Oniken: Unstoppable Edition

Oniken has plenty of passion put into the game. The 80's action film styling are cool but the game design itself is sadly stuck in a time where gaming was still feeling itself out.

Oniken is a great love letter to classic games from the 8/16bit era such as Ninja Gaiden, Contra, Shadow of the Ninja; and al. While it is a fun and challenging game, sometimes it can be too challenging for its own good, mostly because of the sometimes insanely over the top difficult bosses. Old school gamers will revel in the challenge while others might be put off by the difficulty and stiff checkpoint system.

If you have a fondness for classics like Ninja Gaiden and Strider then you'll love the ninja action in Oniken.

In its current state, even as an 8-bit enthusiast who loves a good Contra or Ninja Gaiden Style challenge if its put before me, I can't recommend Oniken: Unstoppable Edition despite the amount of content that it actually has to offer and the fact it's an absolutely beautiful game.

Oniken does a few things right, but flounders when it comes to the most important parts of the experience. The visuals and audio of the game are a faithful and accurate tribute to the style of classic NES action games, sure. All of the artistic flair in the world can't help a game that simply isn't fun to play, though. Action in Oniken is consistently stiff and frustrating, and while boss encounters can provide brief moments of gratifying gameplay, only the most dedicated of action platformer fans will have the patience to reach those encounters.

Oniken: Unstoppable Edition is meant for a certain kind of NES fan; those that revel in that sort of old-school challenge will find little else like it on Switch.

"Back to the future."

Considering how this version is also double the pricepoint of the original Steam version for some baffling reason, I think you should definitely wait for the patch and maybe even a sale on this one if you’re remotely interested. You can have a decent enough time once you’re able to get past all this, but it’s still not an excuse for how the port came out this way, especially since this game has a lot of great ideas buried within.

Oniken is a faithful reproduction of something that wasn't very good to begin with.

Disappointing 2D action-platformer