Unknown 9: Awakening

I really enjoyed Unknown 9: Awakening; I loved its pulpy globetrotting action tone and likable cast, and the combat and stealth were rather a lot of fun. The ability to remote control foes and turn them against their allies was a cool unique mechanic that, if anything, could have stood to be even more central to the gameplay. Despite some less-than-stellar boss fights and a somewhat shallow main villain, I had a very good time with Unknown 9: Awakening, and so might you. Hopefully it, and the rest of the Unknown 9 expanded universe, will find enough of an audience that we will see more of Haroona’s story in the future.

Unknown 9: Awakening is a thoroughly AA gaming experience. Like a lost gem from the Xbox 360 era, its charm and jank are intermingled in interesting ways, but its commitment to a unique cultural perspective and killer remixing of the stealth/combat loop elevate it above its slightly unpolished wrappings.

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 generally solid action-adventure mystery let down by irritatingly repetitive combat encounters in the game's later half. The character dialogue and environmental exploration are a highlight, keeping me playing even when other aspects annoyed me.

An adventure with a strong emphasis on narrative, plagued by a far from optimal technical side but more engaging than you might believe.

Mixed feelings for an adventure that has flashes of brilliance, but fails to live up to expectations in the technical aspects and in some aspects of gameplay. If you are a big fan of the genre, you can give it a chance and maybe some aspects will surprise you.

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.

Unknown 9 Awakening is a competent title with some outdated and flawed designs, but with a larger universe and lore that is undeniably compelling. It’s well worth dealing with the rough edges if that idea excites you (especially at its reduced price tag!).

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.

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.

Unknown 9 suffers from technical hick-ups and gameplay-imbalances. Stealth is fun, but too easy for veterans. Handling and combat turn out stiff. Yet again, Unknown 9 can be satisfying and motivating and delivers a fresh setting.

Unknown 9: Awakening may not be perfect, but it’s not a failure, either. Amongst its advantages are unique combat mechanics and picturesque scenery. Generally speaking, I enjoyed the title. On the other hand, the game struggles with technical problems. Sluggish controls and visual issues spoil the overall experience.

Unknown 9: Awakening may not be a groundbreaking title, but it offers a fun and engaging journey through an imaginative world that fans of mystery and light fantasy may enjoy. Clocking in at around 10 hours, it offers just enough intrigue to encourage players to see it through to the end, even if it doesn’t spark an immediate desire to dive into all other Unknown 9 media. While the game isn’t flawless and doesn’t belong among the year’s best, it provides a pleasant surprise, outshining initial expectations. The biggest shortcoming is that it often feels like a limited budget production, that would have needed more polishing to hide the rough edges.

Overty ambitious, but marred by glitches and lack of polish, this game borrows many elements from famous games in history with some new ideas. The setting is great, but the scope seems too big for a debut title. Hopefully this isn't the last we've seen from this new universe.

Quotation forthcoming.

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.

Dated and flawed in several aspects, Unknown 9: Awakening is a half-delivered proposal without much quality. There are positive points to praise, such as the universe presented and an interesting combat system, but the overall package is mediocre and below what it could be.

The result of a troubled development that lasted much longer than expected, Unknown 9: Awakening is the “victim” of the exaggerated ambitions of a very young Reflector Entertainment, which chose to immediately dive headfirst into the creation of a complex transmedia universe. Despite all its burdensome technical and gameplay limitations, the narrative adventure offered to us by Bandai Namco is intriguing and fun, especially if tackled in stealth at the highest difficulty levels. The crossmedia imagery of Unknown 9 may ultimately not have started off on the right foot in the videogame field, but its potential - which remains largely unexpressed - is undeniable.

With high hopes, I embarked on Haroona’s adventure, longing for a nostalgic single-player experience like the ones we used to have. However, in my experience, that "back in the day" feeling felt more like a memory. In many ways, the game has that distinct last-gen bargain-bin vibe. The influences of titles like Uncharted and Tomb Raider are unmistakable, but the repetitive combat and uninspired platforming leave much to be desired. The game is somewhat saved by its set pieces, story, and the strong performance of Anya Chalotra.

Unknown 9: Awakening from developer Reflector Entertainment and publisher Bandai Namco Entertainment is a game more about what could have been rather than what turned out to be. With a better story that builds out the world, its characters, and more interesting enemies, the game would have been more of what it intended. It had the makings of a good fantasy/sci-fi action adventure but just didn’t make it there.

It's charming enough, but that's about it. Somewhere inside Unknown 9, there is a really good game that would like to be released, but I'm not sure we'll see that moment.

Unknown 9: Awakening boasts great combat and an ambitious story, but performance issues are too many to look past.

This could easily have become a real hit of the best double-A kind if the game had received just a little more time, a slightly bigger budget and more polish. Unfortunately, the experience is also muddled by bad combat, clumsy directing and several problems of the technical and visual kind. Still, it's not hard to gleam the diamond in the rough here, and hopefully the developers at Reflector will be given more opportunities in the future after their debut, because there is definitely a lot of potential here.

Is it due to the fact that the game is released on both the previous and current generation gaming consoles, which limited the developers? The game takes itself very seriously, and we can't imagine that they deliberately left one of the most annoying elements of the previous console generation - the many (hidden) loading screens - in the game unless there was a technical need for it. Add to that the wooden and terribly dated character and facial animations, and the result at least does not live up to what you should expect from a video game anno 2024.

Unknown 9: Awakening is not inherently bad, but it's not really good, either. The fun seems to be caught in the rift between worlds.

Unknown 9: Awakening has several intriguing ideas regarding its gameplay. However, its novelty fades quickly due to a lack of variety in enemies. Additionally, everything deteriorates because of inferior performance plagued by frame drops and programming errors.

Unknown 9: Awakening is a single-player adventure with enormous potential, mixing stimulating gameplay and a mysterious universe. The game offers some very memorable moments, but the average graphics and poor performance prevent it from being one of the most enjoyable experiences of the year.

The concept of a transmedia project, with Unknown 9: Awakening serving as an ideal entry point for new users, was intriguing. However, the video game ultimately falls short due to numerous issues. While the story provides a foundation for understanding the broader world of Unknown 9, its lack of creative flair and uninteresting characters do little to entice players to explore the rest of the narrative universe. Additionally, the gameplay structure is overly basic, plagued by various technical problems, and features a stealth component that feels all too familiar. The combat system also shows multiple flaws, saved only slightly by the enjoyable use of powers, especially in the later stages—though these powers end up breaking the game, making it too easy. Overall, the launch of this new multimedia project is off to a less than stellar start.

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.

While the concept of the game is certainly interesting, the title unfortunately falls short in many areas. The combat feels too clumsy, the AI is not very smart and exploring the world is constantly discouraged, which breaks the immersion. In addition, the performance is inconsistent. That aside, the game does excel in its stealth components and level design. The voice work is also fine, but to say that makes the game a must play. Not really.

Unknown 9: Awakening is a work that lives within the contradictions between AAA video game ambitions and ideas, and an execution that falls below contemporary standards: while Reflector Entertainment has focused everything on telling the story of Haroona (Anya Chalotra) and building the universe of the Nine Unknown, the technical execution has ended up becoming an insurmountable obstacle.

There's potential in Unknown 9: Awakening. The story and setting are fascinating, since so few games are set at the cusp of World War I. Haroona's powers add an enthralling wrinkle to the stealth and combat systems. The experience falls apart when you scrutinize some of these gameplay mechanics, and the bad bugs and mediocre presentation heavily reduce the game's potential. Give it a few patches, and maybe the title will end up being a guilty pleasure for those looking for a straightforward adventure game, but don't expect to uncover a hidden masterpiece.

Unknown 9: Awakening is the best PS3-era adventure game released in 2024. It has everything I remember from the genre during that time, and it managed to hold my interest until the conclusion. While the story eventually comes together, the pacing getting there is plagued with flimsy character growth and world-building. The character dynamics and relationships are also lacking due to the genuinely emotionless design of this cast, which also affects the pacing. You eventually play for the combat alone, but even that becomes a repetitive mess. I hope to see more from this team because we don’t get enough of these classic adventure games.

Unknown 9: Awakening is not a total failure, but it is not a guiding star on the video game horizon either. It may have had the potential to become something bigger, but the current execution leaves a lot of room for improvement. If you want a fun way to an unforgettable adventure, maybe you should look elsewhere.

Limited stealth, clunky combat, easy puzzles, and technical problems... There are some moments of fun, but they are buried under layers of lack of Polish, distraction, and low production value.

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.

While many AA games manage to cleverly hide a small budget, the developers of Unknown 9: Awakening have failed in this art. Every element of this game reminds us that we are dealing with an underdeveloped product that proved too challenging for Reflector Entertainment. I don't understand why the studio didn't pick one style of gameplay and focus its limited resources on it. Add to this the poor performance of the PS5 version and serious technical problems, and you get a below-average title.

Part of a mixed media web, Unknown 9: Awakening isn't strong enough to pull us further into its universe. Anya Chalotra's Haroona is a great protagonist, and causing havoc with supernatural powers can be a delight. But, lacking in polish, Unknown 9: Awakening feels torn between what it wants to be, ultimately undermining its areas of promise to deliver a janky experience. Despite it all, it can still charm – but takes work to love.

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.

You could also call it derivative and crudely executed, and no transmedia offering can compensate for that. [Issue#404, p.112]

The opening video game chapter of the Unknown 9 universe is not great. The combat is disappointing, the animations undercooked, and the performance takes a nosedive throughout the second half of the game. Some stunning vistas, but hardly enough to warrant a recommendation.

Unknown 9 shows potential, but never comes close to realizing it. It smugly drowns in a flat story, with awful, repetitive combat. The enemy possession mechanic is too simplistic and underutilized, and the stealth sequences feel like a rehash of countless other games. Despite the actors doing their best to sell it, you never get to truly explore or connect with its intriguing world.

Unknown 9: Awakening has a unique story but suffers from poor execution, leading to a disconnect with the world and characters. Clunky controls, sluggish animations, and limited enemy AI further hinder the experience. As it stands, the game isn't worth recommending.