She has far less health than Samanosuke, and unlike our samurai protagonist, she doesn’t have the power to defeat demons. It’s no surprise that this game was fundamental in the creation of the Devil May Cry series.ĭuring select moments in the story, you’ll take control of Kaede, a ninja who you meet briefly at the start of the game and cross paths with periodically during your search for Princess Yuki. Add to this the surprisingly large variety of enemy types and some brutal bosses and you’re left with a then-unique blend of hack and slash survival. Oftentimes you’ll even be forced to listen to audio cues just to be able to block an offscreen demon’s attack at the last second. Swordplay is methodical, magic attacks are limited, and fixed camera angles force you to be extremely aware of enemy positioning. The focus on combat and the mere existence of health orbs doesn’t make the game any easier though. This is further signified by enemies dropping health orbs, something that becomes a necessity in the latter half of the game, as well as magic and simple experience orbs. Rather than run through and avoid enemies to conserve ammo as you would in Resident Evil or Dino Crisis, you’re encouraged to slay every demon between you and your objective, upgrading your three sets of swords and magics along the way. For all the gameplay elements Onimusha shares with the classic Resident Evil games however, there is a large emphasis placed on combat. Puzzles are abound, from simple puzzle boxes to riddles to unique one-off interactions with your environment, such as cutting away a rope bridge to send enemies atop it plummeting. Before long, you are given a gauntlet that grants the power to fight these otherworldly enemies, and Onimusha: Warlords truly begins.įrom here you explore an old mansi–I mean castle and its surroundings through the lens of fixed camera angles and pre-rendered backgrounds. Knowing him to be dead, you’ll find demons to be impervious to your human abilities. Taking place in Feudal Japan, you play as a samurai named Samanosuke, and are tasked with the reclamation of Princess Yuki after she is abducted by demons working under the one and only Oda Nobunaga.
So long as we can look past some poorly aged visuals and experimental mechanics, we just might see one of Capcom’s most beloved series make a long-awaited comeback. With the release of Onimusha: Warlords HD, the series is getting a new chance at life. It was a hit with fans and inevitably spawned a handful of well-received sequels before completely falling off the map.
Onimusha: Warlords is set to return on Janufor PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC.For a time after the success of Resident Evil, Capcom took to creating whole new franchises with the concept of “Resident Evil, but.” This gave us Dino Crisis (Resident Evil, but dinosaurs), Gun Survivor (Resident Evil, but bad), and finally by the turn of the 21st century, Onimusha. Perhaps this is also a way to gauge interest in the series before making a new game, as they have done in the past with bringing the Devil May Cry HD Collection back on current-gen consoles before announcing Devil May Cry 5.
With the remaster, Capcom aims to bring the Onimusha brand back into the mainstream conscience, and the timing is perfect, considering Ghost of Tsushima is around the corner - and bares striking similarities to the PS2 classic in terms of style, setting, and tone. It's also widely regarded as the essential samurai gaming experience, though didn't amass a huge following outside of its core fanbase. As PlayStation describes it, " Onimusha: Warlords is set in feudal Japan and tells the story of the samurai Samanosuke and ninja Kaede as they race to rescue Princess Yuki."įirst released on the PlayStation 2 all the way back in 2001, Onimusha: Warlords became a staple in samurai-themed video games at the time, paving the way for today's similarly themed games like Ghost of Tsushima and Nioh, among others. The remaster features updated visuals, a smoother framerate, and improvements to combat.