Onimusha: Way of the Sword Review – A cut above the rest

Onimusha has come a long way since the days of being “Resident Evil but with Swords”. There are still nods to the series’ horror roots — Japan has never shied away from body horror — but as the first new game in two decades, Onimusha: Way of the Sword adopts a more modern approach that is much closer to an Assassin’s Creed Soulslike than anything in the Capcom line.

For the uninitiated, Onimusha means ‘Demon Warrior’ in Japanese. From its earliest days, the game took some of the most influential real-life figures in Japanese history, like Oda Nobunaga, and spun a new mythos around them. It’s similar to how the Assassin’s Creed franchise used the likes of Leonardo Da Vinci as part of its world building, but to an even greater extent.

In Onimusha: Way of the Sword, the main characters were all real people, including the protagonist, Miyamoto Musashi. Fans of Japanese samurai games may remember him from Ghost of Yotei (where he appeared as, Takezo the Unrivaled), and movie buffs may recognise him as inspiration for Kyuzo from Seven Samurai. Japanese buffs will know Musashi as the guy who basically invented the dual katana way of fighting. Even the Yoshioka School you see in the trailer and the main antagonist blocking your path and crossing swords with you were part of Musashi’s legend. Sasaki Ganryu was famously described by Musashi as the strongest opponent he ever faced.

All this to say, if you’re a fan of Japan, its history or its lore, you’re in for a treat. But assuming demon warriors and soul stealing isn’t entirely historically accurate game, there’s the whole Onimusha mythos overlaid that we need to talk about.

Despite what we think about demons in Japan and the West alike, the Oni in this world are actually the good guys. The troll-like primordial race that protected fledgling humanity from the marauding Genma by locking them away in the deepest circle of hell is now on its last legs. The Genma have escaped and the Oni, who are down to their last few survivors, can no longer stem the tide. The Genma have entered the mortal realm and are butchering humans across all of Eastern Kyoto.

Musashi is a somewhat unwilling protagonist, primarily because he’s a reluctant wearer of his Oni gauntlet, but is drawn into the battle to send the Genma back to hell, absorbing their souls and using them to upgrade weapons and abilities. Kiyomizudera, the first temple you visit, feels particularly nostalgic. Japanese temples always change size every time they burn down, so you shouldn’t expect a faithful 1:1 recreation, but as someone who has visited more times than I can count, it feels right. Just walking around the grounds brought a smile to my face, making the Genma invasion at the temple feel all the more personal.

Which brings us to the Soulslike debate and combat. For the most part, combat is simply using your katana to kill off the Genma — you have two strengths of attacks and a tonne of soft QTEs which direct the flow of combat. You can generally just mash the light attack against weaker enemies, but when the game prompts you to use a heavy attack against an incoming tank enemy, you get to take them down quicker as part of the Issen system. With practice, you can quickly cut through a room of enemies in one long chain, making you feel like an absolute badass. You can ignore the prompts, of course,, but why make life harder? It’s good practice for those late-game enemies that can only be killed using these precisely timed commands and perfectly timed parries, although you might want to go overboard and nuke them with one of your Oni weapons that offer one-hit kills against annoying enemies.

It’s the boss fights that really push this towards the Soulslike genre. You’re an admittedly superhuman warrior thanks to your Oni enhancements, but when fighting bosses from a 10ft Nue to the higher Genma bosses who have entire anime-style conversations with you before the battle, tight combat with precise strikes becomes essential. The Director previously promised that the game wouldn’t be a Soulslike, but that is frankly a promise broken. Even on Easy difficulty, two of these boss battles are frustratingly difficult with these timings — enough that I couldn’t recommend this to anyone who isn’t seriously into the action RPG genre.

For veterans of the genre — especially those with a taste for the samurai flavour — this game is a real spectacle. It very much feels like you’re playing through a samurai movie. There are plenty of nods to and inspiration taken from Japanese cinema. The only thing that detracts from this visual feast is the cringeworthy English voice acting aside. Sadly, I couldn’t get through the prologue without quitting and swapping to Japanese.

There are other areas that could do with tightening, too. The sidequests vary massively in quality. The ones tied into Japanese mythology are really cool and I would have loved to see more of these, but the ones that have you backtracking through every shrine to find Lion Dogs or to complete archery challenges are a real pain for not enough pay off. The game would have been better if these bits of fluff were cut or replaced with something genuinely interesting. When even your main character is annoyed at how annoying the quest giver is, the game is trying to tell the devs something.