Onimusha Blade Warriors

"Don't let the magazine reviews fool you"

I will tell you right off the bat that I am not familiar with the Onimusha series. I'm sure that the first two games in the series are great titles (why else would they be putting out a third title in the near future). However, this review is written from the standpoint of a player of fighting games, not an Onimusha follower.

The concept of a party-fighter game with characters from the Onimusha brand sounds great on paper. Guess what? It's also great in practice for Onimusha Blade Warriors.

Gameplay:8.9/10

This is a blast to play, especially in multiplayer. It has simple, easy to use controls. Unfortunately, the button-mash-friendly combo system may immediately turn off some serious fighting gamers. There is, however, more depth to this engine than first meets the eye. With counters and various tactics that can be used, a button-masher may be a little bit of a pain, but those who study the moves will come out on top. Really, only those who can't keep up with the speed of the fast-paced engine used here will tend to button-mash (and so will younger kids, but what young kids don't button-mash). Moving in and out of matches really speedily (if you know what you're doing) is the norm in this game.

By pressing up or down 2 times in succession, the player is able to move his character onto a different level of the playing field. The multi-tiered effect which it gives to the game makes the player feel unhampered by giving plenty of room in which to hone their ninja/samurai abilities.

The items and souls play a major role in the gameplay. Souls are released from a characters when they are hit (or they die) or from when certain chests, and float in the air until they either absorbed by a character or disappear. They are used for a lot of things, from magic attacks and character experience to health regeneration and temporary invulnerability. Items such as throwing stars and laser guns, are obtained through chests.

The AI in this game surprised me, as it doesn't take you lightly. I got beat a few times when I first started out.

Story:2.3/10 (for at least attempting one)

Very little of one, but what party-fighter like this has one? At least it attempted to have one. This game was not meant to have the storyline that the rest of the Onimusha series has, as this game wasn't meant to be a bridge between Onimusha 2 and Onimusha 3:Demon Siege.

The story is revealed through the use of cutscenes in the single player story mode. Unfortunately, some of the cutscenes are repeated for the different characters. If you haven't played Onimusha before, even after you play the story mode through, you'll wonder ''Why was that guy/girl I just fought important to the storyline, other than the fact that he's/she's a bad/good guy and I need to defeat him/her to progress through this storyline?''

Graphics:9.3/10

Note: I am not looking at this game in comparison to the recent XBOX ninja-action hit (you know which game I'm talking about).

This game has awesome graphics. The character models are well animated. The special effects fit well with the action. There is a slight bit of slowdown when 4+ characters all do a magic attack at the same time, but that's it.

The backgrounds are well drawn and are pleasurable to look at. From the Japanese shrine with blossoming cherry trees to an evil lair with demon statues that breath fire, they all look and feel right in the game.

The cutscenes look good (one of the ones that involved a secret character I found sort of comical).

Sound:6/10

The background music fits perfectly in the game; even though I didn't find myself whistling any of it while writing this review, it didn't hamper the gameplay at all.
The sound effects are also good, although sort of generic.

Which comes to the voice acting. The American voices are OK, but some of them will definitely rub you the wrong way after hearing them over and over (Oya's voice specifically was grating to the ears). The fact that some of the characters only have one or two ending taunts doesn't help. You will probably be inclined to turn the voices off after a little while (since you can use subtitles for the story cutscenes). The option to change to the original Japanese voices would've been nice, but from what I understand, you couldn't do so in any of the other Onimusha games either.

Replayability:9.5/10

In the story mode, there are so many weapons, accessories, and items for you to get, not including secret characters and stages to unlock (including two surprise characters from another Capcom universe); those will definitely take you a while. Also, Custom VS. mode allows you to not only compete with/against you friends with the characters you unlock in Blade Warriors, but also the custom characters you leveled up in Story Mode. Late night samurai/ninja fests will be common in my circle.

Overall Score:9.1/10

I know I gave the Story and Sound sections low scores, but the Story isn't too important. As I said earlier, this title wasn't meant to bridge the storyline gap between games in the actual series, and titles similar to Blade Warriors have little/no story at all.

I recommend renting this game first. If you can do it all in a rental period, fine (likely as not right know 'cause two of the special characters require Onimusha 3, which is yet to be released in America). However, I suggest adding it to your collection if the rental left you craving more samurai/ninja goodness.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 03/25/04