Onimusha Blade Warriors

"Great multiplayer, so-so single player"

I've always had a fascination with four player fighters and when I saw the first screenshots of Blade Warriors I knew I had to get it. After four months or so of owning this game I can safely say it was worth the purchase. If you don't own a multi-tap I don't suggest this game unless you are in desperate need of a good four player fighter or are an Onimusha fan. If you do own a multi-tap then I strongly suggest purchasing Blade Warriors.

Gameplay - 9/10

People tend to take one look at this game and label it a Super Smash Bros Melee clone. But its far from it. Blade Warriors adds in a lot of new features that make battles more interesting.

Basically you are trying to beat the crap out of your opponent by using the abilities your character has. Battles take place in sort of 3D, you can move left or right but you can also double tap up or down to jump to a different level. This lets you move out of the way of super attacks but you don't have to fight in a fully 3D battleground which can be a real pain with games like this.

This game is great because people of all intelligence (or sanity, whatever) levels can enjoy it. You can rush in like a psycho smashing the square button if you want but you will definitely become a better player if you take your time and master the different techniques. And there is plenty to learn and master here.

One of the most important features is the Soul Absorb. By pushing the O button your character will start to pull souls that are floating around towards him. Souls do things like restore your health or make you faster. If two people try to absorb the same soul they get in a soul absorption war. When this happens you want to hit the O button as fast as possible to try and win the tug of war game that goes on between the characters. It sounds mindless but when you get three or four people going after the same soul its pretty fun and correct character placement becomes key to absorbing the soul. And while absorbing your character is immobile and vulnerable to attack, so you have to use a little strategy when absorbing.

There are also powerups that appear in treasure chest around the levels. Some of them are pretty cheap like the magic disks which hit all of your enemies with almost undodgeable magic. But thankfully the powerups are completely customizable, you can turn off any of the cheaper things if you want and you can choose how often treasure chests appear.

There is a good variety of characters and levels from the Onimusha universe to play in. You start out with 12 characters and by the time you are done unlocking everything there are around 24 depending on what you count as a different character or not. You might be turned off by the fact that most of the characters have nearly identical movesets but after playing for a while you will really notice major differences between all of the characters. And this way you can pick up pretty much any of the characters with ease and be able to play well with them without having to learn a new movelist. My only gripe is that the characters aren't too balanced. But a veteran using Keijiro can still kick the crap out of a newbie even if he is using the dual sword toting Speed Marcellus.

Story - 6/10

Just plain bad. But this is a fighting game so who cares? This game takes place between Onimusha 2 and 3 and features the main good and bad guys from the first two games as well as some powered up generic demons.

The main downfall of the story is that it uses the same bad cutscenes over and over for some characters. The demons in particular, they pretty much ALL have the same default story path through the game and if plan on getting 100% you have to play through two or three times with each character. Ouch.

But the alternate story paths that can be accessed by doing special things are pretty good. You get to learn a few new things and see how the characters from different games interact together. You can even get Jubei and Samanosuke to team up and take on Nobunaga together in the final battle.

Ultimately though it is obvious a good story wasn't Blade Warriors main concern. Parts of it are just extremely corny, when you fight Ozric the first time and see his opening cutscene you will probably laugh at his horrible lines.

Enemy AI - 8/10

The enemies artificial intelligence is good. At the higher difficulties they will really make you work for victory. Unfortunately they don't seem to be programmed to deal with hazards in the environment. They will willingly stand on floors that suck away their life until they die and they just don't seem to recognize that the hazards exist at all. Its pretty annoying. And the computer is horrendously cheap in some ways, I strongly suggest turning off souls when fighting level 4 or 5 enemies. You will not win against them in a soul war, EVER. Even if you cheat and use the turbo function on a third party controller that only puts you about even with the enemy with soul absorption power. They are that ungodly good at absorbing souls.

Graphics - 8/10

The graphics are just average. The characters look decent and the levels range from bland to cool looking. I liked the graphic style they chose for a couple of the levels. Oni Tortoise and Sea Vessel have sort of cartoon-ish backgrounds and foregrounds and I think it looks pretty stylish.

If you are used to Super Smash Bros then the levels will probably be kind of bland and lifeless to you. They have small things to interact with and some hazards but theres really not a whole lot going on in the levels. This lets you focus on fighting and not avoiding level hazards but still a couple more action packed levels would have been nice.

The graphical highlight in Blade Warriors would probably be the elemental attacks and magic disks. A lot of them look pretty cool, especially some of the lightning elemental attacks.

Sounds - 7/10

WHAT THE HELL DID THEY DO TO EKEI?! If you have played previous Onimusha titles you will probably find something to be disappointed about with the voices. I haven't played the first Onimusha so I didn't have a problem with any of those character's voices. But several of the Onimusha 2 characters were just annoying to me. Ekei was definitely the worst, he sounds like he is from Texas... you will cry when you hear his voice. Some of the voices are good though and there are some pretty cool quotes to find in this game.

The music is just average. Most of it is forgetful and uninspiring but there are a couple really good tracks on here that will have you tapping your feet along with. I just wish there was some better music that had a good beat to it, this is a four player fighting game after all. The combat is supposed to be intense but some of the music seems to detract from the action.

Controls - 7/10

Sigh, why couldn't they let us use the analog sticks in this game? Besides that the controls are pretty much perfect. There are a good number of actions to learn and they are organized fairly well. But I just hate using a dpad...

Replayability - 9/10

In Story Mode there are 95 equippable items and weapons to be found and there are a ton of characters and levels to unlock. In VS Mode there are plenty of options to mess around with to have some entertaining matches. Just as a 2 player game it will last long enough but if you have a multi-tap it will probably never get old.

Final Score - 8/10

Actually I'd say more around like an 8.5 or so. But this is a great game that is easy to get into and remains fun for a long time. This is probably one of the best multiplayer fighters available too so even if you aren't a fan of Onimusha you should still find some enjoyment out of this game even if you only rent it. Of course a multi-tap and some extra controllers (preferably ones with round Dpads and not just four buttons pointing up, down, left and right) are strongly recommended to go along with it.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 08/08/04