REVIEW – The lead actress of Unknown 9: Awakening is Anya Chalotra, who played Yennefer in The Witcher. It’s transmedia, by the way, so it’s not just a name that pops up in video games, but in other things, whether it’s a series, a comic, a podcast, that sort of thing. The concept and idea is good, but the execution is average, and that’s why it will be a typical game that will be free in a year…

The story could have been interesting, but it wasn’t, and the gameplay is absolutely nothing. As a result, this game is not very memorable.

Head into The Upside Down

It’s not a figure of speech: our protagonist is Haroona, a Quaestor who can cross over to another world (whose name is in the lead). This is a mysterious dimension that exists parallel to our world. It harbors several secrets that an organization called the Ascendants is trying to get their hands on. Haroona is taught by her mentor Reika and learns that there are immortal beings (that would be Unknown 9), and then everything is thrown out of place by the appearance of the leader of the Ascendants, Vincent Lichter. Haroona then embarks on an adventure to learn more about this otherworld, while trying to stop Lichter’s plans. This starting point wouldn’t be so bad, but from here on everything is, because the way the game looks, the way the characters are presented to us, just doesn’t feel natural, and despite Chalotra’s performance, even she can’t save U9:A from being forgotten in a short time. Especially the gameplay: it’s in third-person, with platforming and stealth elements in addition to melee combat (using your skills).

There are items to collect and sometimes more than one way to get to the end, while still being linear. Going from point B to point B, there are more open areas, here you can remain undetected and then move on to the next location, while alternative routes can have hidden objects or stealth can be achieved. At no point does the game seem to encourage you to explore the area around you. There are also puzzles, but these are about the level of a kindergartener. However, this game is about the equivalent of the square hole meme: you can complete about everything by brute force, without thinking. Climbing, jumping, crawling along walls are all things we’ve seen for decades, and all of this is compounded by how linear it all is. Haroona’s abilities include Peek, which allows her to see through walls, Projection, which allows her to take control of an enemy (attack/open a door) and trap them, and a Shield, which prevents attacks from succeeding for a certain amount of time. There is nothing new about any of these, they are all average.

It came out two generations later than it should have…

Of course, Haroona can use Silent Execution while stealthed, and if that’s not enough, he can use his abilities to hide for a while. This will be more useful when we upgrade the required ability, as it will allow us to take control of at least two opponents at once. However, this will not always be useful, as either the path planning is below average or the AI is lousy. This also applies to our companions: more than once they tend to switch to stealth when their opponents are in plain sight.

Stealth is the best option, because it gets rid of most (!) of the AI’s horrors. Speaking of horrors, the same goes for the visuals, as you can really get the feeling that this is a game from 2007. That may have been fine back then, but today the lack of facial expressions, the overly mechanical animations and the overuse of dark colors are ridiculous. Meanwhile, the performance also feels like 30 FPS, which is completely incomprehensible in the case of U9:A, because it looks more like an early PS3 title than a mid-generation PS5 product. The music is good by the way, but the voice acting is again mostly average to below average, and this is where it comes in again that Chalotra alone can’t carry this game on his back.

After this, we wouldn’t care about the previous eight Unknowns

Unknown 9: Awakening only gets a 5/10 because Chalotra’s and the soundtrack’s performance are acceptable. If someone really wants to torture themselves, then be prepared for about nine hours of an experience that is more painful than good. It may be funny at times, but it will be annoying, as it fails to deliver quality in almost any aspect. Mostly shoulder shruggable story, combat that can’t be called anything, mostly lousy voice acting, trashy graphics (seriously, maybe even Black on PS2 is nicer than that), and consequently the atmosphere is not right. It makes no sense en bloc. Nor to play. We’d rather wait until it hits PlayStation Plus. We can expect this from Sony.

-V-

Publisher: Bandai Namco

Developer: Reflector Entertainment Ltd.

Style: PS3 game simulator (also action-adventure, platformer)

Release: October 18, 2024.