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.
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.