When we got our hands on Sega’s Otogi: Myth of Demons, we felt much the same way. From the calming music and hauntingly good narration to the frantic mid-air combat and fairy tale demons, nothing seemed out of place. The game oozes style and magic, and its mystical presentation will immediately wow any unassuming gamer. Delve into it, and the game inspires even more awe - until you realize the gameplay is essentially the same from level to level. That’s not a bad thing; Otogi is one of the best button-mashers to hit a next-gen console. But where the role-playing elements are concerned, the game isn’t nearly as deep as its presentation would have you believe.

Players assume the role of Raikoh, a samurai-like warrior who has been called from The Great Beyond to rid the world of demons that threaten to destroy all semblance of peace and prosperity. From fire-breathing gargoyles to light-shooting stone talismans, the variety of demons you’ll encounter is as varied as the number of magic spells and weapons you can equip before each level to vanquish them.

Clearing a stage isn’t necessarily dependent upon defeating all those enemies, though. Rather, it’s achieving the final objective of the level at hand, be it mauling a mini-boss, smashing a sanctuary or obliterating an obstacle that’s keeping good "ki" from flowing through the land.

You may have noticed that those objectives all involve some form of destruction. That’s because destruction is the basic premise of the game: If you build it, Raikoh will come … to blow it up. Yet unlike many games where only certain objects are destructible, Otogi allows you to destroy practically every structure, decoration and landform in the game’s 25 levels. In fact, after you defeat a level, the game will "grade" your performance based upon the destruction you doled out. Smash everything using your sword, staff or another weapon, and you’ll get an A or B. Miss too many structures, and you’ll get a D or F.

In addition to grading your destruction, the level summary also shows the experience points you earned, the amount of gold you earned in a level, the number of spirits you released (through smashing objects, of course) and any magic or weapons you discovered. Herein lie the game’s first two issues, though: experience and gold.

Unlike traditional RPGs, where each enemy gives you a distinct number of experience points, the XP in Otogi seems arbitrarily awarded, which diminishes the connection you have with "leveling up." Increasing your level is key, because there are times where Raikoh is surrounded by literally dozens of projectile-throwing enemies, and you’ll need all the high-level firepower you can muster to make your way out "alive." Yet you never have a concrete sense of "OK, I need to kill 15 enemies and smash three buildings to level up," which leaves the game feeling somewhat scripted in terms of your progression.

Earning gold also feels scripted, predominantly because there’s literally no gold to be found in a level. No coins, no chests, no bags of booty. And since there’s no gold visible anywhere, you never know how to accrue more. Yet earning gold is vital to buying new weapons, new magic, new accessories (like fire-retardant pendants and defense-enhancing trinkets) and for repairing your weapons from the damage they’ve done. This puzzling "collection" system ultimately leaves you going through the game destroying as much as you can, hoping that somehow the game will reward your blind flailing.

Together, these factors make you realize that despite the game’s near-perfect presentation, engrossing audio, gorgeous graphics and fantastic story-telling aspects, Otogi is, at its heart, a button-masher. An outstanding button-masher, to be sure, but a button-masher nonetheless. Smash this, destroy that is the underlying theme. But boy, does it do it well.

Like "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," Sega’s folklore-inspired game allows you to jump up and glide through the air for dozens of scale kilometers, all the while unleashing light attacks, heavy attacks, magic spells and destructive combinations. And just before you touch foot on the ground, you can press the "dash" button to increase your altitude for even more airborne mayhem. It’s magical, to be sure, and an experience that defies what you’ve ever thought a button-masher could be.

This action-packed combat is augmented by the fact that it all takes place without a single drop in framerate, an impressive feat given the graphical quality of this game. Never, in any Xbox game to date, have I seen as many particle effects, bump-mapped surfaces and kooky yet fully animated "things" on the screen simultaneously. Each new enemy has a bizarrely unique design, and the levels are chock full of nooks and crannies with new structures to smash. Words can’t really describe the imagery in Otogi; it’s just its own gorgeous, graphical beast of a game. The type of game you buy just to show your uninitiated friends how gorgeous next-gen video games can be. All I can say is look at our screenshots, then imagine that the game looks twice that good when it’s in motion.

Otogi is equally strong in the audio category, from its Dolby-supported narration in the dark (a la the last few scenes in "The Neverending Story") to the rewarding sound of walls crumbling around you as your attacks hit their mark. Particularly well-executed, though, is the dichotomous presentation of peace and battle. Before each level, the music maintains a Zen-like calm, while water droplets echo with each menu choice. Enter a level, though, and wind swirls around you, demons break the silence with crow-like caws and Raikoh yells out unintelligible words with each heavy strike. Surprisingly, the main character has no voice acting, but that ultimately contributes to the fairy tale-like feel.

And when all is said and done, a "fairy tale" is precisely what Otogi sets out to be. Based on Japanese folklore, the game reproduces the same magical, distant-but-somehow-still-of-this-world experience people fell in love with in the movie "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." How many times you watched that movie was dependent upon how often you wanted to be transported in time and place. Likewise, how often you replay Otogi will be determined by your desire to destroy everything in its mystical levels or button-mash your way through yet another round of unearthly demons.

In both cases, the presentation, magic and mystery are there, awaiting your arrival like a storybook awaiting its next reader. Otogi may not be without its flaws, but what’s there is done well, and the whole package generally compensates for a few individual missteps.

See more screens on the Otogi: Myth of Demons media page