Onimusha: Way of the Sword Review – Capcom Does It Again Action
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Onimusha: Way of the Sword Review – Capcom Does It Again

Going into Onimusha: Way of the Sword fairly blind as a first-timer to the franchise (don’t you judge me), I was quickly surprised by how it balanced a gorgeously haunting art style and some of the most bad-ass action I’ve seen of late, together with some unexpected playful humour that made me laugh out loud.

But whether you’re an old-school Onimusha fan who’s already played the demo 3 times, or a complete noob to the franchise like me, you’re going to want to hear this, because after already spitting fire with Resident Evil Requiem and Pragmata earlier this year, it seems like Capcom’s about to go 3 for 3.

Watch the Video Review, or continue reading below:

So… What Even Is Onimusha?

it’s true, despite doing this for a very long time, I barely even knew what an Onimusha game looked like. I’d always heard the name, but never actually crossed paths with one myself.

After doing some gamez jurlizms and researching the franchise, I found out the first ones were meant to be like Resident Evil games, but with demons and samurai in Japan, and also, they’ve never quite stuck to just one genre, so let’s clear up what kind of game this is and then launch into my impressions.

Miyamoto Musashi: 60-1 K/D

Onimusha: Way of the Sword is basically a third-person action game where you play as a fictional version of Miyamoto Musashi, a real-life samurai that apparently kicked the bucket from old age with a 60-1 K/D ratio, but only after also authoring The Book of Five Rings. Talk about sweaty. Except in this story, he gets killed by demon-things called Genma and then gets gifted a strange gauntlet which gives him powers, before being reluctantly resurrected as an Onimusha, whose job it is to use the gauntlet’s power to turn Spider-Man into dust to defeat and banish those pesky Genma bastards.

In this game, he’s a bad-ass but also a bit of a goofball, which makes for some really fun cutscenes and bits of dialogue.

Not Quite Souls. Not Quite Devil May Cry.

Way of the Sword is slower and more methodical than something like Devil May Cry, but it’s also not a “Souls-like”. It kinda sits somewhere in the middle, and I gotta say, I really like it (well, except for one aspect which I’ll get back to soon).

The gameplay and sword combat is fun and varied, with tons of options for attacking, dodging, countering and all that. And the game bounces between some adventure and missions around a small open Kyoto map, and the main linear missions and levels which really deliver the real meat of the experience. It comes with everything else you might expect from this sort of game, some basic resources, items, weapon unlocks, skill progression and all that jazz, and it’s really been a blast so far.

Capcom Is Just Flexing Now

You’ll also notice how damn good-looking this game is on console. Not just that, but the character animations, enemy design and art direction really are quite something, and honestly, can we really expect anything less from CAPCOM at this point? They’re just flexing. I also did the math and the game comes with around 2.7 gazillion different ways to set up your graphics modes, and while I know I’m a weirdo that spends too much time fiddling with this stuff compared to most, I ended up opting to play in the 120Hz quality mode with an unlocked framerate, but then swapping over to the 120Hz full unlocked performance mode for boss battles. The drop in resolution and quality was pretty heavy, but I needed all the help I could get.

And Then the Bosses Happened…

AND THIS brings me onto the one single part of Onimusha: Way of the Sword that I haven’t enjoyed quite as much as the rest. While combat is fun and challenging in missions, the boss battles managed to get my blood boiling, and often.

I really didn’t like how bosses would ignore attacks and use my moves as triggers to just start panellining me instead. That… combined with every second boss move leaving you unable to move for periods of time, made way too many battles feel like an exercise in frustration where I felt stuck in the mud, with enemy attack timing that makes you permanently feel like there’s an attack about to hit you the moment that you regain your movement again.

Too many deaths, many of which make you have to start the entire encounter over, made me want to blame the game and boss battle design rather than making me wonder what I should have done better. Maybe I’ve just been spoiled by the incredible combat design of games like Sekiro and Elden Ring, but in any case, despite my disdain for the boss encounters, they aren’t a total deal breaker, and you can do things like turn on action prompts in the settings or lower the difficulty settings just for that section if you really need to. But it really only stuck out to me BECAUSE the rest of the game feels so precise and perfect in so many ways.

Samurai by Guy Ritchie

Aside from the boss battles, anything else is just nitpicking, like… how when in English voice mode, Musashi sounds like someone who fell out of a Guy Ritchie gangster movie and many of the enemies sound like British pirates and thugs. I dunno, it just feels like this would all have gone down better if they had people speak English but with Japanese accents. Then again, sometimes the goofiness is kinda funny.

VERDICT:

Onimusha: Way of the Sword really just oozes quality in so many ways, with awesome combat, story cutscenes, characters, combat and levels. Coming in completely blind has been a great surprise, and if previous Onimusha games are anything like this, then I really have some retro gaming to do.

Well done, Capcom. In my eyes, that’s absolutely 3 for 3 this year with Resident Evil Requiem, Pragmata and now Onimusha: Way of the Sword.

If you’re interested in checking out my reviews for those and more, you can do so by subscribing or clicking right here:

 
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