Was fully not expecting to beat this one in a single sitting but damn Capcom really made em compact back in the day. Some of the best prerendered backgrounds Cappy ever produced on display here, the bio horror aesthetics of the monsters clashing with the rigidity of the historical setting is so fresh and so clean, it's a joy to explore this space and fight some dudes. The combat is, eh it's sword fighting in Resi style. Could have been worse for sure but it's pretty easy to bash n smash your way through, especially in the less than satisfying Ayane sections. These seem to justify themselves with a unique deadly strike and some restrictions, but you can just run past enemies sooooo whatever? The deadly strike in general is neat but it's too precise a mechanic to hang such a thin combat system around, unless maybe I'm bad or the port introduced some input lag or sommat. Fun!

Onimusha: Warlords: A short, serviceable, and somewhat fun ride. An unabashed ninja knockoff of Resident Evil, but Onimusha has enough going for it that you may want to check it out. It's only like three or four hours long, though, and don't expect total gold.

You are Samanosuke, who is apparently just some guy who's here and not a samurai (despite dressing like one), and you'll be leading this theatrical affair. All the characters went for ham, but you're the hammiest of them all! You'll find a few melee weapons that can all be upgraded and a couple ranged weapons that cannot be. It doesn't matter, they're almost completely worthless. Every new melee weapon means a new magic ability and attack pattern. You're never really forced to use any particular blade, so whatever suits your style is fair game.
Samanosuke wants to save Princess Yuri and her adopted brother from demons who are running rampant thanks to Nobunaga, some asshole leading an army. Nobunaga died, actually, and made a deal with some demons so he could come back and finish what he started. They think he's very powerful and will be useful in obtaining them lots o' sacrifices. He must be quite the charmer!
There's also Kaede, the female equivalent of Samanosuke's “just some guy who's here”. You'll play as her a couple times, but her segments are pretty pointless dashes; she doesn't have the tool Samanosuke does to regain health on her own and she can't acquire demon souls for upgrades, rendering her combat pointless. She's fast, though, so she can easily zip by foes; just run from A to B, grab X, then sprint to C. This remaster does include comical breast physics. Sorry, Kaede, you deserved better.

Combat is pretty simple, there's only two attack buttons: normal and magic. Switch melee weapons with the right trigger, ranged weapons with the left. The left bumper blocks, the right bumper gets Samanosuke ready to strafe and dodge attacks (with ranged, this is 'lock on', too). On paper, it's all pretty good.
In practice, the combat is pretty stiff stuff. Samanosuke cannot break his attack animations to block and you just have to memorize (or guess) which attacks can be blocked at all. Then if you can block it, should they follow it up with a second attack, there's a chance you're locked into a “recoil” where you've got no choice but to get hit by the followup. It's hard to find a good flow.
Dodging, then? Well, only if there's room to do it, which can be infrequent. Again, you'll just have to memorize some of these attacks and hope there's room to dodge the overhead swing before blocking (or dodging again) the followup spin. Typing it out, I know I sound like a whiner, but trust me: it's a stiff system and you'll get extra pissed when you have to fight in a room where the camera leaps around on you, fucking with your movement inputs.
I'm pretty sure I was parrying or something, every so often -- but the game never tells you anything re: combat, so I don't know what that was.

You won't really give a shit about the story or characters because again, it's comically hammy, so you're really only here for the combat and puzzles.
I think the combat “works” but certainly isn't something I'd ever replay the game for, it's not Devil May Cry or anything (though, supposedly, a bug in this game inspired DMC and its aerial combat. Kinda neat).
The puzzles? They're fine, too. Only one is memorable to me, a sliding block puzzle where you've gotta beat the clock or Samanosuke drowns. It did its job and was pretty stressful.

It's fine. For its time, maybe pretty cool to see, but now? Well, it's got some charm. I kind of recommend it: it's probably worth seeing if you like Resident Evil's style, but it doesn't need to be on the top of anybody's list.
Despite never owning a PS2 growing up, I have a distinct memory of Nobunaga getting that arrow in his neck (in the opening cutscene) and it freaking me the fuck out. I'll never know how I saw this.

From what I've read, the sequels actually only get better and are pretty ambitious in how they don't stick to a set formula. I'm interested enough to try out 2 and 3 someday, I'll toss them on the backlog.

Onimusha:Warlords parece que foi uma junção de Resident Evil com Dmc e samurais, sua história é bem simples e entendível, a trilha sonora é mto boa e condiz com a temática do japão feudal, combate é limitado e que tem poucos golpes varíaveis, o cenário pré-renderizado junto com a câmera fixa de Resident Evil são bem usados tirando a parte de que os inimigos te atacam fora da câmera.

Em minha experiÊncia pessoal com o jogo, sinto que quando você pega as mecânicas dele, ele se torna bem mais fácil,mas para um jogador casual ele é bem desafiador mesmo no Normal, consideraria que isso seria Sekiro só que no ps2 kkkkkkkk. Esperava que este game fosse um pouco mais longo, no dia em que estou escrevendo isso, comecei ele hj e terminei ele hj, mas recomendo a experiência.

I had vague recollection of playing this on the PS2 back in the day. I believe at that time I gave up on the game and instead went for the excellent sequels as the first was just too difficult for me as a child. Coming back to this game I can see why. Onimusha is not an easy game, but it is one crying for a remake or a reboot as the series is incredibly interesting. Set in Feudal Japan with demons rising out of the earth, shenanigans ensue and Samanosuke Akechi comes in to save the day. The layout of the game is incredibly similar to Devil May Cry and Resident Evil which is a treat if you're a Capcom fan. With interesting level design (you're basically in a haunted mansion, sound familiar?) beautiful art and tense combat, I really hope to see more of this series in the near future. My main complaint for this particular version is that for an HD remaster, we don't really get many extras for the price (not even button mapping which is a crime). Fingers crossed that we can at least get more HD remasters of this classic series.

Onimusha: Warlords is a little forgotten gem from the early 2000s, released on the sixth generation of video game consoles. At its core, it's Resident Evil but set in the Sengoku period of Japanese history, where you play mainly as the samurai Samanosuke, tasked to defeat an ancient evil.

You'll be exploring a single memorable castle, filled with traps, locked doors or devices that require an item to be found and used, and different kinds of enemies, who are there to stop your progress. Although it's a pretty straightforward game with very little side exploration, it has a few surprises up its sleeves.

Another thing to note is that this game has a phenomenal original soundtrack that has been replaced due to the controversy surrounding the composer. That being said, the new music I believe is underappreciated and sounds quite good, even if compared to the old one.

It is hardly a perfect game, but I had quite a lot of fun and for those looking for something like the original Devil May Cry, I highly recommend it.

It might be the nostalgia talking, but this was a great time. The pre-rendered environments, great hack n slash action, the unsettling music and a ton of demons. For some reason, despite it being very similar to Resident Evil, I never played this on the PS2. It was extremely my thing, but it just passed me by. I did play the sequel with Jean Reno, however. Although I can't remember if I finished that one.

Anyway, it took me about 3 hours to beat this, and while that's not a great deal of time, the fun I had doing it (aside from that awful gauntlet of puzzles about an hour in) mae it worth it. As I say, I think some of it is nostalgia talking, as some of the corridors gave me big Resi 1 vibes, and it really struck a chord with me.

It's probably been one of the more entertaining games I've played recently, and I think the time it's taken is a contributing factor. I would love some more of these ports/remasters. Not just Onimusha, but more of these pre-rendered action or horror games. I loved them back in the day. I'd happily pay however much I paid for this for more of the same.

I’m a sucker for tank controls and pre-rendered backgrounds, so as soon as I see anybody say “It’s like Resident Evil with ________” I’m probably going to purchase and play whatever they’re talking about.

Onimusha: Warlords is Resident Evil with samurai. Kinda.

One big thing missing is resource management, so it’s not nearly as challenging, but the moment-to-moment gameplay and combat is surprisingly fluid and satisfying. The soul/weapon upgrade system was slightly reminiscent of the Dark Souls games, and was a welcome inclusion.

The story is a “save the princess” footnote to the gameplay, and you can really tell they were inspired by Resident Evil because the English voice acting is embarrassing.

But Onimusha isn’t literally Resident Evil. It’s its own thing, so I’m trying not to judge it entirely on a comparative basis. I found that the inclusion of puzzles along with a slower explorative pace balanced the hack-and-slash combat, despite neither being all that difficult on the highest difficulty available at the start of the game.

The game being so short (it’s only a few hours long) is a positive or a negative depending on how you look at it, and I fall slightly on the negative side, as I think the game could have used a few more enemy types and maybe a couple more puzzles. An additional area could have facilitated that. There is some replay value here, and I can see myself revisiting Onimusha: Warlords at some point.

Leaving me wanting more is far from the worst thing a game can do, and I’m pretty stoked to try the rest of the games. Apparently the third one heavily features Jean Reno for some reason!

The resident evil and pre-devil may cry samurai game is very fun with terrible, over dramatic voice acting adding so much cheese to it, in addition to combat that is surprisingly fun but a little awkward and clunky in some spots. That said, this remaster kinda blows. The puzzles nearly broke me with the awful manual save system and the lack of cutscene skips that all add up to watching these characters painfully get through dialogue that was unintentionally goofy at first but starting to frustrate me heavy. The death arena put me through it for more than an hour, but I eventually got it and saved before moving to the final area, only to remember about the sword you can get right after completing the arena. Restarted to get to that new save I made only to see that the save after the arena wasn’t even there, and I dropped the game and watched the ending on YouTube because my brain broke at that moment lol

Also who puts the map button on the left joystick in a very heavy combat game and then not giving options to rebind the controls so they wouldn’t be uncomfortable ?????

Onimusha: Warlords pra mim sem dúvidas foi um dos jogos mais icônicos da Capcom na era PS2.

O jogo não envelheceu muito bem com o passar dos anos mas ainda é uma experiência agradável para fãs do gênero, é bom ressaltar as melhorias na gameplay que facilitaram muito o jogo possibilitando um combate mais fluído e menos estressante.

Gostaria de ver o restante da franquia remasterizado futuramente.

I think this series' relative obscurity now is less a mark on its age and more a testament to the frankly absurd amount of quality releases, not just from Capcom, but from a lot of developers during the 6th generation of consoles.

It's a short one, and on the easier side if you're used to the fixed-camera Capcom games of the era, but it's still a lot of fun while it lasts and is worth playing if you want something that sits somewhere in the middle of Resident Evil survival horror and Devil May Cry stylish action. There is one section that is just cruel (if you know you know), but honestly, in an era where you can just look it up in two seconds, it's hardly worth getting upset over.

It's a shame this didn't sell well enough to justify porting the rest of the series over to modern platforms, but at least we got something (which is more than I can say for most companies regarding their legacy output...).