Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams

"Best in the sereis."

Story-Action game with a good story? Awesome! Onimusha dawn of dreams has a RPG quality story. Onimusha 4 introduces a new main character, Soki (AKA Blue Demon). The game is set 15 years after the event of the original trilogy. The story is excellent with lots of details and twists. I really loved how you can talk to any character, and discuss current events. So when something big happen (someone dies, betray you etc) you can discuss it with your allies and see what's everyone reaction. This way you get to know your characters and their personalities.

Gameplay- The gameplay in Onimusha dawn of dreams both disappoints and impress. The action aspect is as good as ever. You still get to slay hundreds of demons-but not alone. The new ally system lets you choose an ally to fight with you. You can command either Soki or the ally. You can give commands to the AI controlled character, like “Stay & recover” or “Go all out!” but no matter what you do, the AI will screw up. Most of the times I clear the map by myself before my ally draws his sword. But you are forced to have an ally with you, since you will encounter cooperative puzzles. Those puzzles are the bad aspect of the game, and each stage has at least two of them. You will spend 50% of the time solving puzzles, it gets really repetitive after a while. Most of them are hard to figure out and require a FAQ.

Your allies are not just some random NPCs. You will have four allies, each one of them join you for his/her own reasons. You can learn about their past, and purposes to fight with you by talking to them before and after missions in your hideout. Each playable character has his/her own fighting style. Jubie for example is extremely fast and can dodge/critical a lot. Soki is slower, but does more damage and can of course transform into his Demon form.

Killing demons yield souls. You can absorb their souls and use them to upgrade your armor and weapons. This bring us to another disappointing aspect..Onimuha Dawn of dreams has way more weapons than previous titles, but only few are actually useful. You have more than ten broadsword, they are all the same but with different elements. (fire, wind, etc) you only have one armor per character, but at least its useful and will reduce damage you take from enemies by half when fully upgraded. You must keep all four characters balanced, I made a huge mistake by powering Soki and Jubie only. You will have to use all characters in some boss fights , so make sure they are all prepared.

Boss fights are plenty. Each stage has a boss (sometimes more). Bosses are usually tough, the key to defeating them is finding their weak point. However, some bosses are plain strong and can only be killed by brute force. That's when your Oni power comes in. Your transformation lasts for few seconds, but you will be invincible and you will inflict more damage.

Visuals- graphically the game has improved a lot. The major change is the fixed camera, now is a fully rotating camera. The character models are detailed and the environment are colorful.

Value- Onimusha dawn of dreams is about 20 hours long. Pretty good for an action game. The replay value comes from the dark realm, however this time dark realm is 100 levels long…I tried to do it with Soki, I got to level 50 and gave up. Other than that there is nothing to do after you beat it.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/25/06