Playing through Unknown 9: Awakening thinking about it from a review perspective has been quite possibly the most complicated thing I’ve had to do with a game in quite some time. There is so much to like about the game, yet so much that needs work. There’s also the idea of how much I like it versus how much I think others would like it. Ultimately I will write about how I felt about it, but in the back of my mind I can’t help but think I’ll be in the minority about how I feel, so keep that in mind.

Unknown 9: Awakening is a new gaming IP from Bandai Namco based on basically every other medium going. There’s comics, podcasts, books and more but this is the first ever game. You play as Haroona a woman of Indian descent who is a Quaestor. A Quaestor is someone who was born with magical powers that are connected to the Fold, a second dimension that connects to the real world. Those powers, such as going invisible for a time, entering an enemy and controlling them for a brief time, and pulling and pushing enemies from afar will make up the bulk of the game play throughout your roughly 10 hour play through.

You start the game off as an apprentice to a woman named Reika as the opening chapter sets the scene of the game and introduces you to your most basic powers that will expand over time. You are on the search for a man named Vincent who Reika is determined to stop from using an ancient relic. When you finally come across Vincent and things go awry, Haroona is left on her own and out for revenge.

A Story Worth The Price Of Admission

The highlight of the game is most definitely it’s story and characters. The Unknown 9 are a group of 9 immortals who were tasked with making sure an ancient evil being was suppressed thousands of years ago. Vincent, the leader of a group called the Ascendants is on the hunt for the whereabouts of the Unknown 9 to unleash the beast they have contained for all those years and wrestle the power away from the 9.

It’s really difficult to talk too much about the story here as it truly is the best part of the game without giving up any major spoilers. While it may get a little predictable at the end with its twists and turns if you play games for the narrative, Unknown 9’s story alone is worth a look. What I can talk about in a bit more detail however is the characters themselves.

Haroona joins up with a group called the The Leap Year Society, a group which Vincent’s Ascendants were once apart of. The Leap Year Society wants to protect the Unknown 9 and are doing everything in their power to stop the Ascendants. The group is led by Luther, a gun slinging American and features a great cast of characters, though the only other main character heavily featured is Buchra.

Each character is easy to connect with and is well portrayed by the voice actors. While the character design leaves a bit to be desired (more on this later), you can’t help but want to see more of the characters, learn more about the Society and build that bond with each of them. Haroona herself however is the highlight of them all, as any protagonist should be. She has a lot of Lara Croft qualities in her which if we ever see a sequel of the game leaves a lot to build on.

Is it 2024 Or 2014?

Now for where things get shaky. There’s a lot of great ideas in Unknown 9 that with some more polish could become great. The stealth mechanics of the game work quite well overall, and as you progress further and the Ascendants use tech to make it more difficult for Haroona to use her powers it really can come together in an enjoyable way. The problem with the combat is once you get caught or decide to go loud.

The combat is very rough around the edges and you can tell it wasn’t the primary focus of developer Reflector Entertainment. I won’t say its outright bad as it can be fun at times, but the camera angles get quite dicey and frustrating and it just feels like a game from 10 years ago. Haroona feels weightless when she fights and I often felt myself just cheesing the combat if I got into that situation. You can just use your powers of pulling people to you which staggers them a brief moment and lets you unleash a more powerful combo while also leaving you invincible to other attacks while you perform it.

And truthfully the worst part about the combat is the camera. There is a lock on feature but it seems rather pointless unless you are just fighting one or 2 enemies (you rarely are if you got caught). I found myself many times punching an enemy who has just suddenly off my screen.

Unknown 9 could also have benefited from a tough more enemy variety. There are only a handful of different enemies and by about halfway through the game you've already encountered all of them. The ones they do slowly introduce such as the gearhead are cool, but I would have liked to see a few more enemy types.

The other negative can be the graphics. I’m not a big graphic snob, and the further I got into the game the locations got more beautiful to look at, but the game in general looks like a game from last generation. The character facial animations aren’t great for this day and age and my initial impression was I was playing an early generation Xbox One game. Considering the game is a more AA style’d game I can look past this a bit more than others likely can.

Multiple times throughout my time with Unknown 9 I couldn’t help but think back to the first Assassin’s Creed. That game has gotten more love over the years, but it was a game at the time with a lot of great ideas and you could see the potential in it if they fleshed the ideas out more and really expanded the game (boy did they ever huh?). That’s what Unknown 9 feels like. There’s something special here if they just fine tune it, but it really needs that fine tuning to bring it out, even more so than Assassin’s Creed did.

It should also be said that Unknown 9 is rather linear. There is a fair bit of little paths the split off to lead to a collectible (theres a lot of collectibles) but all the locations including the city in the early game is more or less just a linear path. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing as everything out there seems to be open world and linear felt like it fit for what they were trying to accomplish, but if you were looking for a bigger open world to explore you won’t find it here.

Summary

There’s a lot to like about Unknown 9: Awakening and I’m glad I played it. The story and characters are among the best of the year, and the skills Haroona possesses and stealth gameplay has it’s moments. Ultimately though the game is held back by its weightless combat and outdated graphics. If Bandai ever gives the franchise another chance there truly is enough here to build upon, but I fear this might be a one and done situation. That said, if you are looking for a game with a great story to connect with like I do, you can absolutely find that in Unknown 9. If you are someone who puts gameplay above all else though, you will likely want to look elsewhere.

Unknown 9: Awakening was reviewed on Xbox Series X.