Thank you NIS America for sending us an Ultimate Edition review code!

Reynatis takes place in Tokyo where magic users are discriminated against. The general public is leery of wizards and will report them to the M.E.A. government agency if seen. People can become wizards in one of three ways. They can be born with magic, have a near-death experience, or get awakened through a street drug called Red Rub. Sadly many of the addicts wind up overdosing and turning into monsters referred to as the “d*mned”. Wizards who are created from near-death experiences are called replicas.

The M.E.A. agency recruits wizards and non wizards to keep The Guild and monsters in check and to deal with rogue mages on the street. The Guild is led by powerful wizard families and in order to join them, hopefuls must prove themselves by defeating monster hordes. Many don’t survive the trial. A fledgling wizard group called Owl is attempting to lure unaffiliated mages to their ranks.

Reynatis switches perspective between two wizards who obtained their magic from near-death experiences. You first play as Sari Nishijima, an M.E.A. agent who enlisted to try and get Red Rub off of the streets after her sister lost her life from the drug. Sari has a couple of officer friends that will accompany her on missions and provide support in battles.

Marin Kirizumi is a loner emo mage who is aiming to be the strongest wizard because his father’s parting words were “If you become the strongest, you'll be set free”. Marin is such a shallow character and there’s not much to like outside of his fighting abilities. Owl is actively trying to recruit him because they can see his raw power.

The battle system in Reynatis is unique but gets a little old after a bit. Wizards have two states: liberated and suppressed mode. In liberated mode, you can attack freely as long as your mana gauge isn’t depleted. When one character runs out of mana, you can often switch to another instantly to keep your attack combo going. In suppressed mode, you can’t fight, but you can dodge enemy attacks to absorb their mana.

Each character in your party has a distinctive weapon and fighting style. Some are tanks while others are better at doing damage from a distance. By admiring the graffiti in town known as “Wizart”, you can equip your party members with new stat enhancements and new abilities.

Later in the game, you’ll discover an underground wizard shop where you can sell items dropped by enemies to unlock new items to sell. You can also unlock additional skill slots for each party member by selling your loot.

Like many role playing games, your characters will earn experience and level up their stats by fighting in battles. You can have a maximum of three characters in your party and the non-active members will still receive experience from battles, but not as much as those fighting. After you beat the game, Marin will have extra quests available, but he’ll be fighting solo. Going into more detail may spoil the story a bit. Needless to say, the solo battles are quite challenging!

With wizards and battles, it should go without saying that Reynatis has both unavoidable violence and magic use. Some of the fighting is for personal gain or for revenge. With the rampant drug use, there are many quests for bringing justice to or straight-up killing rub dealers who have ruined people’s lives and families. Language is pretty prevalent with words like d*mn, a*ss, and b*stard used. There are many scenes in the story that take place in a river Styx-like environment with a shrouded ferryman offering a staff for people to grab onto and revive as a wizard.

The art is a mixed bag in Reynatis. Some areas like river Styx, the zoo and museum are very bland and unappealing while the downtown areas are much livelier. The battles have a lot of eye candy and I enjoyed playing Reynatis on my desktop with a big monitor to appreciate it all. If you don’t mind a smaller screen, Reynatis does run well on the Steam Deck.

The Japanese voice acting is well done and really brings the characters to life. I enjoyed listening to the background music, but have no desire to hear it outside of the game. The sound effects are fitting and nothing seemed out of place there.

The base price for Reynatis is $60, which many gamers find to be pricey. I agree and recommend waiting for a sale. There is a demo available so be sure to check that out if you’re on the fence. Since its September launch, there have been a couple of free to play episodes released with more on the way. In the end, I enjoyed my twenty-one hour journey into a world that discriminated against magic users.