Onimusha 3: Demon Siege

"The first Onimusha games that has stuck me to the PS2 !"

Intro
Onimusha series has been one of Capcom's remarkably profitable franchise along with Resident Evil, Devil May Cry and Megaman. But I myself had never been its fan. First identified as an action game but Onimusha seems like an incomplete mixture between Resident Evil and Devil May Cry. When I first knew this series by playing a few chapters of Onimusha : Warlords - its first volume, I realized that it wasn't born for me to play because of its unstably slow fighting speed and pretty poor battle system. I could see bunch of gaming organizations remark this series with respective scores and many players got excited by the game and became its fans but I had never joined them until the recent poor gaming market made me purchase Onimusha 3 : Demon Siege to kill time. This game kept me longer because of its fair difficulty and compared to the previous games, it hadn't got any major change about battle system. Just then I realized the true value of this series and approved it : the excellent graphic and voice actors. Although its battle system still sucks me a bit, a little survey has help me know that it suits most of people who try it. Along with an interesting storyline, those are the reasons of Onimusha series' success. It has never disappointed the players via the three chapters (and the extra Onimusha : Blade Warriors). About me, no matter how I hate the fighting style of this game, I greatly admire the beauty of this game Onimusha 3 that has been devoted by tons of people in its maker staff. That's my introduction for this review of mine.

Gameplay 7/10
Playing this game seems fun at first. You take control of a veteran samurai travelling in the modern world, an experienced Western barbarian in the Old Ages with magical weapons to wipe out the evil demon forces. You have chances to fight monsters among the beautiful environment of Onimusha world and search for pieces of the mysterious story that is happening around. Your characters perform so realistic behaviours and so lively actions that you wonder : 'Why not keeping with it ?'. That's what I felt after having entered this game for one hour. But after a few hours playing it, what I was suffering was a little deal of boredom because of the repetitive fighting style and lack of freedom. There are not so many moves in Onimusha, and besides the Critical moves, you will find out how dry it becomes since you can't have any more creativity. Besides, you can't return to where you have gone through, as most of the time you are forced to follow the story. This is the very reason why Onimusha 1 and 2 were thrown away. However, this is just my opinion. Generally, I have to admit that Onimusha 3 is one of Capcom's most devoted masterpieces, especially about storyline, graphic and the actors and actresses who perform the motion captures and voices.

Storyline 9/10
Despite being an action game, Onimusha's storyline has been polished as much as any greatest-story games I've known. The main portion is still familiar : the ever-lasting fight between the good and evil. You take control of the Oni children - the good side - to fight against the demons standing for the evil forces. In this trilogy, the main villain is a lord demon named Nobunaga Oda. But within that story portion, there are many smaller stories, events, as well as characters who remain mysteries during the process. Travelling through the places and grabbing the files will give you excitements to figure out these events.

Battle System 8/10
Maybe because I'm a fan of Devil May Cry and some fighting games which have various and flexible moves, the battle system of Onimusha 3 doesn't really satisfy me. Nevertheless, it's justified for action games. The clearest advantage here is that the characters' fighting moves have been calculated well enough for you to survive the battles but with fair difficulties. Yeah, an action game is great because of its challenging, in which Onimusha has succeeded. During the chapters, your characters are provided with various and cool-looking equipments. Along with the marvellous graphic, the weapons are designed beautifully and variously. Each one has exact advantages and disadvantages so that you have to make right choices for each battle and each kind of enemies. The new thing in Onimusha 3 is the appearance of a little supporter who will provide you with extra useful abilities and help you grab stuffs. She is the coolest element of Onimusha 3 battle system. I must admit the quality of this battle system because an aggressive and careless player who makes no calculation won't be able to get through the game at all cost.

Character Designs 9.5/10
One word : Excellent. Though I don't play this series much, I must confirm the role of Takeshi Kaneshiro as the actor of Samanosuke in this game. Capcom wasn't wrong at all to choose him as the key symbol of this game : He has a very "samurai-ish" look along with some other actors. His design plus the graceful motions have formed the perfect samurai Samanosuke Akechi that we love in this game. We can see that he rarely talks if it's not necessary, but he's got a face that can tell everything without words : strong, but very emotional. Besides Takeshi, in this game Onimusha 3 there's the admirable appearance of Jean Reno as Jacques Blanc. In my opinion, although he has performed with many efforts, he still lacks something interesting when showing up beside Takeshi/Samanosuke. Anyway the good thing is that he has finished his role relatively successfully from the beginning to the end of the game that's worth a good comment. In conclusion, I must say Character Designs must be Capcom's biggest pride in this game.

Sound and Music 9/10
Another word : Adorable. Everything related to sounds in this game have been well-done. My ears may not get used to the kind of music that this game has, but the sounds, such as the steps, clashes and voices have been made extremely greatly. Again, Capcom can be proud that the actors and actresses they have trusted and chosen don't disappoint them. The only bug is that Jean Reno's speaking French sounds something less realistic than it should. However, it's just a small bug and generally I like the sound system of this game.

Graphic 9.5/10
Geez, if there's something for me to praise the most about this game, it must be here. It's just a pity Samanosuke's and some characters' faces lack some kinds of animations. Otherwise, they would look very realistic during the scenes. The characters' designs are great partly because of the beautiful graphic. The colours are mixed very brilliantly and the environments in Onimusha 3 is so gentle with such hue. Capcom has been talented since not only are the scenery and environments are beautiful, but the characters' and enemies' designs with suitable colours truly match the background. Many of the games I've played don't have this agreement, so that's why Onimusha's graphic satisfies most of the standards. Although the designs still bring a few polygonal bugs which reduces a bit of the quality, Onimusha 3 may be the best-graphic games for PS2 that I've played, after Silent Hill 3 and 4.

Secrets & Sidequests 7/10
It seems that Capcom has tried a lot to increase the Replay Value of this game by giving a pretty bunch of secrets and sidequests after you beat the game and satisfy some requires. When you first start the game, you have got a chance to view a rather long advertising footage of "Shadow of Romes" - one of Capcom's upcoming products then. After finishing the game once, nearly half of your feature pages have been filled with variety of unlockable things. But maybe they don't know that those secrets and sidequests are repetitive and similar to the main game itself, since you just repeat what you've done in the game, while the battles of Onimusha itself have not been very various as analyzed above. For story game, besides given new weapons and new costumes, the gameplay of the scenarios almost don't change at all. So, this time the good quantity can't cover the fairly bad quality.

Replay Value 7.5/10
If you have read all the above parts, I think you've inferred a conclusion for yourself about the replay value of Onimusha 3. This game still has some bugs (as any games do), but truly deserves your trying and even your love, since at the quick look it commits no mistake.

Final Conclusion
*ADVANTAGES :
- Beautiful graphic, excellent characters' designs.
- Great music and sound system.
- Dramatic storyline as the Japanese opera of traditional bravery.
- Acceptable battle system, impressive with the little supporter's appearance.
- A bunch of secrets and sidequests are provided.

*DISADVANTAGES :
- Repetitive gameplay and secrets/sidequests.

Scores
Gameplay : 7/10
Storyline : 9/10
Battle System : 8/10
Characters' Designs : 9.5/10
Sound & Music : 9/10
Graphic : 9.5/10
Secrets & Sidequests : 7/10
Replay Value : 7.5/10
Overall score : 9/10 (don't take this as an average score)

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 07/30/04