Almost 20 years after its latest entry, Onimusha returns to the spotlight with a new title: Way of the Sword. Why Onimusha in particular was chosen for a revival at this point is mostly not worth discussing. Because the game makes a good case for itself as a solid action title regardless. Fans of the franchise may indeed feel some friction; a lot has changed since the PS2 era. At the same time, Way of the Sword doesn’t disappoint within its premise.
As a franchise, Onimusha was always somewhat close to Resident Evil because of a few design coincidences. Things like both games being survival-horror franchises and their focus on resource management and puzzles to gate your progress. Resident Evil had the luxury of small increments to go from stiff tank controls to over-the-shoulder parrying zombies with a small axe. Meanwhile, given how dated Dawn of Dreams is by now, Onimusha is almost a blank slate. It was surprisingly difficult to set expectations for it.
A Combat-Oriented Chimera That’s Surprisingly Well Balanced
In other words, it’s unrealistic to expect something along the lines of the PS2 games. At the same time, it would be disappointing to see an established franchise return only for its formula to be replaced by a popular one in the current industry. So let me be direct: Onimusha isn’t really a soulslike. While I do like the genre, I was hoping that it wouldn’t feel derivative. Sure enough, there are clear inspirations from titles like Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, but Way of the Sword is best seen as a chimera of multiple action combat mechanics that work together surprisingly well.
The biggest inspiration taken from Sekiro is its “health and posture” system. On top of a traditional HP system where you simply take damage until you die, both the player and enemies have a secondary “posture” resource (which Onimusha calls Stamina) that serves as an alternate win condition. While health may be the primary factor for winning or losing, leveraging this stamina system is the main way you can both cause and mitigate damage. This is where Onimusha’s mechanics start to click together.
It’s something that is difficult to explain but instinctively grasped once you start playing. Way of the Sword has tons of different tells and responses it expects from you. Attacking is as straightforward as it gets, with light and strong attacks as the primary offensive action and some other techniques or gadgets you may rely on from time to time. When it comes to defense, you have seven different techniques to choose from, and each has a unique use case.
Comparing Onimusha With Other Titles Is as Inevitable as It Is Hard
Every single one of those tools has an optimal use case and different properties. Instead of going into detail about each one of them, let me just say that I’m impressed that the game managed to make effective use of all of them in a way that they’re never overwhelming, nor are they easily solvable. Some attacks are optimally dealt with through dodging or reflex dodging, but you can parry or deflect them. You’re incentivized to get the response right, but you can compensate for mistakes with good timing.
At first I kept drawing comparisons to Doom Eternal’s approach to combat, but the more I played, the more I thought that wasn’t it. Eternal is a purely reactive game; you’re expected to always use the correct response to a barrage of attacks done to you. Onimusha: Way of the Sword can be played like that, but more realistically, the game expects a mix of proactive gameplay that’s only occasionally interrupted. You should be attacking anyone who’s within your range and then promptly deal with anyone trying to take advantage when you’re “open”.
Despite having several different mechanics to juggle, it’s amazing how Onimusha still managed to make me feel like I’m in control at all times. How the player approaches every battle is ultimately up to them. You can play with pure aggression while leveraging your resources to never be put on the back foot, or you can always wait for your enemies to make the first move and have them dance around you as nothing connects. Ultimately, I believe the best flow the game can offer is a mix of the two, but it’s very refreshing how you’re never railroaded into a specific playstyle.
Excellence in Boss Design
With these mechanics serving as a backbone, the game doesn’t have much of what you’d expect out of soulslikes. There are checkpoints and autosaves without “bonfires”. You don’t have a wide array of weapons. Combat isn’t meant to be stressful, and you’re incentivized to make risky decisions. The game overall is far closer to an action-oriented title with light RPG elements than the hybrid soulslikes are known for. However, there is one part that some would consider a staple of good soulslikes: the game’s highest peaks are found in boss fights.
When it comes to the average gameplay, Onimusha isn’t particularly hard. Some arenas can kill you if you’re not careful, but the challenge in the game is mostly self-imposed. The same cannot be said for bosses. They aren’t all gigantic walls that will gate progress mercilessly, but they will all “quiz” you on the game’s mechanics up until the point they’re placed. You are still allowed some freedom in how aggressive or reactive you’ll play, but the resource cost for mistakes will greatly increase when compared to regular stages.
To put it another way, most of the game is just a training ground for techniques and reflexes, while bosses are the true trials. What really pushes them into impressive territory is how expertly the line was built around being challenging and fair. They will throw a variety of approaches at you, but not without proper telegraphs. Memorizing patterns can help, but they’re never hard requirements to progress. This results in bosses that always feel exciting to fight and defeat.
Difficulty-wise, the game strikes a sweet spot between putting up enough challenge to make things fun without ever becoming too frustrating. Those who enjoy harder games might find Way of the Sword slightly on the easier side, with some moments of increased tension. The game does have a higher difficulty setting called Carnage, but it requires finishing the game once before being selectable. Overall, it’s a game that has potential for a bigger skill ceiling, but it hasn’t reached that potential yet.
Amazing Presentation and Spectacle
Another part that immensely helps the gameplay is how well animated everything is. A mechanically perfect game is fun, but it can only be improved with the right combination of visuals and audio design. For example, parrying is mostly meant as a repositioning tool. You negate stamina damage done to you, but you don’t deal much stamina damage back. However, you do throw the attacker off-balance, and they may just bump into another mob or wall and break their posture.
Weaving every option as flair or strategy will always provide cool results. Unless you’re playing on Story mode, the game doesn’t bog you down with excessive assists in combat. So long as your timing is right, you can pick your defensive options, and they’ll almost always result in something that rewards your reflexes. When you finally learn the optimal choices for every occasion and shape your muscle memory to always give the right answer, Onimusha feels like an interactive action movie.
In regard to graphical quality, the game is more or less what you’d expect from any RE Engine title. It’s not particularly impressive for benchmarks or dramatic walking clips. However, that didn’t stop the devs from making the game look absolutely gorgeous whenever possible. A perfect blend of strong artistic vision with Capcom’s own flair for over-the-top action makes it stand out. The game has a photo mode, which isn’t the most impressive implementation I’ve seen, but there’s no shortage of very cool-looking shots to be taken for those with an eye for it.
Taking Lessons from Kunitsu-Gami
Visually, the game takes clear inspiration from classic samurai movies. Capcom went out of their way to get the permissions required to use the likeness of the deceased actor Toshiro Mifune for the main character Musashi Miyamoto. With the lead decided as the sort of “scrappy, yet talented hero with a heart of gold”, Onimusha adds the fantastical and mystical to the classical samurai aesthetic. In short, if Ghost of Tsushima was a love letter to Kurosawa’s movies, Onimusha: Way of the Sword is a funny audio message from an old friend.
It’s a game with a clear artistic vision, adapting the classic series into a new era of visual technology. Kunitsu-Gami showed that the engine can support fantastical and colorful scenarios while still keeping a mild photorealistic look, and Onimusha leveraged that to the best of its abilities. Every boss not only looks impressive, but they also have readable animations that help in gameplay. A great blend of flair and functionality.
The story also doesn’t take a backseat. While it’s not the game’s strongest suit, it’s surprisingly well presented. Early on, the dialogue tethers dangerously close to the kind of overly ironic writing that plagues some modern titles, but the game quickly finds its footing. The plot mostly serves as a backdrop to explain what we’re doing and why, but a couple of memorable moments caught me by surprise. The only real gripe I had is that the overall plot felt content with leaving some threads open, likely as a setup for future adventures.
Boring Puzzles and Stiff Exploration
Sadly, Onimusha did have a couple of noticeable downsides. The puzzles and exploration. The former is a staple of the series, a very common element from Capcom games at the time they were released. The latter is specifically for how Way of the Sword structures its gameplay. Both are just “there,” and engaging with them never feels good. There’s plenty of room for improvement if the series is to truly make a comeback.
The problem with the puzzles is that they can almost be described as “contractually obligated.” There aren’t enough of them across the game, and the few that do show up have the same complexity as a “match the picture” puzzle or lower. I could even see the argument that phasing them out completely might be necessary given the new focus on combat and presentation. However, having them present and be this basic feels worse than not having them at all. It doesn’t harm the game’s quality as a whole, but it’s a noticeable blemish in it.
Exploration, on the other hand, is the more pressing issue most players will feel throughout. As I said before, combat is never a drag, but walking around the main hub stage can be. The game does one particular stunt that I hate: it locks speed upgrades behind valuable resources. You can unlock faster sprinting to make the chore of walking around less annoying, but only if you forsake upgrades that can make a real difference in actual gameplay. Adding insult to injury, the upgrade also only works within the main city area.
It all boils down to the fact that moving around isn’t nearly as enticing as fighting things. The linear stages with clear progression are usually fast to move through and provide great pacing for the game. The hub where you start taking quests and looking every nook and cranny for possible hidden paths and chests slows things to the point where it just doesn’t feel fun. It’s a game you can finish in 20 to 30 hours, and while most of it is amazing content, there are a few sections where it just feels like you’re going through the motions and not having the fun you know the game can provide.
Well Worth the Title and Prestige
It’s also worth mentioning that this is a very solid PC port. My rig is roughly within the average shown at Steam’s hardware survey, and the game ran at a stable 1080p 60 FPS in medium settings, with no frame generation turned on. The game could even run on high settings with minimal performance drops, which is sadly rare in the AAA space lately. Overall, Onimusha is fairly well optimized. Not entirely related to the PC port, but it’s also worth noting that the visuals have accessibility settings for colorblindness and motion sickness as well.
Even the mouse and keyboard controls are great. While the game is likely better played on a controller since it already has a good lock-on system, stubborn PC gamers (like me) can easily play it without one. Robust rebinding options, a wide array of graphics options, stable performance, and everything working out of the box. It comfortably meets the standard one should expect from a title of this size.
All things considered, Onimusha: Way of the Sword is a very good title. It doesn’t quite reach the status of a generational “must-play,” but it gets a lot right and very little wrong. As a continuation of the series, there are a couple of friction points that might disappoint some fans, but there’s also enough reverence shown to the original lore and mythos. Everything is fairly well polished, from art style to gameplay.
Minor gripes can be had with each of these elements, but none that drastically affect the experience. I think it’s a title many will be pleased by and eager to see what’s next in store. Either as additional content for Way of the Sword or as further entries to the franchise, the potential for Onimusha to become one of Capcom’s staples is clearly here.
Disclaimer: Capcom provided a Steam copy of Onimusha: Way of the Sword for review purposes.
