OniFans: Onimusha: Warlords Review (PS2) | Hazy Bit #7

Welcome to the seventh edition of Hazy Bit!

Hazy Bit delivers retro video game retrospectives, reviews, and other nostalgic content directly to your inbox every Friday.

This week’s retro releases:

• Aconcagua (PS | June 1, 2000 | JP)

• Red Faction: Guerrilla (PS3, 360 | June 2, 2009 | NA)

• Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels (Famicom Disk System | June 3, 1986 | JP)

• Bomberman Generation (GC | June 4, 2002 | NA)

• Earthbound (SNES | June 5, 1995 | NA)

• Arthur: The Quest for Excalibur (Amiga, Mac | June 6, 1989 | NA)

• Phantasy Star Online Ver. 2 (Dreamcast | June 7, 2001 | JP)

Check out this list on GameFAQs to see other titles released this week.

Loading Screen - Retro Gaming News

• The Sega Mega Drive/Genesis Is Getting A New Clock Tower-Esque Point-And-Click Adventure - Time Extension

  • Horror and retro gaming fans rejoice - there’s a new game coming to the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis! Jack Yarwood of Time Extension takes a closer look at The Bagman, which will also be coming to PC and modern console. Take a look at the game’s Steam page here and maybe even add it to your wishlist!

• Cult DS Classic ‘Scurge: Hive’ Returns To Consoles & PC After Almost 2 Decades - Retro Dodo

  • Scurge: Hive, a 2006 DS and GBA isometric action title, is receiving a release on modern consoles and PC later this year. Sebastian Santabarbara of Retro Dodo provides more details on this upcoming release.

• N64 Game CRT Filter and Rewind Locked Behind Nintendo Switch 2 - IGN

  • Three new features are coming to the Nintendo 64 games available through the Switch Online and Expansion Pack subscription. All three features will be available on Switch 2, but only one will be available on the original Switch. Wesley Yin-Poole of IGN explains further in this article.

Resident Evil: Samurai Edition

I first became aware of Onimusha: Warlords when I saw an ad on the back cover of an issue of Tips & Tricks. I must have been 9 or 10, so I had no chance in hell of getting my hands on what looked like, to my young eyes, a badass samurai adventure from the Resident Evil team (which I also hadn’t played yet - thanks, responsible parents). I ended up playing games from both the Resident Evil and Devil May Cry franchises before I ever touched an Onimusha game, but the series has always been on my list of titles to someday track down and play.

I finally got that chance in 2024, a cool 23 years after the initial release of Onimusha: Warlords. How does it hold up? Is it an essential PS2 title that you should add to your collection?

Let’s get into it.

Oh Nobunaga!

Onimusha: Warlords begins with a prerendered cutscene that sets the stage for the game’s events. A weird translucent bug, a princess doing some calligraphy, a praying mantis doing a little dance - oooo, mystery. Then we see soldiers marching through tall grass and a man riding a horse that crushes a maggot-filled skull - oooo, gritty. That man is Oda Nobunaga, a real historical figure who looms in the backdrop as the villain of the events of Onimusha: Warlords. A clash between two armies begins and the camera, swiftly dancing through the soldiers, finally swings upward to the top of a cliff to reveal Onimusha’s hero: Samanosuke.

I can imagine this was an amazing opening sequence in 2001 because it isn’t bad today. Sure, what would have been state-of-the-art graphics haven’t aged well, and the English voice sync is on par with an old Godzilla movie. Still, it is effective at drawing the player in and quickly introducing key characters like Samanosuke, Nobunaga, and Princess Yuki.

The thing is, though, we soon see Nobunaga get offed by an arrow in the throat. The battle over, Samanosuke rides through a meadow, seemingly in a hurry. We don’t have to wait long to find out why: Princess Yuki has been kidnapped. Not only that, the cutscene ends with an army marching toward the camera, commanded by none other than a resurrected Nobunaga.

It’s a solid opening for what is a solid story that works well enough to carry the game. One minor gripe I have with Onimusha is that there isn’t any character development, and I mean zero. Samanosuke is a badass throughout the game, with no growth or change other than he can use cool demon powers. Kaede, Samanosuke’s kunoichi sidekick, remains the same. Even Princess Yuki, or that little kid who was only on camera for like, 10 minutes - yup, you guessed it. They are exactly the same at the end of the game, too. The only meaningful character “development” was Nobunaga going from the afterlife to a Walking Dead extra.

The intrigue regarding who is pulling the strings of the game’s events helps to carry the story that is there, and it doesn’t hurt that the game is only about 4 hours long if you aren’t a completionist. I can’t help thinking Onimusha could have aged a lot better with a more well-thought-out story - the coolest part of the game comes at the end when Samanosuke himself turns into a demon, and you can’t even play as this new form! More on this later, but color me disappointed.

Fighting demons and a locked camera

Onimusha: Warlord’s combat is solid, but not spectacular. Combo timing is smooth and hitting enemies isn’t too difficult thanks to the auto-lock system that pulls Samanosuke toward the nearest enemy when attacking. And thank God, too, because without that feature, playing Onimusha would be a hell of a lot more frustrating than it is thanks to two relics of older Capcom action games: fixed camera angles and tank controls.

Fixed camera angles aren’t a bad thing in and of themselves; they can make for a more cinematic experience when pulled off correctly. The problem in Onimusha lies in enemies that spawn offscreen so that the player doesn’t even know they’re there. It’s only mildly frustrating with close-range enemies, but if some archers have spawned without you knowing? That’s a recipe for getting very pissed, very quickly.

The camera issues are made worse by Samanosuke and Kaede, who control more like the neighborhood ojiichan or obaachan instead of the nimble and skilled fighters they are. And then, to add insult to injury, if you die too many times, the game announces that an easier mode has been “unlocked.”

Fuck off, Onimusha.

All that said, there are still some cool moments that stuck with me long after turning my PS2. A highlight for me is the boss battle atop one of the pagodas of the castle the game takes place in, complete with the moon gleaming high in the sky. Onimusha is peppered with little moments like these that combine intense combat with an amazing setting, but for me, they were too few and far between.

Outside of combat, the gameplay is split between leveling up your weapons and demon powers to unlock new areas, collecting items that function as part of puzzles (and unlock new areas), and solving a few puzzles. The variety in such a short game is nice and it helps the game to not fall into a monotonous pattern.

A tale of missed opportunities

If you haven’t already guessed, I don’t think Onimusha: Warlords has aged particularly well. I don’t hold that against it - there are a lot of early PS2 games that just don’t stand the test of time. But I think that some of Onimusha’s non-gameplay missteps boil down to missed opportunities.

Let me explain with that example that’s particularly egregious to me - heads up, spoiler alert. At the end of the game, we’re treated to a cutscene after defeating Fortinbras. In the cutscene, after being squeezed like an orange by Fortinbras’ big mitt, Samanosuke spits up blood onto his cool-looking demon arm, causing him to transform into a demon.

Sounds awesome, right? It would be really gnarly to take Demon Samanosuke for a spin, right? Aw man, this final boss battle part 2 between Fortinbras and Demon Samanosuke is going to be epic!

There’s just one catch: the cutscene doesn’t end. There’s no switch to gameplay. Instead, the rest of the story plays out in a cutscene with no chance to mess around with Samanosuke’s new powers. And on the whole, that’s what the Onimusha: Warlords experience feels like to me. Ooo, here’s a good idea, but let’s not take it too far - just a minute or two.

Playing Onimusha: Warlords in 2024

If you’re interested in giving Onimusha: Warlords a try to see what an early PS2 title was like getting a copy isn’t hard or expensive. I got a complete copy of the game, instruction booklet included, for around $10. If you don’t have a console that can play PS2 games, or if you’re more of a PC person, the remastered version is available on Steam for $19.99 with some visual and quality-of-life enhancements - like full 3D movement instead of tank controls. The remastered version is also available on Switch, Xbox One, and PS4.

Do I think Onimusha: Warlords is worth playing in 2024? Short answer: yes. Long answer: yes, but try out the remastered version for a better playing experience.

Thanks for reading! That’s all for this edition of Hazy Bit. Next up: I’m listening to some 16-bit jams as I write out my list of the top 10 SNES soundtracks.

The YouTube longplay included is from the channel LongplayArchive, a fantastic channel for watching gameplays of games you might have missed. They’re aiming “…to archive every single licensed console game ever published,” so subscribe to the channel and help them out.