Onimusha: Warlords

"A Solid Hack and Slash but little else."

Things weren't easy when the PS2 launched. Millions of eager video game fans were left frustrated during Christmas of 2000, unable to find any units of the successor to the hugely successful PSX in stock. Those that did manage to snag a PS2 were often disappointed to find a rather baron library and, in many cases, the PS2 amounted to little more than a shoddy $300 DVD player. It took until late 2001 for the real AAA titles to appear on the PS2 and for the system to start to show its promise. Before that, the system had a string of high profile disappointments that came from a variety of developers who had been forced to rush cheap titles into production and battle the difficult to program for hardware. Perhaps every early PS2 owner had one game that caused them to begin to lose faith in the system during that difficult first year. For me, it happened to be Onimusha: The Warlords; not because it was a bad game, but because it wasn't the AAA title that it could have been and that I had hoped for.

Onimusha is set in feudal Japan. The game opens as the warlord Nobunaga is killed by an assassin's arrow just as he has won his greatest victory and looks to become ruler of Japan. A year later, our hero, the young samurai Samonuske, is summoned to Inabayama castle by his cousin Princess Yuki. Just as Samonuske arrives, Nobunaga, newly resurrected and leading and army of demon warriors, invades the castle and kidnaps the princess. And thus, Onimusha is essentially another re-telling of the same “save the princess” story that has been around since videogames were invented. Not that I'm saying that this is necessarily a bad things. Recently, games like Zelda: Wind Waker or Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time have managed to present some interesting interpretations on this classic storyline. Unfortunately, Onimusha's plot is pretty much non-existent. Save for a very impressive opening FMV and an equally impressive one at the end, the story never really develops. Characters are brought into the game only to disappear and never be heard of again and the whole story has a very detached and unfocused feel to it. Needless to say, if you're expecting the kinds of twists and turns found in the better chapters of the Resident Evil series (RE2 and RE: Code Veronica), you're going to be sorely disappointed.

At its core, Onimusha has some fairly enjoyable gameplay. While the structure seems to be similar to that of the Resident Evil series with the player journeying through the castle finding keys and solving puzzles, the emphasis here is on hack and slash action rather than puzzle solving and exploration. The combat is pretty entertaining with Samonuske being able to equip several different weapons in his fight against the undead. The actual swordplay, while not terribly deep is fairly fun. One nice feature is that Samonuske can absorb the souls of his defeated foes. Using these, he can upgrade his various weapons and armor in a rather RPG like fashion. The player can also perform a special move called and Issen if they hit the attack button just before an enemy attacks. Unfortunately, the enemies are so incredibly easy that I never found myself using this feature (in fact I didn't even discover it in the first play through). The game also suffers from its clear Resident Evil heritage. Like Resident Evil, the backgrounds are static with the camera in fixed positions and while fighting off screen enemies you can't see might be good for a horror game, it kills an action one like this. The game also suffers from the unfortunate RE controls that, like the camera, work in a survival horror title where the player is meant to run from enemies rather than fight them but stink here where combat is the meat of the game.

Graphically the game is fairly pretty. The characters are detailed and the backgrounds and fairly impressive even if they are only 2D. Unfortunately, as with many early PS2 titles, the AA is not quite up to snuff and it gives the graphics a rough look that is unfortunate.

The sound is a bit less strong. The music is generally good and does a good job giving the game a cinematic feel to it. The songs aren't the catchiest I've heard in a game but they get the job done and fit well. The voice acting on the other hand is pretty awful (think the first Resident Evil) but that's not too big an issue given the story sinks anyway.

Perhaps the biggest frustration with Onimusha is its brevity. The average player can beat it in less than five hours. Even when I leveled up all my weapons and did the few miniquests in the game, the title only took me six hours total. After you play, you can go through again for an extra costume and a harder difficulty but there really isn't much worth giving the game another try for. Even at a Greatest Hits price of $20, it's hard to recommend shelling out the cash for such little play time.

Graphics-8
Sound-8
Story-5
Gameplay-8
Value-5
Rent or Buy?-Rent
Overall-7

Ultimately, Onimusha is a solid game and not much else. The combat is fun but it's not very deep and it's terribly damaged by remnants of the Resident Evil series. That coupled with the game's brevity and lack of replay value make it hard to recommend. It's a shame really because there are a few moments, such as a very cool fight on the castle's roof, that show what a cool samurai action game this could have been if Capcom hadn't botched the execution. Oh well, at least since it's Capcom we know that there will be countless sequels that may or may not fix things.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 10/04/04