the difficulty level that every now and then makes you replay a given stage 3 or 4 times, the game can take a good 2 or 3 weeks of intense gameplay to reach the ending. That's 'bang for the buck', I say.
Every level varies enough in its appearance from one another as to make sure you won't get bored with the views. In every new level there is at least one new type of enemy with a particular fighting technique that you have to learn in order to successfully combat, which adds a lot to the variety of the game. Hell, even Konoko changes clothes every second level or so.

The storyline is nothing to write home about, but it's pretty interesting for this kind of game, even featuring a few plot twists (nothing TOO surprising, though).

The graphics are not brilliant, but they are quite correct, specially character design. The manga/anime influence is very strong, and we all know how good are those guys designing uniforms, weapons, and armours.
And girls, of course :P

The game offers an interesting deal of replayability, since, once you have beaten it, you get to unlock a number of 'cheats' that range from the all-famous 'god' mode to the ability to choose the character to play among almost any character that appeared in the game.



The Bad
Although I said the graphics are good, they could certainly be better. The textures specially need a lot of work, and the backgrounds are pretty poor. There are a number of cutscenes made with in-game graphics that take place in the city, and the buildings look really awful. You can certainly tell that they didn't put any effort in the city design.
In fact, (not counting the excellent control interface) the whole game gives a pretty low-profile impression, from a technical point of view. There isn't even the slightest work in facial expressions, for example. Not even any kind of lip-synch.

The cutscenes are made with in-game graphics, except for the intro and outro sequences, which are 2D-animated. These two I didn't like at all. They are poor in every aspect, and specially the drawing of Konoko is not good, she doesn't even look like the in-game Konoko, or the one in the conversation shots, or the one in the main menu background, or the one in any of the publicitary shots, wallpapers, et cetera.

There is one last pretty serious issue, which is the lack of an option to redefine controls.
In fact, the 'readme' file points out one way to do this, which is MANUALLY EDITING a certain file with a text editor. I don't think I have EVER seen such a lame thing, not to mention little serious.

The Bottom Line
Oni for sure doesn't have anything to make history nor anything for the like, but it's certainly a game that has been unfairly underrated. You have to go past that low-profile general looks, and give it a 15-minute gameplay try. I bet you'll like it.
With a fine manga/anime influenced atmosphere, extremely smooth controls, a really extense gameplay, lots of different enemies with their own combat techniques, and a huge variety of close-hand combat options; Oni is certainly a GREAT 3rd person perspective action game.

Personally, I dare to say that this is one of the top 3 most entertaining games I've had the pleasure to play. And as I've said before, if a game is fun enough as to keep you playing all the way to the end, and even make you want to replay it, what else can you want?

Windows · by Slug Camargo (583) · 2003

[ View all 8 player reviews ]

Trivia

Comics

A three-part comic miniseries based on Oni was published by Dark Horse Comics in early 2001. A special #0 preview issue was included with the March issues of GamePro and Gamer's Republic magazines.

Development

Oni was originally intended to be multiplayer, but the designers dropped this when they couldn't get the game engine to perform fast enough over a net connection. There are remnants of the lost multiplayer option in the finished version. The manual still describes the other characters' various strengths and special moves, and once the player has beaten the game (or hacked a certain file), they can play as characters other than Konoko.

Gathering of Goodness

In the American edition of Oni, mailing back the registration card entitled the player to receive a Gathering of Goodness CD that contained patches, demos and movies of upcoming Gathering of Developers games plus a bunch of special god games content.

Title

"Oni" is Japanese for ghost or demon.

Information also contributed by Roger Wilco, Terok Nor and Ye Olde Infocomme Shoppe.

Analytics

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Related Sites +

  • Official Webpage (Mac)
    The official product page for the Mac version of Oni on the publisher's website, which provides a trailer, a profile of the game, a demo, and purchasing information, among other such such particulars.
  • Oni
    Official game website
  • Oni Central
    The bungie.org Oni site.
  • Oni Online
    Comprehensive site about Oni.
  • Wikipedia: Oni
    Information about Oni at Wikipedia
  • ZDNet GameSpot
    Game review.

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 3242
  • [ Please login / register to view all identifiers ]

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Kartanym.

PlayStation 2 added by Jonathon Howard. Macintosh added by Ace of Sevens.

Additional contributors: Tomer Gabel, nullnullnull, Terok Nor, Kic'N, Unicorn Lynx, Apogee IV, Antti Salminen, Zeppin, Klaster_1, DreinIX, Cantillon.

Game added January 31, 2001. Last modified March 23, 2024.