Onimusha: Warlords

"Surprisingly similar to Resident Evil, despite the swords and magic."

Onimusha Warlords, a game where you control a Samurai warrior trying to rescue a princess from demons. Never would I have thought that this kind of game would share so many similarities with the Resident Evil series.

A few examples:

1) there is a suspenseful feel to the game. Some enemies pop out of nowhere and may startle you (not as effective as in Resident Evil tho)
2)The background are 2-D still pictures. The pictures change if you move to a corner of it.
3) you control your character using the arrows rather than the analog stick and the way he moves is familiar.
4) you find green herbs as healing items
5) you find notes and journals lying around
6) you face similar kind of puzzles
7) similar controls.

The list goes on ...

If you like the Resident Evil games and want to try out a game with a similar feel that focuses on close combat and faster-paced fighting, you are likely to enjoy this game. The similarities mean it shares some of the weaknesses of Resident Evil tho.


GAME PLAY: (7.5 / 10)

You control a Samurai warrior who quickly starts getting up to three magical swords: a heavy and powerful fire sword, a weak speedy one that can conjure storms, and a balanced thunder sword that can deal devastating combo attacks. When you fight and defeat enemies, you absorb colored spheres that can either heal you, give you magic power, or collect points. These points can be used in save points to improve these swords, to improve long-range weapon ammunition (arrows, gunpowder), improve healing items, or give you powers to unlock doors that are sealed by magic.

The regular enemies range from pathetic demons with hats to fearsome enemies like evil Samurais and brutish samurais. If you are not up to quick-dodging attacks, most of them can simply be blocked by holding the R1 button, no matter if you are attacked from behind. This brings a weakness to the gameplay as you can just block until you find a good moment to strike and do a combo (luckily there are some un-blockable attacks, especially from some bosses). Anyways, when you beat up an enemy and they fall, you can easily kill them by stabbing them.

The bosses are quite formidable and well-designed. They attacks can be somewhat predictable and if you are very good at games like these, you might find them not challenging enough. As an average-gamer, I found the boss-fights entertaining and filled with tension, especially the challenging ones at the end, which had more unpredictable attacks that were harder to avoid.

As with the Resident Evil games, the camera can be a hindrance to the game. It consists of still images in the background that switch around when you move close to a corner of an image. This switch of images can be a bit unpredictable and it is never fun to know that there's an enemy behind you but you can't control the camera so that you can see it. Another problem involves the controls: they don't allow analog stick playing, moving can be difficult to get used to, and aiming with the bow is frustrating. Now only that, your samurai can't even jump/duck)

There are some cases where you control a female ninja. Unfortunately, she is rather vulnerable, can't collect the spheres when killing monsters, and has a low-damaging weapon. Unless you want to spend many healing items (that could be used by the main guy), you'd rather just avoid most of the enemies, unless you want a challenge, as this game is not that difficult.

Last, but not least, this game has puzzles. I've never been a big fan of them and while some are quite creative, there is one where you have limited time to solve it or you die: and it is quite difficult to solve and the save point is before two other puzzles: it is unnecessarily frustrating.

Anyways, the game is quite fun. It is not complex and has its flaws, but I've enjoyed every hour of it.


Plot (7/10)

Well, Gamefaqs rules advice against giving spoilers, so I'll just say that the story does what it is supposed to do for such a single and fast-paced game. It has quite a bit of cliches tho, but nothing that would make you cringe. Also, the Japanese voice-acting is quite competent and fits the game. I strongly advice against setting the language to English as the voice-acting is very weak in comparison. Despite making it Japanese, you would have subtitles and everything else but voice-work stays in English. An issue I have with the plot is that it doesn't let you skip cut scenes, which can be annoying when you died and have already seen them.

Extra points for the journals lying around, they can be interesting reads sometimes.


Longevity (3.5/10):

After you beat it (which takes only a few hours), there is not much of a reason to play it again shortly afterward. I played this game about 7 years ago, and I recently replayed it in 2009. So I guess I played around 10 hours.



Graphics: (9/10):

The visuals of the game are excellent, considering that this came out in 2001. The characters and monsters have quite cool designs, the characters also have well-done facial expressions whenever there is a need for them. Also, the animations are very smooth. There are very few cinematic cut scenes, but when you get one, the visuals are excellent.



Sounds/Music: (8.5/10):

Very good sound effects when fighting. The music works to set appropriate moods, and there is an occasional memorable melody sometimes.



So in the end, you got a simple, yet fun game that lasts only a few hours. My recommendation is to rent the game, so as this is primarily a game to rent, I can't give it more than a 7/10

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 07/28/09

Game Release: Onimusha: Warlords (US, 03/13/01)