I didn't realize how much Resident Evil DNA is within the first Onimusha game, but now it is one of my favorites! Between the puzzle-solving and navigating a dense map, this really feels like the developers went "What if Resident Evil was set in feudal japan?". The game is originally from the PS2 and has all the elements that comes with that, which I personally love.

Overall, definitely a fantastic experience and I wish the other entries on the Onimusha series stayed with this formula, but they did not.

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 is a game I have been interested in playing for a very long time. I may have been interested in playing this game longer than some people reading this have been alive. So I finally got around to playing it and god damn it I should have played this sooner. Onimusha: Warlords is a short dose of greatness straight out of the golden era of gaming. 2001 just keeps on giving.

Onimusha: Warlords borrows a lot from the survival horror games of the time. It has tank controls, pre rendered backgrounds, fixed camera angles, puzzles, a bit of back tracking and using items to unlock your way through the game. But instead of being a survival horror it uses these elements to make an action game. So you could kind of say it falls somewhere between Resident Evil and Devil May Cry. However it doesn’t have as well designed locations and puzzles as the best survival horror and the action isn’t on the same level as a Devil May Cry or Ninja Gaiden.

First of all I want to address the controls. There is the option to use the stick but don’t do that. Use the direction buttons that controls like this were made for, it’s just better. I know there are probably plenty of people that will see fixed camera angles and tank controls and say things like ‘outdated’ or ‘slow and clunky’ or ‘needs modernising.’ To these people, please take a small amount of time and effort to learn to play it. Games should not have to bend to your comfort zone, low effort and taste. It shows a lack of understanding for how things like specific input methods, restrictions or limitations can create amazing gameplay experiences. Videogames were more interesting when we didn’t have standardised controls and it allowed for more unique experiences. The controls in Onimusha: Warlords are excellent. After a brief time getting comfortable with it you will find yourself running smoothly through the environments and weaving your way past enemies without getting touched. Then when you use R1 to lock onto enemies the controls change. Now the directions do quick forward/back/side steps. Perfect for dodging attacks, creating space or closing the distance. It works really well and you’ll be dancing with these demons in no time.

The combat is a bit on the simple side but it's satisfying and I didn’t tire of it across multiple play throughs. Combined with the controls I just explained you use a sword for basic combos and there is a block, thrust, kick, ground stab and upward slash. You can also perform counters if you attack or block at just the right time. The other attacks you have are magic which is great for tough enemies or dealing with groups but it does run out. Finally you have your ranged weapons, the first one being a bow, which is great for the floating enemies or just attacking from a safer distance. At first I found weapon swapping to be annoying as you can’t do it while attacking or moving but then I remembered this is an old game and you just pause to use the menu to instantly swap equipment or use items. Occasionally you’ll switch to another character which while similar to control is geared more towards evading enemies as they can flip over their heads and they don’t have an incentive to kill enemies.

There are also some other interesting things going on that I liked. First there is the risk/reward constantly in combat. The enemies drop souls when they die which is your currency for upgrades, or health and magic depending on the colour. They float around for a while before disappearing and you need to absorb them. This means stopping and being defenceless during battle or just letting them go but obviously you really need them. Then there is health. Herbs fill some health but medicine works way better. But upgrading an herb to medicine costs souls you need for upgrades. Some upgrades are actually required to unlock some doors as well. Once you are good enough you can actually play through the game without using any health items and without upgrading many things. Despite progression appearing simple and straight forward they found a way to make it interesting and give you more challenges on further play throughs once you’re more skilled. Speaking of further play throughs, I love the way this game progresses. You fumble your way through the first time and then get better and better and faster too with each play through. Then there is also an unlockable mini game, Oni Spirits, and another difficulty unlocked after that.

Onimusha: Warlords is set in 1500s Japan but with horror and demons, so of course it looks cool. It’s also one of the strongest looking early PS2 games and as far as I can tell they’ve done a good job with this remaster. It has great looking backgrounds, characters and enemies and the atmosphere is superb. I have to give a shout out to the CGI cutscenes as well, these would have blown me away back then and are clearly a bit ahead of their time. You play as a samurai, Samanosuke, and a ninja, Kaede, working together to defeat some demons and rescue a princess from becoming a sacrifice because her blood will make Nobunaga, who has an agreement with the demons, much more powerful. It is a solid enough story, with good characters, that is really well paced. It’s fleshed out further by reading the documents found throughout the game. The voice actors do a great job and the soundtrack is good too. I played in Japanese as that just felt right but the English has its own charm as well. By far the biggest problem here is that most cutscenes are not skippable. This is a huge sin in a highly replayable game and could even harm a single first play through if you die too often. I don’t have a problem with the cutscenes but I didn’t need to see them this often and it was frustrating.

Onimusha’s biggest problem though is the length. There is just not enough here. Your first playthrough will likely be less than six hours possibly even less than five. Then further playthroughs will probably be three or under. It feels like a short, small game much more so than the Resident Evil’s of this time. Onimusha: Warlords really needed more everything; more locations, more weapons, more puzzles, more enemies, more documents, more items, more upgrades and more unlockables. I think a couple of hours longer would have been the sweet spot but at least it’s really replayable and it is fun to blast through in one sitting. It is a bit of a shame because Onimusha: Warlords isn’t that far off of standing alongside the GOATs. If only there was more to it, skippable cutscenes and more impressively designed locations and puzzles.

I’m so glad we got this remaster and I hope to see the next Onimusha game get the same. How has this series not been fully revived, remastered and remade? Onimusha: Warlords may not quite be one of the all time greats but it’s still fantastic and not far off. Let me make things really simple. I am off to order an original copy of Onimusha: Warlords and the sequel, Onimusha 2: Samurai's Destiny, which I am really looking forward to. If this game looks appealing to you I would recommend you do the same.

8.7/10

I’m a total a sucker for the highly specific (but never-not-great) combo of occult shenanigans in ancient Japan with demons and lots of insect stuff, so Onimusha: Warlords was right up my pagoda.

I played the re-mastered version. Its new default 16:9 aspect ratio, nice as it is and all, was cutting off some of the beautiful, pre-rendered artistry of the backgrounds, so I set it to the old one, because some of its backgrounds are gorgeous, and highly cinematic.

You may know the story of how the original Resident Evil 2 prototype evolved into Hideki Kamiya’s game-changer, Devil May Cry. Well, this game also started as an RE spinoff, itself, before (as with DMC1) the devs ultimately decided to make it its own thing, which I’m glad they did!

You may also know about how DMC1 is still often described as showing the “growing pains” of not quite being RE, while also not quite being the more fluid DMC we’ve come to know today. To quote an ancient, wise Japanese proverb:

“Not a girl.
Not yet a woman.”

Now, in truth, that’s a Britney Spears song, but let’s not get hung up on details. If you’re wondering how Onimusha: Warlords plays, it’s kind of like that middle ground between RE and DMC that DMC1 was. So if you love both, you’ll love this. Absorbing soul orbs of fallen enemies, lots of hacking and slashing, but also pre-rendered backgrounds, puzzles, scarce health, and a bunch of ambushing zombies. To quote another ancient sage:

“Best of both worlds.”

Okay, so that’s a Hannah Montana song, but don’t get frustrated just yet. Save your rage. After all, there are some truly frustrating segments in the re-master of Onimusha: Warlords, ones perhaps more forgivable in the context of the PS2 and its time of release, but inexcusable today.

The specific one that really got under my exoskeleton was a moment whose sadistic, torturous design was apparently at least skmewhat mitigated in a port of the game on the original X-Box called Genma Onimusha. Now, that port is actually much more than just a simple port with some improvement, as it ups the difficulty, adds new enemies, armor, combat mechanics and and generally changing things around a fair bit. It’s, by all signs, the best version of the game, but probably only if you’ve played the original already. The fact, however, that its less gameplay-changing, more objective improvements (like the ability to simply skip in-game cutscenes) weren’t implemented into this modern re-master, which ideally should be the definitive version so many years later, is kind of crazy and a bit unacceptable/lazy. After all, they took the time to implement one new, great change (quick swapping between weapons with the shoulder buttons wasn’t in the original, where you had to pause constantly to do so). Why stop there?

Some of the more hair-tearing, controller-throwing moments wouldn’t be half as bad if the cutscenes before them were skippable.
Alas, they are not. So, good luck with failing that TIMED puzzle at the last second and attempting trial and error like any sane person would, only to be greeted by the same cutscene over and over and OVER before you can get to the pure joy that is ALSO doing the three puzzles in a gauntlet of stupidly easy puzzles again, just to finally get back to the only one that’s suddenly extremely difficult (and, again, TIMED!), just to fail that and do them all over again, with that unskippable cutscene as the rotten cherry on top of this section’s most putrid of sundaes.

Don’t perform seppuku just yet, though, because Capcom so graciously and thoughtfully made it so that you CAN skip the PRE-RENDERED cinematics!!! If you’re thinking about how that makes about as much sense as an atheist praying mantis, you’re correct. Those cinematics are few and far between, and the ability to skip them is a paltry nothing.

Honestly, you probably won’t even want to skip the cinematics, because they’re actually quite beautiful! At the time, Capcom was pouring a TON of money into this franchise, what with its orchestrated score, celebrity actors, etc. Its intro cinematic is still one of the best ever.

If you like a little demonic horror in your feudal Japan and enjoy RE and DMC (especially DMC1, which while clunky in hindsight when compared to other DMCs, still was a cool evolutionary stage that gets overshadowed sometimes, and this takes its ball and runs with it), then when you’re making your backlog of “games to play”, don’t forget Onimusha!

Lord knows Capcom has… 😢


Note:
This is easily a 4 or 4.5-star game, but I’m reviewing the re-master, specifically, and it’s a pretty bare bones one, aside from the welcome ease of weapon-switching on the fly. It majorly missed an opportunity to correct some shortcomings that maybe, in the past, were more acceptable and which the Genma version fixed, but which make certain parts of this game just no fun at all. The rest has aged very well and I highly recommend it, but this why the re-master’e getting 3 stars from me, while the original, in context, would get much higher.

My two brain hemispheres are arguing about this game: it is incredibly well done and has incredibly frustrated me. Artistically, the mix between the classic story of feudal Japan and the appearance of Lovecraftian demons is really successful. The very orchestral music is a sort of Shadow of the Colossus soundtrack ahead of its time. All the cutscenes are honestly impressive for a game from 2001. There is great mastery of camera movements, which makes the final sequence particularly impressive. The bosses, the enemies, the NPCs, everything is really well done and memorable. I am particularly fond of the NPC who leads you into enemy arenas, a sort of spider-like old man who drops from the ceiling.

The problem is that once you've played Devil May Cry (which came out 8 months later), Onimusha inevitably feels a bit limited in terms of combat. The weapon switch "in combat" is still completely incomprehensible to me (sometimes you can, sometimes you can't), which means you have to go through the "start" menu, breaking the flow of the combat. The lock-on system is totally unclear. Like in DMC and many games of that era, the changes in fixed camera angles are incredibly frustrating. Good luck parrying an attack from an off-screen enemy. It's only for the final boss that the camera is completely fixed. As a result, it feels like the final boss of a shoot 'em up, and therefore, it's really good.

It's hard for me to fully recommend it. I also admit that I got an "A" ranking on my first run, so I think objectively it deserves a chance. Regarding its remaster: it's a minimum service, but it suits me well. I appreciate being able to play it with Japanese dialogues and in 4:3.

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.