The studio behind Pokémon struggles to find its voice in Beast of Reincarnation

You have to imagine that the team at Game Freak is bursting with ideas. The studio puts out new mainline Pokémon adventures with a machinelike precision.

But every so often it launches a curious experiment, whether it's an action title about a militarized elephant or turning horse races into a card game, showing that it's capable of more than the latest generation of pocket monsters.