First game of 2024, this game was long overdue for me.

Despite being a huge Capcom fan, a huge RE fan, AND a huge fan of yokai-themed body horror, I had never played any of the Onimusha games. I think I had gotten into my head that this series was something completely different, thinking it was closer to the Basara series or something, rather than what it actually is, Resident Evil but with Samurai. It's funny how your brain can write something off for years, and then randomly change its mind.

I'm glad it did, because this game was awesome, Onimusha got so much right on its first outing. The combat felt good, the backgrounds were cool and readable, and the designs all around were great, especially the demons. It all felt conventional, but well polished with a clear identity, to replicate a classic Samurai film with the Capcom flare of the era. Another thing that was surprising to me was how good the facial animations and mocap were, while it does have those early mocap exaggerated gestures, it still felt believable, and there were games on this system which came out way later that looked worse.

What really impressed me was the release, let's put this game into perspective. Coming out in 2001, the PS2 has only been out for a year, and within that 2000-2001 timeframe, Capcom developed Onimusha, Code Veronica, Dino Crisis 2, and DEVIL MAY CRY. That's insane! Sure, they all borrow elements from each other, but considering the level of care this game had as a new IP is crazy. That's just covering the RE side of the company too, Capcom was such a powerhouse in the late 90's.

Anyways, the game was fun, if not a little short, but it didn't need to be any longer than it was, the game covered everything it needed to, and laid the framework for the rest of the series. Really excited to play the rest, especially 3.

I was offered a PS2. I went into a game shop. I never heard of Onimusha before. It cost me 2€.

When I launched it, I discovered it was made by Capcom. I was really happy to discover so. When I finished it, I read that Onimusha is the 7th most profitable serie of Capcom. I now know why.

Onimusha comes with a great technology. Capcom decided to create an animation team dedicated to CGI cutscenes (which are great). Thus, CGI would only shine if it would show something interessting. Someone sugested a medieval theme. They went for it.

Now, they had a theme, a clear technological goal... how about making a game ?
In 2001, what does Capcom knows to do ? Survival horror. Let's go on this basis. Unfortunately, Capcom's survivals rely on multiple subleties, one of them being ammo managment. Erf, katana do not need ammunitions. Well, let's put a mana system and reorient the game towards combat action. Let's add a light RPG system and everything will work well. They were right. It works well.


Onimusha is situated between old-fashionned-capcom survival horror games and (for its time) new fashionned beat'em all (see DMC). The adventure is situated in really tiny and kind of oppressing spaces, which can lead to some stress inherent to survival horrors. Thus, most of the time, combats shine. This is due to the variety of opponents you fights and the pseudo-rigidness of your character. Should you either slash enough to make 3 enemies temporaly fall down, which would give you the time to end them on the ground or deal with their comrades, either try to focus the most powerful ones with your magic spells, either run through them taking the risk to be attacked, either take your distances and shoot'em with your bow ? It's up to you, and it's wonderful gameplay-wise. Add on top of this interessting and memorable bosses and you have an intense game experience, set up in a non-commonly seen layout, with imbricated systems that lead to multiples genre and game experiences in a unique software.

Onimusha Warlords é simples em todos os seus aspectos e consegue atingir o objetivo de ser divertido e cativante ao longo de seu desenrolar. Os pontos que valem a pena mencionar sobre esse game são:

História: Sua história é superficial e pouco densa, seja na sua trama ou na exploração de seus personagens. O game tem como proposta te colocar na pele de um herói, então, é por isso que tudo em sua narrativa é tão simples, focando mais no conflito e na sua solução, do que em seus pormenores;

Ambientação e trilha sonora: Onimusha sabe entregar um mapa que reflete bem o cenário japonês feudal que muitos têm em mente, e, mesclado com uma trilha sonora de ação e épica, fazem você se sentir bem imerso na experiência;

Gameplay: Sua jogabilidade é bem mecânica, fazendo o combate ser bem robótico em alguns aspectos e até desfuncional para a aplicação de golpes ou até mesmo a defesa de golpes dos inimigos. Entretanto, esse mesmo fator contribui para o combate ser desafiador e testar o jogador em superar os desafios que cada inimigo oferece.

No geral, Onimusha: warlords oferece uma experiência agradável e cativadora, até mesmo para poder rejogá-lo uma segunda vez. O fato de ser curto e possuir uma história superficial não afetam a experiência que o jogo oferece. Um jogo divertido e confortável de jogar.

Onimusha Warlords is the pinnacle of pre-Resident Evil 4 Capcom design. It is trite to say "RE but samurai," but the work Capcom did to rebalance their formula is incredible. Swords can be swung indefinitely, so the enemies are faster, more aggressive, and have larger movesets. The level design also enables larger scale fights despite the tank controls. The more action centric story still has goofy moments, but it remains coherent and, surprisingly enough, more genuine than some of RE games. Comparisons aside, the use of pre-rendered backgrounds is among the best since the 3D models can have more polygons and the backgrounds can be higher resolution. Knowing that component video output is pretty soft, the visuals look consistent as a whole. Onimusha is an impressive and fun iteration on existing precedent.

Resident Evil with swords was how it was conceived, and how it plays -- and it shockingly feels awesome. It's slower and methodical, making you think sometimes before you input an attack.

The series just became Devil May Cry after this but the first Onimusha is a solid game that doesn't outstay it's welcome and has aged quite well. Only thing about this game that will send people into a rage are the fixed camera angles, which was the style at the time.

It'd be cool if 2&3 were ported to modern consoles like the first one was.