Onimusha: Warlords

"This Game was Awesome! Better Story Could have Helped, but still Awesome!!"

O.K. I haven't played a lot of games on the PS2 yet, but I have just played the first truly great game on the system, other than a SPORTS game. I think I'll start out with Game play.

GAME PLAY: This game plays a lot like the Resident Evil series. I'm talking about the controls of course. It has pretty much the same movement controls. The menu's and game instructions are very easy to figure out and very clear. The fighting in the game is easy to figure out as well. With all the variety of weapons to choose from they make the game very enjoyable. Over all the game play is very good in this game and I Gave it a 9.

Story: The story in Onimusha could have been better. It is your basic Save the Princess to save the world type of story. This part of the game would have to be its only flaw. The story is still very good and gets a little deeper as you get into it, but a few more twist's and surprises would have helped it out a lot. I gave the story a 7.

Characters: The characters in the game are very believable and look very impressive. The main character, Samanoske. who you get to take control of at the beginning is basically a samurai who is friends with the princess who gets kidnap and she writes him to help her. No besides the very bad ass look of samanoske, he has very good and powerful attacks. He has a total of 4 swords he can use, and each has different strengths and weaknesses. The other side character is keade. She is a comrade of samanoske and travels with him. You get to take control of her in parts of the game. She uses a knife to attack with and pretty much...well..sucks. And of course the princess Yuki who you must save. I would go into more detail about other characters but I don't want to spoil anything. Characters got a 10.

Graphics:This games visuals are so awesome! The movie at the beginning is breath taking. The people look real the actions are very smooth and it never slows down(during the movie). The game does tend to slow down a bit during some screen changes in the game. When the camera shifts it will take a second, but it doesn't get to frustrating. Other than that the game is a jewel to look at. Even in the game the graphics look very good and never seem to be flawed. The lighting effects and shadowing effects are awesome.
Graphics got a 10.

Overall: Onimusha overall is a excellent game. It does remind me a lot of the resident evil series. But other than that it is a very good game with an O.K. story. I have a lot of favorite parts in this game but I don't want to reveal any of them. But the amount of extra's in the game and the secrets you get afterwards are very rewarding also. Since I only have about 4 games for the PS2 right now I would have to say this is the most enjoyable one yet. Considering I don't have a memory card I played this game for 5:30 hours straight. I just couldn't stop playing it. I encourage anyone who likes horror/action games remotely at all to buy this game.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 03/19/01, Updated 03/19/01