What is Otogi?

Demon’s Souls’ secret ancestor: a 2002 Xbox game where you could smash the demons’ whole city down.

Otogi: Myth of Demons was released in Japan on December 12, 2002 and in North America on August 26, 2003, published by Sega for the Xbox. Its hero is Raikoh Minamoto, an undead executioner modelled on the historical Minamoto no Yorimitsu, sent through a Heian-capital demon outbreak with a choice of dozens of weapons and stages built to be destroyed, buildings, arches and bridges come down in combat, a technical flourish far ahead of the era. GameSpot named it the best Xbox game of its release month, and nominated it for the most honest award in games: Best Game No One Played.

The lineage is on the record in its credits and in retrospectives alike: its producer, Masanori Takeuchi, went on to produce Demon’s Souls; its designer, Kazuhiro Hamatani, became a designer on Bloodborne; and Demon’s Souls’ own listed inspirations name Otogi beside Ico and Zelda. A sequel, Otogi 2: Immortal Warriors, followed in 2003.

Otogi: Myth of Demons Xbox box art — **OTOGI · 2002** Otogi: Myth of Demons (Xbox, 2002), FromSoftware’s Heian-period action game — the studio’s cult detour between King’s Field and the Souls era.

THE ANCESTOR

Otogi · 2002

Otogi Myth of Demons North American Xbox box, red cover with Raikoh

Otogi · 2002 · the Western box

Sega’s North American box, all impact type. In Japan the title is O·TO·GI, 御伽, the word for the companion who sits up all night telling tales to the dead.

Destruction as design

The sequel’s reviewers noted what the first game pioneered: scenery that does not reset. Modern USgamer retrospectives make the case plainly, Dark Souls owes this game a debt its audience never saw being incurred.

What is Otogi?

THE ANCESTOR

THE FIRST WORD