Didn't expect to enjoy this one nearly as much as I did.

Onimusha: Warlords boasts well-composed environments, a rewarding combat system and an elegantly drip-fed world design. I loved the enemy variety and character models and often had a chuckle during most cutscenes, due to the cheesy dub.

The story is almost nowhere to be seen, most details shrouded by collectable books that are nothing more than meandering walls of text, if you're here looking for lore I'd suggest you leave. The moment-to-moment narrative is serviceable, but even then, by the end of the game, I felt next to no compassion for any of the characters.

Overall a fun little experiment of a game, whose short run time is to its advantage. I'd say it's worth paying just to witness the pre-rendered cutscenes, them shits go crazy.

Even if I die, I will destroy you.

Onimusha Warlords may have very well replaced Dino Crisis as my favorite Capcom-developed-tank-controls-fixed-camera-late-90s-slash-early-2000s-survival-horror-slash-action title. Also, yes, I like both games more than any of the classic Resident Evil titles. This is just outstanding.

Combat, while simple, has a kinetic flow—much more focused on watching your enemy’s movements and reacting in turn than it is on drawing tension out of tight spaces and limited resources. Samanosuke’s movement adds to that kineticism, but the game isn’t without tension. Actually, it’s far from an easy ride. It doesn’t shower you with healing items at anywhere near the same frequency as a Resident Evil or a Dino Crisis, and if your magic bar is depleted at the wrong moment, you’ll likely be in a lot of trouble. Save mirrors are few and far between, too. Playing as Kaede is even more nerve-wracking! It isn’t the hardest game on the planet, but it demands your attention in ways that I found extremely compelling.

Outside of that, though, the game is also a visual showstopper with great audio design. Maybe it’s because of the reduced screen size (I emulated this on the Steam Deck), but, outside of a couple of the character models, I couldn’t really believe that this was an early PS2 title. Visually, it’s an outstanding showcase of everything that Capcom had learned up to that point—beautiful fixed angles, imaginative creatures, complex animations, and so on.

All of this said, there are a couple of problems that keep the game away from all-time greatness. First of all, Onimusha’s central “Keep” isn’t quite the Spencer Mansion or the Raccoon City police station. The puzzles are elementary, and I couldn’t help but think that Capcom could’ve done more with the whole “feudal Japan overrun by demons” things. Just as well, the story gets the job done and not a whole lot else. Unlike many others, though, I’m not going to hold the game’s script or voice acting against it. We don’t hold those things against the classic Resident Evil games. Why should we for Onimusha?

Anyway, yeah. This scratched an itch that I didn’t even know I had. I cannot wait to revisit the rest of the series.

Onimusha Warlords é simples em todos os seus aspectos e consegue atingir o objetivo de ser divertido e cativante ao longo de seu desenrolar. Os pontos que valem a pena mencionar sobre esse game são:

História: Sua história é superficial e pouco densa, seja na sua trama ou na exploração de seus personagens. O game tem como proposta te colocar na pele de um herói, então, é por isso que tudo em sua narrativa é tão simples, focando mais no conflito e na sua solução, do que em seus pormenores;

Ambientação e trilha sonora: Onimusha sabe entregar um mapa que reflete bem o cenário japonês feudal que muitos têm em mente, e, mesclado com uma trilha sonora de ação e épica, fazem você se sentir bem imerso na experiência;

Gameplay: Sua jogabilidade é bem mecânica, fazendo o combate ser bem robótico em alguns aspectos e até desfuncional para a aplicação de golpes ou até mesmo a defesa de golpes dos inimigos. Entretanto, esse mesmo fator contribui para o combate ser desafiador e testar o jogador em superar os desafios que cada inimigo oferece.

No geral, Onimusha: warlords oferece uma experiência agradável e cativadora, até mesmo para poder rejogá-lo uma segunda vez. O fato de ser curto e possuir uma história superficial não afetam a experiência que o jogo oferece. Um jogo divertido e confortável de jogar.

Onimusha Warlords is the pinnacle of pre-Resident Evil 4 Capcom design. It is trite to say "RE but samurai," but the work Capcom did to rebalance their formula is incredible. Swords can be swung indefinitely, so the enemies are faster, more aggressive, and have larger movesets. The level design also enables larger scale fights despite the tank controls. The more action centric story still has goofy moments, but it remains coherent and, surprisingly enough, more genuine than some of RE games. Comparisons aside, the use of pre-rendered backgrounds is among the best since the 3D models can have more polygons and the backgrounds can be higher resolution. Knowing that component video output is pretty soft, the visuals look consistent as a whole. Onimusha is an impressive and fun iteration on existing precedent.

Resident Evil with swords was how it was conceived, and how it plays -- and it shockingly feels awesome. It's slower and methodical, making you think sometimes before you input an attack.

The series just became Devil May Cry after this but the first Onimusha is a solid game that doesn't outstay it's welcome and has aged quite well. Only thing about this game that will send people into a rage are the fixed camera angles, which was the style at the time.

It'd be cool if 2&3 were ported to modern consoles like the first one was.

First game of 2024, this game was long overdue for me.

Despite being a huge Capcom fan, a huge RE fan, AND a huge fan of yokai-themed body horror, I had never played any of the Onimusha games. I think I had gotten into my head that this series was something completely different, thinking it was closer to the Basara series or something, rather than what it actually is, Resident Evil but with Samurai. It's funny how your brain can write something off for years, and then randomly change its mind.

I'm glad it did, because this game was awesome, Onimusha got so much right on its first outing. The combat felt good, the backgrounds were cool and readable, and the designs all around were great, especially the demons. It all felt conventional, but well polished with a clear identity, to replicate a classic Samurai film with the Capcom flare of the era. Another thing that was surprising to me was how good the facial animations and mocap were, while it does have those early mocap exaggerated gestures, it still felt believable, and there were games on this system which came out way later that looked worse.

What really impressed me was the release, let's put this game into perspective. Coming out in 2001, the PS2 has only been out for a year, and within that 2000-2001 timeframe, Capcom developed Onimusha, Code Veronica, Dino Crisis 2, and DEVIL MAY CRY. That's insane! Sure, they all borrow elements from each other, but considering the level of care this game had as a new IP is crazy. That's just covering the RE side of the company too, Capcom was such a powerhouse in the late 90's.

Anyways, the game was fun, if not a little short, but it didn't need to be any longer than it was, the game covered everything it needed to, and laid the framework for the rest of the series. Really excited to play the rest, especially 3.

I was offered a PS2. I went into a game shop. I never heard of Onimusha before. It cost me 2€.

When I launched it, I discovered it was made by Capcom. I was really happy to discover so. When I finished it, I read that Onimusha is the 7th most profitable serie of Capcom. I now know why.

Onimusha comes with a great technology. Capcom decided to create an animation team dedicated to CGI cutscenes (which are great). Thus, CGI would only shine if it would show something interessting. Someone sugested a medieval theme. They went for it.

Now, they had a theme, a clear technological goal... how about making a game ?
In 2001, what does Capcom knows to do ? Survival horror. Let's go on this basis. Unfortunately, Capcom's survivals rely on multiple subleties, one of them being ammo managment. Erf, katana do not need ammunitions. Well, let's put a mana system and reorient the game towards combat action. Let's add a light RPG system and everything will work well. They were right. It works well.


Onimusha is situated between old-fashionned-capcom survival horror games and (for its time) new fashionned beat'em all (see DMC). The adventure is situated in really tiny and kind of oppressing spaces, which can lead to some stress inherent to survival horrors. Thus, most of the time, combats shine. This is due to the variety of opponents you fights and the pseudo-rigidness of your character. Should you either slash enough to make 3 enemies temporaly fall down, which would give you the time to end them on the ground or deal with their comrades, either try to focus the most powerful ones with your magic spells, either run through them taking the risk to be attacked, either take your distances and shoot'em with your bow ? It's up to you, and it's wonderful gameplay-wise. Add on top of this interessting and memorable bosses and you have an intense game experience, set up in a non-commonly seen layout, with imbricated systems that lead to multiples genre and game experiences in a unique software.