Pelo amor de deus que jogo chato, a história é uma tranqueira absurda, os personagens são uma merda, o protagonista é uma porta, quando eu abri um walkthrough e vi que ainda tava na metade me bateu uma vontade enorme de desistir, única coisa que melhorou em relação ao primeiro foi o combate. O level design do jogo é absurdamente ruim, o mapa é feio e desinteressante, os ângulos de câmera disso aqui são horrendos, o sistema de rpg é extremamente mal explorado e o lance de dar presente pros personagens é a porcaria mais inútil de todos os tempos, as lutas contra chefe são uma merda descomunal, destaque pro último chefe que é top 3 piores lutas contra chefe que eu já vi em um videogame. Por algum motivo também o jogo é extremamente fácil, o 1 tinha uma dificuldade bem balanceada, mas o 2 é literalmente bater, bater e bater em inimigos insuportáveis que parecem uma esponja de golpes, eu realmente fico descrente de como isso é uma sequência.

Na reta final eu já tava assim jogando: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0n7ZWeKWV0

Onimusha 2 is what you obtain when you have to do the sequel, which imply you have to keep elements from the first game as well as the experienced team whom did it, of a dying genre (at the time) which is the survival horror in a studio that counts a lot on survival horror games to survive.

You obtain a bumpy, rough, bizarre, not enough polished game. Yet, because of many smart decision, a strong theme and a dedicated team, you also obtain a flavourful game.

Onimusha 2 is way less oriented towards horror than its prequel. In opposition, the game is much about action and light RPG decision making. The experience system now includes armor, which means you have to choose between having better weaponery or protection. Weapons use their own mana, yet, every mana bar is incremented simultaneously when you gather mana orbs, which lessened the "ammo managment" aspect of the first game in favor of dynamic weapon switch during fights. The onimusha transformation acts as a joker card, which makes you invincible for a short ammount of time, but is a reward you have to pick or loose at the time it shows up, considering picking it might be very very slow and can make you over vulnerable to enemy attacks.

Rythm and pace are by far the weirdeist aspects of Onimusha 2. Characters, friends or foes, are much more developped, but in a sequential way. First, the game developps its friendly NPCs, then its opponents, then again its NPCs. A money system is introduced : it is unfortunately abandonned after the first third of the adventure. It allows buying better equipment for your friends (whom'll fight with you or under certain circumstances, you'll even controll them) as well as obtaining rewards in exchange of an item. I must confess I really like this system : you never really know who desire what, which is a good transcription of what human relations might be : a giant pile of supositions and guess which eventually lead to a strong friendship. And, as in the real life, people might not be interested in you. For instance, there is a ninja in the game. I spoke to him once. He never showed up again. When the game ends, it shows you how much interaction you had with each character. I had 4% of total interactions possible with him.

The theme is really original. It takes place in the late feudal Japan, but it features biomechanical systems run by both technology and demonic magic. Still, it is very strange to encounter giant aquariums, fans or even a TV in a game of swords and magic. It is strange unless like me, you have a strange feeling you've already been there... Hum...
Ok, let's take a look at my PS2 games... What game did Capcom in the early 2000s?... No! Is it possible? No they wouldn't would they?
Yes they would. They used entire parts of Resident Evil Code Veronica, simply paint over to partly fetch the medieval theme of Onimusha 2. It works, and I'm sure if you didn't played Code Veronica before Onimusha 2, you wouldn't even notice.

But yeah, this added to entire parts of Onimusha 1's castle, added to a global structure in a first time based on force come back to a central hub, which eventually is simply forgotten by the game, added to a pace that has HUGE difficulty spikes Capcom decided to """"fix"""" by giving you, at this precise moment, the opportunity to switch to easy mode (which I did, and honestly considering the amount of bosses situated just one after the other at this point of the game, seems fair to do)... This all, I get it, might feel a lot confusing and might eventually lead to frustration. This is what I liked the most in Onimusha 2 : the game tries a lot of things, sometimes it fails, but it always tries to make its ideas work the best he can, and he uses unpretty tool (like difficulty switch) only as a last resort. IMHO, it is much more interessting, enjoyable and even fair than what can do a modern From Software for instance, which is simply and purely stupidly unfair, difficult, incomprehensible and specially do not even try to make things appealing and/or usable for its player. Onimusha 2 isn't like this. Onimusha 2 is, indeed, strange and bumpy, but at its core, it has a ton of ideas thought around, about, and for the player. This is something I liked, this why I recommand you playing this if you can.

PS : I like Oyu chara design. I am aboslutely unable to explain why. It looks like a chara design from a bad erotic game or that kind of things, featuring suspender belts used to hold "western armors" up (which I am really not sure are actually western) and a shiny hole showing breasts.
Yet I like it. I don't know why. This is disturbing.

The first few hours are really fun then it starts having the most annoying enemy encounters in the tiniest rooms with the worst camera angles while enemies don't dither so you are completely blind. You are fighting the auto targeting more than the enemies in this game. The final hours are a complete slog. The game reveals at the very end it has branching paths which is why half the cast just dispears half way through the game depending on what you do and why some plot points are left completely unanswered. It seems you have to play the game 4 times to see it all, fuck that

The best Onimusha title.

Great story and characters.

Please Capcom, port this in HD to the PC, please!

This is the best game in the series. Gameplay was refined from Oni1 and better. Lots of new characters and locales to explore. You even get to revisit areas from Oni1 again. The game had a big branching path system based on character affinity and your relationships. So many things change based on it. You can get gold early in the game to spend in shops and acquire random gifts which you can in turn give to your companions. Raise your affinity with one character might lower another or Raise your affinity really high with a character and you might get more scenes and paths based on them. It's impossible to see everything on one playthrough. In fact the system is so big it would probably take ten playthroughs to see every event. After beating the game there is a timeline reveal to see what could have a happened where so next time you can try to go for it. Plus the game has a ton of unlockables on top of that. The game is very feature packed.

Gameplay though was some sweet bliss. The countering system is back and a bigger focus. Landing critical strikes on enemies and trying to chain them is one of the best feelings ever ever had in a game. The quick strike and flash looks and sounds so good and satisfying. More weapons and attacks really flesh out the arsenal. Enemies are fun to fight and have some pretty cool designs. Fighting gauntlets of enemies is so fun. Quite an improvement from Oni1. The only negative to me is the final boss kinda sucks.

I definitely have a soft spot for this kind of gameplay, a big fan of the first and third game in the series, Samurai's Destiny somehow slipped my fingers. Visiting it almost twenty years after its release date, I was still able to become absorbed in the characters and settings, following a new plot line that strangely takes a completely different path following an unknown protagonist. It's pretty much more of the same as with Warlords, except with a new gifting system which is fun to play around with. It doesn't really feel like an epic sequel, except for its last boss fight which really stepped itself up on. However, a quick game with addictive gameplay and immersive setting.

An improvement over the first game in most ways. I find the fusion of adventure game style of interactions in the hub town with the survival horror systems really interesting and help to set this game apart from RE. The branching paths that come from how you interact with characters during the adventure game-y parts are really cool too. The pre-rendered backgrounds are some of the best I've ever seen, they're just gorgeous.

The combat is much improved, and due to that this game is MUCH more difficult than the first. Really I think my biggest problem with this game is that difficulty, it just spikes at random intervals and you can really fuck yourself if you don't have the right items.

For being a sequel to Onimusha 1, this game certainly does a good job and improving stuff: better gameplay, better issen mechanics, story's very good, considerably longer, better replay value and better horrible voice acting. Not to mention it took some risks like the gift system but at the same time it kind of feels undercooked, since you could just ignore it alltogether but if you do then don't expect any help if a boss starts kicking your ass and can sometimes lead to some awkward moments where a character gets introduced into the story and then you don't know what happens to them next because you didn't gift him enough items. This is a title meant to be replayed multiple times since it's impossible to see all the alternate paths in one playthrough, also soundtrack is not as amazing as 1's but it's still good. A good sequel all things considered.

Should be much better than it is

A step down from the quality found in Onimusha Warlords. This time, the levels are much more linear with less exploration and puzzle solving focus. The combat is still fun, the Issen is still the most satisfying attack in all of gaming, but that’s pretty much it. The new gift system is half baked, ideas are dropped at the halfway point, and the “choose your own adventure” scenario is underutilized and poorly explained to the player. However, it does make for a great chunk of extra content. Pretty much all the changes from the first are bad, but it’s still a good video game.

6/10

I love how Onimusha 2 begins. Showing the Yagyu village getting decimated and then having you traverse through the foggy aftermath as an eerie voice repeatedly calls out Jubei's name, it leaves such a strong first impression.

It's also during the opening that Onimusha 2 shows off its improved combat. Not only is it much faster here, there's also plenty of new additions like running attacks, charge attacks and even unlockable secret techniques. Because of this, the combat is much more varied here compared to Onimusha 1. Onimusha 2 also adds purple souls and collecting 5 of them transforms Jubei into an Oni and when in this state, he is invincible. It's neat when it works but I wish you could choose when you could trigger it. The moment you get the 5th soul you're forced to transform. So, if you want to save the transformation for bosses, you have to avoid the 5th soul which just gets cumbersome.

Even with that said, the additions to the combat are all welcome, but the biggest addition Onimusha 2 has is the gift system. Once in Imasho, you'll get a bunch of random items that you can give to other characters to befriend them. Befriending different characters leads to them showing up to help you at different points in the game. This is where Onimusha 2 gets it replayability factor from, since it's impossible to acquire every scenario on a single playthrough. This is cool in concept, but honestly, this system is handled really poorly. Firstly, the game doesn't explain how this system works at all. It gives you a few hints, like saying Ekei likes drinks and Magoichi likes books, but when it comes to items like Parrots, Coins, Fork etc, you just have to guess or follow a guide. Another issue is that if you want to give as many gifts as possible, it requires a lot of early game grinding since you get the items by buying them for gold. My final issue with this system is that it just feels so artificial and shallow. I never felt like I earned the trusts of the characters I befriended because all I did was shower them with useless presents. Because of this, later in the game when the game is trying to get an emotional reaction from the player, it completely fails because I don't really feel like I bonded with the cast of characters. As a whole, the story doesn't do much for me, it retreads old ground only with a less likeable protagonist.

Atleast the reward for having friendships is cool. If your friendship with someone is high enough, they'll save Jubei at different points in the story. In these segments, you'll control the characters you befriended and they're handled way better than the Kaede sections in Onimusha 1. The characters feel distinct from Jubei (except Oyu) from Kotaro's shadow clones to Magoichi's emphasis on long range combat and the sections are short enough to not overstay their welcome.

Onimusha 2 is twice the length of the first game, which is welcome, but a large chunk of the game is simply you revisiting the castle from Warlords. The game as a whole is much more linear, and yet I got lost here a few times near the endgame since the Gifu Castle just isn't as well designed as it was in the first game, where I never got lost.

Onimusha 2 does have things going for it, like the improved combat, its immense replayability and the character of Gogandantess who is always fun to watch. However, I'd say I prefer Onimusha 1 due to its superior OST and it feels like a very complete package, whereas 2 feels a little undercooked in many areas.

Why does Onimusha 2's opening song slap so hard? Seriously if you haven't heard the beginning of this games song, it is a full energetic ride, and delight. Why do I mention this tho? Well, because I honestly don't remember much of my time with this game. I remember enjoying Onimusha well enough, and 2 gives us more options and areas to explore, heck the whole game swapped over from a zombie horror like game to a hack'n'slash puzzler, but the game just isn't as remember able as I wish it was.
The game mostly gets rid of it's horror elements for a more horror aesthetic to add onto it's hack and slash that the previous game had going for it. This time around you go fighting various demons and zombies as they are invading ancient japan, and you get cool element attacks and weapons. Like the action in this game is a welcome change, but I do find it rather funny it went from Resident Evil Like to Devil May Cry like not only rather fast, but also nearly following the same history of Devil May Cry. While I don't remember much of this game, the fact that it had a friend system in place and provided extra replay value by switching scenarios around pending on which bud you decided to chum along with.
Despite everything, Onimusha 2 was the step in the right direction for the franchise, and certainly something I feel helps make the series unique to them as well. While I do think this game can get very blurry when it comes to other Capcom games, the fact that it still maintains an identity through it's sameness makes me happy to hear anyone played this game.

The opening cutscene is so sick good lord.

Onimusha 2 has such a unique combination of flavors; the crispy digital hack and slashery is supplemented with so many tasty rpg treats, especially your quaint little town and tavern and your new group of funky buddies. The character models and animations are probably the best on the PS2. One of my absolute favorite things to do in a video game is trading items, and the Gift system is at the core of how you progress this game’s story and achieve alternate endings. Really great stuff here from Capcom.