Video Game / Reynatis

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Reynatis is a 2024 Japanese Urban Fantasy action RPG video game published by FuRyu and developed by Natsume. Kazushige Nojima writes the game’s scenario and Yoko Shimomura composes the score.

Set in a modern day Shibuya where magic is real and feared, the game follows Marin Kirizumi, a young wizard seeking freedom as he comes into conflict with an organization set on keeping magic under control, the Magical Enforcement Agency (M.E.A.), in particular Officer Nishijima and her squad. The game was released on PC (via Steam), Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5. It was launched in Japan July 25, 2024 and internationally through NIS America in September 27.

Reynatis includes examples of the following:

• An Ice Person: Ukai's signature skills involve ice magic, his first one being a delayed floor trap that freezes enemies into a block, so he or the others can wail on them with impunity.
• Animal Motifs: Birds. The M.E.A. has the symbol of a white crow, and the capes used for some of their troops resemble feathers. Then, there are the Shibuya Owls who are a mutual-aid group for neutral wizards.
• Anti-Armor: One of Dogo's signature Wizarts involves a powerful rush that will shatter enemy armor bars, so you can stagger them and damage their health. It can be taught to the others, as with most wizarts, but his high attack and close, up-front combat style fits it most.
• Crossover: The cast meets some of the characters from NEO: The World Ends with You where they take part in a Reaper's Game. It also features enemies and locations from the aforementioned game.
• Carry a Big Stick: Moa's weapon of choice is magical hammer. Though it can be used to cast spells, such as floating bunnies that damage anyone that gets near her, she more-often-than-not just uses it to beat threats to death or submission.
• Cute and Psycho: Moa is a young girl dressed up in pastel lolita style, carrying around a dainty parasol and a bunny-themed hoodie. In combat, her umbrella transforms into a hammer, she viciously swings it around to beat the living daylights out of any of their enemies, human, damned, or monster, and her after-combat quote sounds very delighted that she had a chance to spill blood just then.
• Dirty Cop:
  • The M.E.A. has no shortage of corruption and problem officers. An early example is a desk officer intentionally letting a well-known addict do away with a kilo of rubrum from evidence, to have him transform into a damned and cause a scene. A later, more dramatic example is when the Vice Deputy decides to murder Nishijima squad as part of a cover-up, and to punish Nishijima for letting the Guild put a mole in M.EA. headquarters to begin with.
  • The City Watch are, officially speaking, legally-sanctioned civilian law enforcers, recruited for their keen senses that allow them to detect the presence of magic. In actuality, they're more often than not violent roving mobs of cowards who harass, beat, and lynch the families of wizards, because they're too weak to actually pose a threat to genuine wizards.
• Downer Ending: DLC Chapter 34 ends with Marin in a coma, The consul ruling Japan and Moa, Nika, Sari, Dogo and Ukai are revealed to have been Killed Offscreen.
• Dying Race: Part of the Guild's issues is implied to be the gradual drop in legacies, people who were born wizards.
• Explosive Leash: Michiro uses a twofold version: not only does it have an explosive tied to a dead man's switch and his vital signs, it also functions as a shock collar activated via smartphone app.
• Fantastic Drug: Rubrum is a magician-produced pill that allows the user to use magic, alongside the other usual benefits of pleasant highs. It's highly addictive and capable of transforming the users into the damned, violent, impulsive criminals or outright humanoid abominations. Nishijima's primary goal is to totally eradicate it.
• Fantastic Racism: In the trailer, wizards are described as “the nails that stick out”, with there being a whole government agency dedicated to taking out dangerous wizards, called "strays." Social media will explode in a fire storm at any sight of illegal magical activity, prompting a swift response from the M.E.A.
  • Nika was the victim of anti-discrimination that doomed her education and career prospects. She was a highly-skilled track and field runner since middle school, and had the eye of corporations and universities that wanted to sponsor her. Then, she was outed as a witch, she was unfairly accused of using magic to break records, and all her prestige and achievements dried up in an instant.
  • Even the wizards commit it on each other. Within the Guild, the biggest organization for wizards, the legacies, wizards-by-birth, constantly look down on replicas, people who awakened their powers later in life. The latter are oftentimes used as pawns for the former's scheming.
• First-Name Basis: Ukai refers to Nishijima, his commanding officer, as "Sari-chan" or just "Sari" in the English localization. It's less a term of endearment and a sign of how close they are, more showing Ukai's laxness, casual attitude, and disregard for the rules and professionalism.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: In Chapter 3, Ukai talks about his "crow," an under-the-table informant about illegal wizard activities and magic in general. Shortly after, you meet Odajima, just as his rubrum addiction is hitting a critical point and he begs Ukai to kill him and wipe him from the record.
• Gameplay and Story Integration:
  • Sari Nishijima is a very well-known M.E.A. officer, quite literally being the face of the organization in their PR outreach efforts and billboards. As she is a legally-sanctioned wizard meant to hunt other wizards, she can Liberate her magic any time in public and no citizens will freak out, they'll just refuse to talk to her out of nervousness. The same goes for the rest of her squad like Ukai and Dogo. This changes after they are almost killed in the coverup during the M.E.A. HQ raid, and citizens are now aware they're wanted criminals and will freak out if they liberate themselves. This is not helped by them walking around with clearly unaffiliated wizards, like Marin and the rest of the Owls.
  • The City Watch are described as cowardly non-wizards who deliberately target the weak and vulnerable family members of wizards, because they can't actually pose a real threat to actual wizards like the M.E.A. can. In your first fight with them, they are pathetically weak, going down in one or two hits. They don't get much better over the course of the game, too, being one of the weakest enemies you can fight.
  • As you continue through the game, the M.E.A. suffers increasingly devastating defeats and scandals both from within and without. You will start seeing less and less M.E.A. officers about especially when even Nishijima Squad are kicked out and are declared kill-on-sight, and thanks to how many of them you lethally dispatch, it's little wonder their numbers are dropping so precipitously even without resignations.
• Gameplay Grading: Every combat encounter gives a bonus in money and experience if the player does well. Some stats include high combo counts, using "Burst Liberation" with a full MP bar, and making liberal use of both skills and the character switching system, all of which contribute to an incredibly stylish fight.
• Good Old Fisticuffs: Officer Dogo of the M.E.A. uses no weapon, just protective gloves for his hands. Compared to the flashiness and the elegance of his fellow officers, his fighting style is purely beating enemies into submission with his fists.
• Government Agency of Fiction: The trailer describes the Azure Justice Magic officers as this - a government agency of wizards who enforce order with extreme prejudice.
• Grey-and-Gray Morality: Both major factions, the M.E.A., and the Guild are portrayed as not entirely good but not completely bad, either.
  • The M.E.A. are an oppressive, authoritarian police force that either integrates wizards into their ranks or cracks down on them with impunity. They help run treatment facilities for rubrum addicts, but thanks to the social stigma of being even associated with wizards, the public registries will destroy the reputations of both the patients and their families. Their numbers have steadily been dropping as both a result of the lethal hazards they face daily and dwindling public trust, resulting in lower recruiting numbers and retention problems. However, they do legitimately try to keep the peace, responding quickly to dangerous wizard, damned, and monster threats, and they are, at the start of the game, the best chance at beating back the Guild.
  • The Guild are a wizard-only organized crime organization, who is rumored to be the source of the addictive rubrum drugs and responsible for countless magical crimes, as well. They are run by legacies who discriminate and abuse their replica underlings, with the latter oftentimes feeling like just tools for them. However, the society and their illegal operations probably wouldn't have been necessary if the government and the public weren't so violently discriminatory and oppressive of wizards, with the Guild effectively being one of the only ways for wizards to guarantee their ability to exist at least semi-free under an oppressive society.
• Guns Akimbo: Officer Ukai prefers fighting using two pistols at the same time.
• Foreshadowing: One of the earliest sidequests involves Nishijima squad taking down posters of Sari, mistakenly sent out for printing than the approved version. While this is played for laughs, it becomes much more dramatic when they're taking down wanted posters of themselves, after the M.E.A. tries to murder them in a cover-up.
• Functional Addict: Michiro is revealed to be a rubrum addict, having used the drug during their research into the applications of magic. They keep their Damned transformation at bay by extracting wizard blood from the Owls, since rubrum is made from it.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: Both protagonists, Marin and Nishijima, both prefer to use magical swords. Marin has an extremely large European-style longsword, while Nishijima has a katana.
• Horror Hunger: Why do the damned keep hunting down our magical protagonists? Because they're rubrum addicts, the drug is made from the blood of wizards, and when they're out of rubrum, they're compelled to just get their fix "unrefined."
• Humanoid Abomination: Rubrum addiction's latest stages transforms the user into an ugly, violent monster.
• In the Hood: Marin's preferred way of invoking his Suppressed mode is to pull up his hoodie, ad small ritual to help him hide his magic in public. The other illegal wizards do the same, or alternatively use hats or visors.
• Instant Emergency Response: Especially during the curfew hour late at night, M.E.A. officers respond extremely quickly to any reports of illegal magical activity. From the moment any of the illegal wizards, "strays," reveal themselves in public through Liberated mode, it will only take less than 5 minutes for them to appear and start enforcing the law swiftly and violently.
• The Nicknamer: Moa, in fitting with her cutesy, child-like personality, refers to her teammates by nicknames, "Nikanika" for Nika and "Maririn" for Marin.
• The Perfectionist: Though Nishijima is always a stickler for the rules and keen on performing at her best at all times, the levels she goes to can get ridiculous. One sidequest involves finding and ripping out a PR poster of Nishijima that was mistakenly sent out with the approved batch. The whole while, Ukai says he can't tell the difference between any of the approved posters and even the offending poster, because the flaw was Nishijima's nose was a little shiny in the rejected version.
• Sanity Meter: Stress is your character's ability to suppress their magic, as it's an inherently taxing, sustained act. At max level, they'll no longer be able to Suppress their magic and automatically Liberate it. Little issue for Sari, as she's both quite popular among the people and a government agent who has a license to use magic in public, big issue for Marin and the other illegal wizards. Keeping it low will give the group buffs like higher defense in combat.
• Shock and Awe: Ukai and Nika both have access to lightning-based spells that can damage several enemies at once. Ukai has magical Chain Lightning, Nika can summon a Thunder Demon that shocks the ground around it once it lands.
• Suicide by Cop: Odajima, Ukai's "crow" turns out to be a serious rubrum addict and already transforming into a damned. As committing himself to a treatment facility will have him put on the record and destroy his family's reputations via association, he chooses to seek out Ukai to take him out discreetly and not commit him to the record.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: By virtue of the explosive shock collars Michiro has given them, Nishijima Squad is initially very reluctant to work with the Shibuya Owls. The team quickly warm up to each other, but the numerous humorous and dramatic uses of the "Zap" app and the constant worry about Michiro's dead man's switch activating remind the player this partnership wouldn't survive them being removed prematurely.
• Tragic Monster: The Shibuya Owls specialize in dealing with "fools," tragic victims of magical crimes that resort to desperate measures to exact justice and their desires. Usually, this involves rubrum, addiction, and holding off their Damned transformation through sheer force of will. Some of them include a man falling into rubrum addiction and transforming in Scramble Crossing to ensure others are scared from ever trying the stuff, and a man who killed the rubrum dealer who supplied his wife and destroyed his family, driving him to the same drug to have the magic necessary to get his vengeance.
• Transforming Weapon: In order to hide their magic while still being armed, stray wizards oftentimes carry a mundane item that can transform into a much more dangerous weapon once they Liberate their magic. Marin's is a mechanical pencil that transforms into a large sword, Moa's umbrella becomes a hammer.
• Traumatic Superpower Awakening: "Replicas" are wizards that awakened their powers after almost dying, be it by injuries or sickness. Most of the wizard population are these, and are oftentimes derided by the wizards-by-birth, "legacies." The term comes from the legacies believing they aren't "genuine" wizards, just cheap knock-offs. The exact events that awakened the cast's are oftentimes the subject of the optional group chats:
  • Nika was kidnapped, attacked with a knife, and left for dead in a field, surviving thanks to her magic and being found by someone.
  • Ukai fell out of his rowing team's boat, and was struck in the head by the other one.
  • Dogo suffered a traumatic head injury while playing rugby, his former sport.
• Tokyo Is the Center of the Universe: The trailer displays a shot of Shibuya, complete with the crossing and the 109 building.
• Wanted Meter: Illegal wizards, "strays," revealing or using their magic in view of random citizens and especially officers will start a social media frenzy and alert the Azure Justice to your presence. The M.E.A will send increasingly stronger troops the more you're still standing, and especially if you defeat the ones coming after you.
• Younger than She Looks: Moa is 20, but you wouldn't guess that looking at her fondness for pastel lolita, her bunny hoodie, and her generally being quite small and petite even with platform heels.