Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams

"Staying true to the spirit."

The ONIMUSHA series has been around practically since the PLAYSTATION 2 has been around. The series has had it's ups and downs in the past, but this latest entry is by far a new step in what is in a way an underrated series. The game starts off with a very unusual, but still interesting enough introduction that will have many gamers saying what?, while others will be like okay, he's the bad guy, he's the good guy. The main character of the game is Soki, who is referred to as humanity's last hope. He's a typical ONIMUSHA character, who sports blue armor with two sword's (although you will find many of them) and a strong determination to put a stop to the yet again forces of evil invading japan.

In the previous games it was the warlord Nobunaga who was trying to gain control of Japan, and proclaim himself ruler of all that exist's. Instead of him it's his right hand man Hideyoshi who at first has Japan at peace, but then has Japan in utter chaos. Along side Hideyoshi will be 3 other evil individuals who have there eye's set out for the same thing, dominance and have an odd connection with all the good main characters. Along Soki's journey he will encounter many different characters who seem odd at first, but will later have you getting used to them in due time.

What fans will enjoy about the game is that it's alot longer than the previous games. Expect up to 15 to 20 hours of gameplay along your first playthrough.
The boss battles in the game tend to test your patience rather then your actual skill. The game has an array of many RPG element's such as the ability to upgrade your weapon's for example. Some grunt enemie's will offer a challenge while other's will be relatively easy.

A cool new mechanic in the combat portion of the game is the ability to do a critical hit, where as before instead of just one critical hit per enemy you can wipe out just about all the enemy's who will be surrounding you in the game, this makes the combat a bit easy sometimes but not all the time. During the adventure you will be in control of two characters on screen, and will be able to switch between them via the touch of a button, you can choose to go solo but some levels require the assistance of another character.

In the option's menu you will have the choice to either put the language in English, or put it to it's Japanese language track with English subtitles, the choice will be up to you. Last but not least this is a good game, it's not perfect but it recreates the Onimusha experience like no other.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 06/05/06