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!