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.

the world building in this is a 20/10 and that elevates it beyond the imperfections, i’ve never read so many collectible notes and audio logs in a game. combat moves are satisfying and flashy but dying just plain never felt like my fault, and loads/run backs were too long. i eventually checked the Immortal box in the settings and never came close to regretting it. i could still see the health bar drop to zero and every time it happened i said yeah that would’ve been a stupid moment to die. really was annoyed the elements i was loving kept getting interrupted by combat because of it’s a video game, not because it was an impactful or special sequence in any way. just added filler hours. damn that’s probably what all my reviews are gonna be like on here huh.

“I’m a fiend for mojitos”
-Det. James “Sonny” Crockett, Miami Vice

The 2000s aesthetic is in full swing here. Tekken 4 is widely considered the first videogame ever to be set in a city¹, but what isn’t commonly known is that it’s also the first game to feature techno music².

Tekken 4’s punch-outs take place in far more grounded settings than its predecessors or successors, such as shopping malls and parking garages. Each one is a stage from Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3³ and you can almost feel the hot breeze of a warm summer night, especially if your PlayStation 2 is overheating.

Despite its impeccable vibes, a competitive scene never arose for Tekken 4 due to it being mostly about positive energy and enjoyment⁴. Professional fighting game players rarely discuss anything other than the presence of a senile, diaper clad Heihachi Mishima as the final boss.

Tekken Force Mode returns from Tekken 3.⁵

Playing this in tandem with its 2002 sister fighting game Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance, it’s plain to see which is the better fighting game experience.⁶ The gameplay itself isn’t as balanced as prior or future entries, apparently, but everything else about this game is sleek and fluid. As an aesthetic exercise at the very least, Tekken 4 is wholly unique in its franchise if not its genre.

Tekken 8 would do well to swap out some of its particle-effect-heavy, apocalyptic stages⁷ for a pristine turn-of-the-century airport or a balmy metropolitan rooftop. Kazuya should rock some shades. Man, this game is like Tekken Summer Vacation. Let’s party.

__________
[1] I made this up
[2] Completely fabricated
[3] Pranked!
[4] Conner Wilson, On Tryhards, Penguin, 2024, p. 68
[5] Tekken 4, Namco, 2002
[6] Conman, Tekken 4, Backloggd, 2023, p. 1
[7] This just has to be the case right