Unknown 9: Awakening Reviews
Despite a few interesting ideas, Unknown 9: Awakening is a bland and janky adventure with a generic story and dull combat.
Even when my time leaping into enemies was interrupted by these technical issues, Unknown 9: Awakening’s excellent cast of characters and inventive soul-hopping combat mechanics kept me invested all the way through its gloriously last-gen adventure. With how depressing this generation has been at times, that is absolutely meant as a compliment.
Despite it all, Haroona's journey still charmed me.
Unknown 9: Awakening is more than decent, offering some fun combat and exploration with a cast of mostly likeable good guys and entertaining pantomime villains.
Unknown 9: Awakening is a promising start for a new series once you learn to love its combat.
A fun and unusual take on the third person stealth game, that suffers from some humourless writing but benefits from a surfeit of peculiar magic powers.
Playing through Unknown 9: Awakening left me with a cocktail of emotions when I finally rolled credits after 13 hours. I usually pride myself in my ability to see eye to eye with a game’s vision and try to find even footing even if I didn’t have a good time with it, but this is different. The experience of playing Reflector Entertainment's debut title is akin to watching a bunch of trailers for those Phase 1 Marvel movies alongside the opening act of the first Avengers flick. It felt like proof of concept for a multimedia franchise that doesn’t want to give away too much but hasn’t figured yet out what it’s even about. All of this is skinned onto the early 2010s cinematic video game experience which aside from a few fun, if janky combat encounters doesn’t know how to set itself apart. It's heartbreaking because there is a much better experience in between the in-between that didn’t work.
Mixed feelings for an adventure that has flashes of brilliance, but that fails to live up to the technical and some facets of the gameplay. If you are a big fan of the genre, you can give it a chance and maybe some facets surprise you.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
I really wanted to write about the positives of featuring more cultures in this genre, and about how cool it is to have a famous actor play the protagonist, but sadly the gameplay gets in the way of anything interesting. Unknown 9: Awakening is just a bunch of gaming tropes loosely tied together with boring and uninspired NPCs lazily lurching from set piece to set piece, as the poorly designed game creaks and groans under the weight of expectation.
An adventure with a strong emphasis on narrative, plagued by a far from optimal technical side but more engaging than you might believe.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Unknown 9: Awakening is a game a couple decades too late.
Review in Russian | Read full review
Unknown 9: Awakening's best ideas never clear the landing.
Had it been released in the middle of the last generation, perhaps Unknown 9: Awakening would have had a different effect. Today it is really hard to be impressed by a video game like this, technically and conceptually too old in which the only thing that is promoted is the story.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Unknown 9: Awakening is an ambitious single-player action game that takes some bold swings with regards to its stealth combat, character arcs, and universe building. And though it’s sad that the lack of budget and inability to get out of its own way with lore often means it doesn’t always deliver on them, there’s still enough ambition and creative choices made here that players craving a linear cinematic story in the vein of Uncharted should at least check it out. Stepping into enemies to kill off others is repeatedly fun, the globe-trotting venture is big in scope, and Haroona herself has many attractive qualities. As the first piece of a wider universe, Unknown 9: Awakening has its merits; I just hope that its many rough edges are sanded off in time for a potential sequel.
Unknown 9: Awakening is a good debut from a first-time development team. This narrative-driven action-adventure has some rough edges but the beautiful locations, intriguing narrative, and well-written characters make it hard to put down. The gameplay doesn't evolve much but the entertaining stealth mechanics add a lot of variety to the skirmishes you find yourself in. Overall, this is a compelling new IP with lots of potential for future adventures.
Son of a troubled development that lasted much longer than expected, Unknown 9: Awakening is a "victim" of the exaggerated ambitions of a very young Reflector Entertainment, which has chosen to immediately throw itself headlong into the creation of a complex transmedia universe.
Review in Italian | Read full review
What's worse than a bad game? A boring one. One where the player is unable to process a strong feeling, whether positive or negative. Reflector Entertainment's work does not deserve anyone to be upset about what they've played. Bandai Namco's release is one of the biggest failures of the year, and something that will be forgotten by everyone.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Unknown 9: Awakening is a game that tries to have its own identity, but that is diluted by decisions that do not convince us. There are very good ideas, such as the possibility of having enemies or the help offered by the Backhand and abilities, but these are overshadowed by incorrect decisions.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Unknown 9: Awakening is full of originality, but suffers from some frustrating gameplay decisions despite the interesting mystery of its narrative.
I went into Unknown 9: Awakening really wanting to like it; to see its transmedia experiment succeed. But it's such a horrible-looking game, featuring game mechanics from fifteen-odd years ago and a story that will put you to sleep, it's hard to offer any sort of a recommendation. Play it if you want a renewed appreciation for how great other games can be.