Keep your tomatoes holstered for a moment, please, and hear me out.

Beast of Reincarnation, the new not-Pokémon action RPG game from Pokémon studio Game Freak, has been marketed as a “one-person, one-dog” game. You play as Emma (person) while she and Koo (dog) venture around a post-apocalyptic future Japan in search of giant, ugly monsters to parry and stab. Koo helps you in combat, and in exploration as well. And that’s where my issue with him arises.

Koo just won’t stop sucking out all the fun of exploring. Bad dog.

While Beast of Reincarnation isn’t quite an open-world game, it does feature some large maps that are rife with off-the-beaten paths to explore and hidden items to find. Well, except they would be hidden… if Koo wasn’t pointing out literally everything the game has to offer.

I can’t take two steps in a new direction without Koo pointing something out in the form of a distracting on-screen pop-up message. Koo found a book! Koo found a valuable item! Koo found a........

© Polygon