Onimusha: Warlords (PS2 Review)

Time travel is probably the most thought inducing topic in the history of mankind. For those who love the past, just to be a spectator at the burning of Rome or Lincoln’s Gettysburg address would be enough to elevate themselves to the highest of highs. With the advent of video games, historical voyeurs now have the opportunity to see an artistic rendition of that which has come before. Games in the Dynasty Warriors series have been met with deafening applause because of their historical accuracy and character association. Nevertheless, Koei does not have the monopoly on historically directed games. Capcom has entered the fray with their own 16th century epic, Onimusha: Warlords.

Two of the game’s main characters, Nobunaga Oda and Tokichiro Kinoshita, are based on real-life Japanese historical figures. Nobunaga was one of Japan’s greatest military leaders. His first major victory was in the defeat of the 25,000 man army of Imagawa Yoshimoto using only 3,000 troops. This battle is depicted in the opening credits of the game and it shows Oda’s tactical knowledge at its best. His inhuman and viciousness mannerisms have been compared to those of Vlad Tepes Dracula and even Napoleon Bonaparte. Being the first Japanese warlord to arm his men with firearms, he was also one of the first leaders to incorporate the use of weather and landscape as part of his military strategy.

Tokichiro Kinoshita is the other historic character of the game. This character has been created to represent Hideyoshi Toyotomi, the true-life lieutenant of Oda. Toyotomi actually made Oda’s dream a reality and unified Japan under one shogunate. However in this time that the game is set, the unification is far off and Kinoshita is just a bit player in the grand scheme of things.

While both of these previously mentioned characters are on the ‘dark path of the Force,’ the true hero is not in the history books. Samanosuke Akechi is a ronin (master-less) samurai. During his worldly travels, he receives a message from his former master’s daughter asking for his help. The Inabayama Castle has been besieged by demon monsters and Princess Yuki is in fear for her life. Samanosuke rushes to her aid, but arrives at the castle too late to prevent her kidnapping. With the assistance of Kaede, a skilled female ninja who also is a limited playable character, he hopes to rescue the princess and rid the Mino province of this evil influence.

Onimusha: Warlords is billed as an action game. Although there is plenty of this, it is definitely more than just another hack-and-slash adventure. Cerebral traps and puzzles are generously sprinkled through the adventure. Unlike Resident Evil, Capcom’s well known zombie killer series, there is not a lot of backtracking across great distances to solve most of these challenges. There are some instances where you will have to gather clues to unlock some of the coded chests, but these are mostly the exception rather than the rule for the gameplay. Special keys will usually appear right before they are needed and their corresponding doors can be reached by simply following a straight line by using concealed passages that were missed the first time through.

While the player will usually rely upon the prowess of their blade to see them past the many enemies, this is not the only weapon that you will wield. Kunai (throwing knives), bows and firearms are available for the playable characters to use. Most of the projectile ammunition is limited so it’s best to save it for the proper occasion. Weapons can be exchanged on the fly without having to worry about letting the bad guys get in a couple of cheap shots. Moreover, each one is upgradeable using the souls of the defeated demons that you have captured.

Samanosuke is granted the use of a special gauntlet which collects the souls of the monsters he dispatches. There are various types of soul matter that can be only used for a specific purpose. Pink colored souls can be used for upgrading your equipment, yellow souls will return health to your character and blue colored ones will add to your magic meter. Depending on what the monster is, and how it is killed, directly reflects on what type and amount of soul matter will be released. If not captured in a timely manner, soul matter will eventually drift away.

Even though Onimusha was completed in the early part of the PlayStation 2 lifecycle, it is still graphically impressive today. Environments are interactive and can be utilized to assist you in killing enemy forces. Ropes, fires, mist and other aspects of the game can be influenced by you or the demon characters. This truly keeps a player on their toes and makes them think outside the box for a unique answer to an everyday problem. Why should you go and duke it out with a horde of monsters, when you can simply cut a rope that is holding a cart up on a hill and let it do your light work? It’s the simple touches like this that really makes Onimusha stand out above other action titles.

Some of the most interesting aspects of Onimusha are the sound options. Language and subtitles can be set to various combinations of English or Japanese. The background music and sound effect volumes can individually be adjusted. However, the most ingenious part of the game is in the stereo sound choices. You can set up the speakers to work in normal stereo, stereo specific or inverse stereo specific. What stereo specific means is that anything that would make a sound on the right side of the screen will come through the right side speakers. The really unique choice is the inverse stereo selection. If your character is facing towards you on screen and a sound comes from the left side of the screen, the sound will resonate through the right side speaker channels because the sound came from the character’s right. This detail is unlike anything else I have experienced in a video game and it definitely was appreciated. 

Probably the only disappointing aspect of the entire game would be the control setup. Even though the DualShock 2 is now completely analog, for some strange reason Capcom has restricted the character’s movements to be done only through the directional pad. With the rest of the button function assignments making sense, and being exceptionally well designed, I have yet to fathom why Capcom went this direction with Onimusha since the left analog stick is not used at all in the game. Perhaps game developers will learn in the near future that it is us, the gamers, who are buying their games and each of us like to use their controller differently. I honestly can’t believe that custom button configurations are that hard to incorporate into a game, especially after everything else that I have seen done in this title. 

The only other minor gripe is the limited save point abilities of the game. You only can record your progress in one of the limited ‘magic mirrors’ scattered across the land. While these are also used for leveling up your equipment and weapons, I would have liked to simply be able to pause the game and save where I was rather than having to backtrack halfway across the level to find the last known mirror so that I could continue on with my real life. I realize that Onimusha is developed by the same company that created the Resident Evil series, and this game has its roots deep within that which came before. However, the typewriter save style was frustrating back in 1997, so why would they believe that today’s players would desire to see it appear again? This is one of those questions that will plague mankind until the end of time.

Extras are plentiful in Onimusha: Warlords. An unlockable Onimusha 2 trailer is available once you complete the game. Extra costumes can be found by finishing the game with a superior ranking or finding special hidden items while playing the game. Moreover, if you find all twenty of the hidden Florite stones, a special mini-game is opened for the player. If the player can beat all twelve levels of this game, then access to an additional special mode for the story mode of Onimusha becomes available.

Onimusha: Warlords gives the player a quality product. Almost every ingredient, from the engrossing storyline, to the solid graphic engine and wondrous sound options brings this game to the forefront of the action genre. Even the static cameras, that usually are a distraction for most games, add to the overall movie-like feel that Onimusha was trying to bring about. This is definitely a game that gives the player the most bang for their gaming buck. I recommend that fans of all genres give this one at least a rental, but action fans should run out immediately and pick up a copy for their libraries.

Difficulty: 8

Control: 6

Audio: 10

Visuals: 9

Replayability: 8

Overall: 8.9