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I remember Takeshi Kaneshiro’s mug being plastered all over gaming magazines back in the day as the poster boy for Capcom’s brand-new I.P., Onimusha. I remember them resurrecting deceased actor (waaaaaay before Disney even thought of bringing back Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia) Yusaku Matsuda to take the lead in the sequel, as Jubei Yagyu. I also remember Jean Reno (seriously, that’s a really weird pick) being chosen to share lead duties (it was rumored Tom Cruise was going to be in Onimusha 3 for the longest time) for Onimusha 3. For Onimusha: Way of the Sword, Capcom’s tapped late actor Toshiro Mifune to play the lead.
Mifune is a critically acclaimed actor and more than deserving to be the lead, but honestly, I (and I think many gamers) don’t really care whose face is on the cover. The most important thing is that the game itself is fun to play. Everything else is secondary.
So…is Onimusha: Way of the Sword fun to play?
What is Onimusha: Way of the Sword?
Onimusha: Way of the Sword is a 3D action adventure title developed and published by Capcom. It is available right now on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S consoles, and PC.
Our review code was awesomely provided by the kind folks over at Capcom! Thank thee so much!
I’ll be reviewing the game on our usual trio of gaming rigs.
Their specs are:
Desktop 1 –
– MSI B550M Mortar WIFI
– AMD Ryzen 9 5900X with NZXT Kraken X73 RGB Liquid Cooler
– MSI GeForce RTX 4090 Suprim X 24G
– Teamgroup T-Force Dark Z 64GB DDR4 RAM
– Samsung 980 PRO 2TB SSD
– NZXT C1200 Gold ATX 3.1
– Lian Li LANCOOL III RGB case
Desktop 2 –
– MSI MPG X870E Carbon WiFi
– AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D with Cooler Master MasterLiquid 360L Core ARGB cooler
– Sapphire Pulse AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX 24GB
– G.SKILL Trident Z5 NEO 32GB DDR5-6400 RAM
– Samsung 990 PRO 2TB SSD
– Corsair RM850x PSU
– Lian Li LANCOOL 207 Digital
Notebook –
MSI Raider GE78 HX 14V
– Intel Core i9 14900HX
– NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090
– 32GB DDR5 RAM
– 1TB SSD
There’s a lot of nice things to say about Onimusha: Way of the Sword technically. It uses Capcom’s RE Engine to power it, which has been proven in all of Capcom’s recent titles, including Resident Evil Requiem and the upcoming Resident Evil Veronica. It’s a flexible powerhouse, and I’ve never had issues with it in past games.
I never have issues with it here, either.
I ran the game on all three rigs, all at either 4K for the desktops or 2560 x 1600 for the notebook. Everything was on max settings, with DLSS or FSR set to Balanced. I tried DLAA, but the results were a bit mixed (there was some stuttering when clashing swords), so I just went with good old DLSS instead.
No hitches. No hiccups. No problems.
Everything ran smoothly, fights ran fluidly, stages loaded in a decent amount of time, and there wasn’t any surprise texture pop-in (like you’d get in Unreal Engine games) to jar you out of the illusion. Onimusha: Way of the Sword is a squared-away piece of software if you have the hardware needed to run it well.
Onimusha: Way of the Sword is a continuation of the Onimusha series, though it’s set further into the future (not counting the modern-day segments in Onimusha 3) than Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams. It’s now early 1600s Edo, which is about a decade or so after the events of Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams.
Genma (aka demons) are running amok in Japan once more. As before, the Oni (not really, though, this time around) have chosen a warrior to bestow upon the Oni Gauntlet, an instrument that can stand against the Genma and beat them back into Hell. That warrior is Miyamoto Musashi, the legendary swordsman.
You don’t need prior knowledge to play Onimusha: Way of the Sword, because it’s pretty much a soft reboot with very little (other than some enemies) drawn from the earlier games. No returning characters (though some posit that Takamoto and Okuni are characters from past games with an assumed new identity) and no reference to earlier events at all.
In short, while the past games do exist in this game’s continuity, the events in this game don’t really need callbacks to the others.
The story here is rather basic. Okay, it’s your run-of-the-mill revenge story. It’s nothing surprising at all. But you know what? It’s all fine. This isn’t an RPG. The plot is just the means to take you from place to place, slicing and dicing like an overeager Ginsu (or whatever flavour-of-the-month knife there is) blade.
Bodies will flop over, limbs lopped off. Cut in half. Decapitated. Bisected. All sorts of nasty things done to them…by you. It’s all what it means to be Miyamoto Musashi.
Hell, even the gameplay’s changed in the new game.
Instead of linear stages (with or without a home base to strike from) like in past games, you can now travel freely between locations. There’s also a central location (East Kyoto) that you can free roam in – doing side quests and finding upgrade materials. East Kyoto slowly expands over time too, giving you access to more distractions (like finding Lady Murasaki’s Lion Dogs) and more chances to find fights and upgrade stuff.
The plot does seem like it’s padded out somewhat, though…the sections clearing out the rifts in East Kyoto seem suspiciously like busywork to me. There’s nothing really substantial or mechanically new to introduce…you’re just meant to do it because it’ll add an hour or so to your total playtime.
While the open world is much appreciated and a decent break in between the linear stages, East Kyoto is boring. Running around on foot gets old quickly, and there’s not much to do other than fighting and interacting with chests or glowing items. Side quests do break up the monotony somewhat, but compared to games with open worlds (like Like a Dragon’s), the quests here are lacking in variety and quantity.
Some are quality, make no mistake. For the most part, though, they’re bland monster extermination quests (such as go here and kill stuff and report back) or the like. Only Lady Murasaki’s quests have more effort put into them, with cutscenes and even a closing summary done by the Lady herself. These feel much more involved and substantial, though again, their quantity leaves much to be desired.
The move to gritty realism has changed the art style for the series a bit. It’s for the better, though! I guarantee it!
It’s still deliciously dark (with the bone architecture and all), and the body horror (courtesy of new Genma character Dokyo) is all the more impressive. In fact, Dokyo is perhaps the best new character in the series!
She reminds me of both Gogandatess and Guildenstern. Both were favourites of mine from past Onimusha games. Now, they’ve got a new friend in that spot – Dokyo! She’s weird, delightfully kooky yet unabashedly evil. I would honestly LOVE a game just about Dokyo.
Enemy designs aren’t too bad either, though there are too many repeat bosses (the white furry thing and that demonic swordsman) that you constantly have to fight just because. I realize they aren’t special named Genma, but come on! Every few hours (sometimes less), you fight the fluffy white thing or the dark demon swordsman thing because you have to close a rift and they just decided to pop out of it.
Yes, they have names, but I don’t care about them because they keep appearing and making me angry at having to fight them again!
And again.
And again.
And again.
I don’t know why Capcom didn’t add in more Genma types to complement them. Surely, those giant sword guys can be sized up and made into bosses too? Not all bosses need to be the fast and furious types. The slow, pondering Juggernaut archetype can be fun too!
I got so good at fighting them that I’m able to parry, deflect and dodge their moves with precision now! If I close my eyes, I can even see them dancing around in the darkness behind my eyelids!
You can still slash around with your basic attacks, but now you also have a strong attack. You can still block, but now you can repel and deflect and even dodge. You not only have to manage your health, there’s also a stamina meter (that drains with blocks and attacks) that requires babysitting.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that combat has slowed down to a glacial pace like in the Dark Souls games, though. It’s about as far removed from those games as you can get.
Combat now is faster, more fluid. Every enemy move has a counter, has a response.
Confident in your twitch reflexes? Hit attack right before an enemy hits you to execute the Issen critical hit that kills most enemies (except bosses and strong foes) in a single hit.
Not too comfortable with that in the heat of battle? Use the Reflex Dodge system with last-minute dodges to fill up a special meter that, when full, allows you to do a special Reflex Combo on your next Reflex Dodge.
Want to look cool? Repel attacks with a parry by hitting block within a very tiny window before being hit. Want to do more stamina damage to enemies? Deflect attacks and press the offensive with your own blows right after.
There’s an ebb and flow to the clashing of steel (or claws or whatnot) in Onimusha: Way of the Sword, and it is a beautiful rhythm to behold. When you’re in sync with the game, battles turn into an intricate dance. Bosses bring out the best in you, as you’re utilizing every single move in your repertoire to stand your ground.
It’s a dazzling display of parrying, repelling, dodging and blocking, depending on what attacks are coming. It’s truly magical when you’re in the zone. You’re not playing Miyamoto Musashi, you are him. Even better, the game has a specific Boss Rush feature built in – you can literally challenge trounced bosses again for bragging rights if you choose to do so and get rewarded for it.
This does lead to bosses feeling same-y, though.
Most bosses also have a stamina bar and a health bar.
You can whittle down both by hitting with your blows, but parries are the best way to take out huge chunks of their stamina bar. Once that’s down, you get to do a critical hit on them, letting you focus your attacks on a couple of points.
Areas that are denoted red cause massive health damage to the boss, while the purple area does less damage but releases red, yellow and blue souls. Red gives you XP, yellow restores your health and blue powers up your secondary Oni weapons. I always choose purple because the damage difference between red and purple sections isn’t that much, and getting health back and repowering your Oni weapons to be usable again is more than worth it.
That’s because the weapons serve a variety of purposes. One does massive stun damage, another does a huge AoE, and another is a literal spear of lightning. My favourite, though, are the twin blades (The Two Celestials) that make your target release yellow souls when you slice them up.
Their damage isn’t spectacular, but the health regain is significant, and connecting with the blades stuns even bosses. That, of course, allows you to whack them even more while they’re down.
Basically, these weapons give you options in battle, and having them at the ready is always a good thing, even during regular enemy encounters.
The new focus on stamina damage means I usually parry my way out of everything and then use Reflex Dodge to fill up the meter now and then. While the bosses have different attacks, the mechanics are pretty much similar, which means boss fights tend to blur together after a while. It doesn’t help that the game throws recycled bosses at you so often that they should just be regular enemies!
While the combat mechanics are fun and well thought out, combat itself can get a bit predictable. Enemies will never swarm you. Instead, like in old movies, they will take turns to attack. It’s funny to see in action as they scramble to surround you and then…just dance around while they wait for their chance to take part in the melee.
It allows you to basically tune out the extra enemies, since for all intents and purposes, encounters are one on one (even with 4 or 5 other Genma around you). Oh, archers and those blobby things with squid arms (you’ll know them when you see them) are the exceptions. They don’t care that you’re busy. They’ll hit you from off-screen if they want to, so prioritize taking them out first if they pop out.
There’s also an upgrade system in play for your gear. You can upgrade Musashi’s attack, life and Oni power when you upgrade your gear. Unfortunately, unlike past Onimusha titles, going up an upgrade level does nothing visually. It only boosts stats. It’s a damn shame because part of the fun of the older games was upgrading your swords and armor and see your character get visibly more badass when their weaponry and armor improves.
You can change Musashi’s looks but appearance parts are either DLC or are rewarded for accomplishing certain tasks.
One unfortunate downside to playing with English text and Japanese audio is that the dialogue is mismatched most of the time. If you’re trying to learn Japanese (like I am) from the audio, forget about it. It’s a toss-up if it’s even a close match to the English text.
Here’s a stellar example where Shizuka asks Musashi whether he wants to check out a recently revealed Oni Portal.
In Japanese it’s – イソガシク アリマセン カ (Isogashi arimasen ka?). Directly translated, it means, ‘Are you busy now?’ or ‘You aren’t busy now, right?’ if you want to go the conversational, casual route. Or something along those lines.
You’d expect the English voice-over to be similar in meaning and tone.
Here’s what the text instead says – ‘Why don’t you seek it out?’
I shit you not. That’s word for word.
How is that even remotely similar in tone or meaning? I understand that translators have their own biases and inflections that they bring into their work, but this is on a whole different level of dissonance. Why are the English and Japanese dialogues so out of sync?
What’s the point in having English text with Japanese voices when what’s spoken doesn’t even match the text?! Capcom could’ve just gotten the Black Speech or Klingon and paired it with English text and been done with it.
At the very least, it’d be hilarious hearing Musashi talk in Klingon.
The Bottom Line.
Onimusha: Way of the Sword gets the most important thing right: the actual swordplay is bloody fantastic. The combat is fast, fluid and satisfying, and once you get into its rhythm, fights genuinely feel like a dance rather than a button-mashing exercise.
Unfortunately, the rest of the game doesn’t always live up to the quality of its combat. East Kyoto is dull, the side quests are lacking in variety, and the enemy encounters can become predictable because most enemies politely wait their turn to get slaughtered.
The localisation is also a weird one. Playing with Japanese voices and English text can produce some hilariously mismatched dialogue, which is especially unfortunate if you’re using the Japanese audio to try and pick up some of the language.
Still, when the swords come out, Onimusha: Way of the Sword shines. And ultimately, that’s what matters most in an Onimusha game.
TLDR:
Great combat, gorgeous presentation, boring open-world padding and some seriously questionable localization make for an uneven, but still damn fun, game.
The Technoverdict: Get it NOW!
The Good:
- Dokyo is a breakout character.
- Combat system is incredibly fun when mastered.
- Open world has potential for Onimusha series.
The Bad:
- English text do not match Japanese voices.
- East Kyoto boring and feels padded out to lengthen gameplay time.
- Too many boss fights with the same bosses!
Salehuddin Husin, EIC
Sal's been in the industry since the early 2000s. He's written for a ton of gaming and tech publications including Playworks, Hardwarezone, HWM and GameAxis. Recently, Sal served as a juror for the Indie Game Awards at Taipei Game Show 2020. A geek and hardcore gamer, Sal will play everything, on any platform.
