While I’ve seen and heard a lot about the Onimusha series, up until now the only game in it that I’ve had a chance to play and complete was the third entry. Despite playing the rather poor PC port of it, I liked the game a lot, yet it took me this long to finally play the original, now in its remastered form with some slight (and couple major) changes. And it’s really cool. Though, more dated than I expected it to be.
You might be unfamiliar with Onimusha, given that Capcom has not produced a single new title in the series for 13 years, but it was one of the most popular hack and slash franchises during the PS2 era and is partially responsible for the existence of Devil May Cry (which managed to overshadow it eventually). The game also, at least to my memory, was the first one to really push the concept of parrying in the genre, with the “issen” attacks. A concept that is not actually explained in the game at all (it expects you to read the manual, yes really), but works by either blocking and attacking or just attacking as the enemy is about to hit you and instantly kills most enemies. Oh and this was also the game to introduce the Dark Realm, an arena place that was later borrowed by DMC as Bloody Palace and spread into other titles.
At these very basic levels, the game is still extremely good. The weapons feel great, and the fact that the remaster allows you to change them real time with the trigger buttons is fantastic (even if you have to be perfectly stationary for it to work, sadly). Enemies are exciting. Magic attacks feel fun to use. Leveling things up feels rewarding and never grindy. The survival horror-ish exploration aspect of the game is really cool, with fun and quick backtracking often being optional, and of course the lack of long loadings in the remaster is an extra bonus. The game looks really nice, though as was common for Capcom of that era, the backgrounds are all pre-rendered and beautifully detailed, but that leads to the need of tank controls, fixed camera angles and the impossibility to natively render rooms in widescreen without cutting stuff off. Though the remaster smartly introduces the more free-roaming control scheme on analogue sticks by default (d-pad allows you to tank control) and 16:9 option works mostly fine, even if it can reduce visibility on enemy encounters in a few places.
And that’s where the old jankiness of the game starts to become more prominent. Even compared to Devil May Cry, originally released same year as this game, Onimusha occasionally feels too stiff, too annoying, too outdated. Fixed camera angles in Resident Evil or even DMC often managed to fit the speed of the encounters and pace of the game perfectly, yet in this title sometimes become a huge mess. The boss fight on the rooftop, for example, is a constant dizzying and confusing jump cut into jump cut of camera angles. Free roaming controls don’t help either, as they aren’t as “smart” as most modern titles tend to make them, so each camera change may lock you in a completely unrelated direction. None of the cutscenes are skippable and one particularly annoying section in the game has several slow puzzles in a row, failure in which leads to instant death and a need to replay all of them, including cutscenes, from the start. Oh and the voice acting is just… ooof. Especially when paired with a hilariously mismatching lip sync.
It’s hard to even tell if the remaster is at fault or that it’s simply not enough even if it would’ve been better. Theoretically it could’ve been. PC resolution is maxed at 1440p, strangely, perhaps due to the pre-rendered nature of the backgrounds. There’s no actual in-game way to quit the game on PC either, it’s “Esc” in the main menu, or, you know, just alt+F4 at any point, because that shows quality. None of the Genma Onimusha content, from the original Xbox port of the game, is here, making that version the most unique and somewhat “complete” to this day. Even the fact that this is just one game, not all 4, remastered is a bit weird after the Devil May Cry: HD Collection. But I must say that the new soundtrack for the title (the original was infamously ghostwritten by Takashi Niigaki) is arguably far better than the original and sounds really good.
Playing through Onimusha: Warlords was really fun and enjoyable yet I couldn’t stop thinking about how better it could’ve been if the game would be remade, not just remastered. Even the same overall structure and gameplay, but put on a fully 3D environment with rethought camera and several sequences redone would’ve made the game far more enjoyable. Even with modern titles using similar mechanics set in similar setting and being incredibly popular, like Sekiro or Nioh, this properly modernized version of Onimusha would’ve been welcome. As it is, definitely take a look at Onimusha but don’t feel too bad if you’re not enjoying it as much as you were hoping to or remember it being.