Beast of Reincarnation's combat looks slick and demanding in new gameplay overview

Game Freak have pulled back the curtain on how their highly-anticipated fantasy soulslike Beast of Reincarnation actually plays. The developer shared a new combat overview that walks through the fundamentals, from single mobs to towering boss encounters, ahead of the game's release on August 4.

In case you're unfamiliar with it, Beast of Reincarnation is an action RPG from the Pokémon developer that pairs a young protagonist called Emma with her doggo companion Koo. 

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The combat will immediately look familiar to anyone who's spent time with a soulslike. Enemies carry two gauges: health up top, and a down gauge below that fills as you pressure them, opening the way for a finishing takedown.

Parrying is also a big deal. Time a deflection correctly and you take no damage, and each successful parry tops up the FP gauge in the corner of the screen. Fill it and you can trigger a Bloom Art, a special attack that dumps a hefty chunk into the enemy's stun gauge and sets up a one-hit finish.

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Parries feed the FP gauge, which powers Bloom Arts.

Of course, none of this is new, and it would be silly to pretend otherwise. Down gauges, parrying and stagger finishers are well-worn genre furniture at this point. What matters is the execution, and on the evidence of the footage you can see above, it looks smooth and quick, with a real sense of weight. It also looks properly demanding as you'd expect from a souslike game.

The dog is where things get more interesting. Rather than a pet trotting along behind you, the beast is woven directly into the combat loop. The overview shows how you can use Koo in boss and group fights, with one initiating and the other finishing, and techniques like "Higanbana: Roots" pinning up to three enemies at once, opening the possibility for Koo's attack.

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Each area houses a powerful boss, whose heavy blows can still be deflected with the right timing.

We also got to see a towering boss whose attacks can be successfully parried (we wonder if this will be the case for all bosses) and overall, it all looks smooth and intriguing to the point where we can't wait to get our hands and test it.

Beast of Reincarnation launches on 4 August for PC, Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5.