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.

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.

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.

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.

Very interesting that different characters help you throughout the game. I still don't know how this choice happened.

The game has different paths depending on which characters helped. Interesting. Also feels more balanced with how much orbs you get, its also harder than the first with far better boss fights. The phantom zone is far better than the demon realm in the first too but its still not very good.

Play Time: 9 hours 7 min
Souls: 139310
Defeated: 1226
Critical: 40
Phantom realm: 41/41
Scenario: 63%

B