When it comes to 3D beat em ups, the first thing people usually think about is Devil May Cry and while the Devil May Cry series did manage to bring a lot to the genre, it’s predecessor, Onimusha Warlords is basically the father that Devil May Cry never knew it had as it was Capcom’s first attempt at melding the survival horror genre with the beat em up genre which is ironic considering the fact that Hideki Kamiya would do the exact same thing with Devil May Cry. Onimusha was released around the time where games like Dynasty Warriors 2 were the highlight of the genre. Unlike Dynasty Warriors 2 however which emphasized fighting massive hordes of enemies with over the top attacks, Onimusha instead focused on fighting fewer enemies in tighter environments with a fixed camera and a combat system that required more finesse compared with that of Dynasty Warriors 2 which mainly revolved around mindless button mashing.

It was this contrast that gave Onimusha it’s identity at the time. It was one of the first 3D beat em ups on the PS2 to give the player a feeling of unease. Despite this however, the game’s critical system allowed players to feel equally as powerful as that of a Dynasty Warriors character but that power demanded greater skill from the player to pull off, as players would have to counter the enemy’s attack with near-perfect timing and by doing so, they would kill the enemy instantly. Those who were unable to get to grips with this system however relied on a basic combo attack as well as a magic attack that felt very much like a musou attack in Dynasty Warriors 2 in the sense that not only does the attack provide invincibility frames but it also delivers incredible damage to enemies. With this simple, yet satisfying system, Onimusha would begin a legacy of it’s own, a 3D beat em up that catered to those who enjoyed the slower pace of Survival Horror as well as a more technical combat system.

While Devil May Cry later emphasized a more aggressive, faster paced combat system with the same idea of having fewer enemies in tighter areas. Onimusha 2 decided to stick with the passive aggressive, slower paced combat of it’s predecessor. Unlike Devil May Cry where jumping around to avoid attacks was the only way to defend yourself, Onimusha 2 brought back the guard system from the first game which could be held down to prevent enemies from dealing damage to you. I find that that the guard system offers a much more reliable method of defense than Devil May Cry’s clunky jumping/evading as it allows players to remain stationary and prevent damage as opposed to praying that there is enough space for you to move around like in Devil May Cry.

This is why I personally consider the earlier Onimusha games to be vastly superior to earlier Devil May Cry games and considering the disappointment of Devil May Cry 2, Onimusha 2 didn’t just surpass the series at the time, it humiliated it. Now I’m not going to deny that Devil May Cry did bring a lot of great ideas to the genre, the original game suffered from an identity crisis and I personally found it to be incomplete due to the fact that it is a game that emphasizes flexibility yet only has 2 melee weapons and one of them doesn’t even have unique delay combos, sure there’s a third weapon but it is pretty much a copy/paste of another weapon with longer reach and without devil trigger but at least it’s not as bad as Devil May Cry 2 where all of the melee weapons are clones of one another, therefore only having 1 weapon type as opposed to 2. Onimusha 2 not only has more weapons than its predecessor, it provides additional functions to each weapon so while Devil May Cry got worse, Onimusha got better.

The first functionality each weapon is given in Onimusha 2 was originally introduced in the Xbox version of the first Onimusha but was completely absent from the ps2 version of the game. By holding down the R1 button, the player’s weapon begins to glow. Upon doing so, the player can press the attack button to perform a charge attack. These charge attacks play a massive role in the combat, especially for those who struggle at performing critical’s as they are extremely effective against the larger, sturdier enemies in the game as they not only deliver more damage to the enemy but they also provide greater knockback than regular attacks. Much like criticals, charge attacks reward the player’s patience as unlike Devil May Cry where you are encouraged to chain multiple hits on enemies to build up the style gauge, Onimusha encourages players to take their time and wait patiently to unleash their attacks so that they can take the enemy off guard.

In addition, each weapon has what is known as a “secret technique”. By inputting down, up and square, players can perform a different attack unique to that weapon. The Buraitou in particular has a secret technique which performs a swift 3 hit combo, you can use this move to cancel out a basic 4 hit combo on the third hit to perform a 6 hit combo. I thought this was a pretty nice touch to the game that made the combat feel more involving than just mashing square. The secret techniques are different for each weapon though and can only be used once players locate the scroll which unlocks the secret technique. I found secret techniques to be pretty handy in a pinch as they can stagger some of the larger enemies, allowing you to break out of situations where you are pinned to a wall by buying you time to re-position yourself. It could be argued that secret techniques can be abused however and there is no denying this as the stagger potential makes them far more useful than the regular attacks, though the fact that they can be chained with regular attacks encourages players to utilize them more as a combo extender instead.

There is also another returning feature from the Xbox version of the first Onimusha where you can collect up to 5 large souls to trigger a state of invincibility state only this time the souls are coloured purple instead of green and by collecting them, not only do you become invincible but you also transform into an Onimusha. Your Onimusha form is kind of like Devil Trigger in Devil May Cry in the sense that you become more powerful but unlike Devil Trigger, you are completely invincible in this mode and do not regenerate health. The problem with this however is much like Painkiller’s demon morph, it will trigger automatically once you acquire the last soul so being able to manually trigger it is difficult though you can stock up on 4 souls and wait till you’re in a bad situation to pick up a fifth soul to trigger your Onimusha form.

As for the Onimusha form itself, it does come with a ranged attack instead of conventional magic which decreases time spent in the Onimusha form for a bombardment of magic missiles that can clear away groups of enemies effortlessly at any range which is extremely useful. It’s just a shame that it cannot be manually triggered but perhaps that’s the intention, to require players to risk leaving themselves open for an attack by absorbing the souls before they can transform so that players can’t just trigger it effortlessly. Of course there’s the issue of accidentally absorbing it while trying to get other souls wasting all of your collected souls but thankfully the purple souls are a lot harder to draw in than regular souls.

Other than this, the combat is basically exactly the same as the first Onimusha game, to the point that it still has the awkward tank controls and this is arguably the game’s weak point, as tank controls are never ideal in a 3D beat em up though to be fair there were very few parts of the game where it proved to be a hindrance. The only time I can think of is during the last form of the final boss fight and I’m not going to disclose why for spoilers sake but it does prove a nuisance in that fight. Ultimately though, it’s something you just end up getting used to over time and if you’ve played survival horror games before then you should already be familiar with these controls. Thankfully due to the fight stance, moving around during combat is never an issue and the ability to guard against most enemy attacks by holding down the block button makes defending yourself a trivial matter.

With all things considered though, all the improvements made to Onimusha 2’s combat makes it arguably better than the first game by comparison. I still believe that there is merit to the simple, yet satisfying combat system of Onimusha 2. It may not be as flexible or as flashy as Devil May Cry 3 and other modern 3D beat em ups but it is still quite satisfying, especially when it comes to mastering the critical techniques. Onimusha 2’s combat is pretty impressive for an early PS2 3D beat em up and is arguably the most fun I have had in a beat em up released during the early PS2 era.

Of course you’ll be doing more than just combat in Onimusha 2, much like in the first Onimusha there are some puzzles to solve as well, though they are nowhere near as brain tearing as the infamous water puzzle from the first game, however there are still certain parts of the game where you will find yourself needing to do specific things to avoid getting a game over, usually with a time limit and while they aren’t half as annoying as the water puzzle, they can still be quite a pain to get through and often feel like a cheap way to kill the player. This is especially irritating if you are doing a no save run as you could be doing well in all the combat sections only to screw up in one of these annoying sections.

Puzzle boxes also return from Onimusha Warlords requiring you to slide panels to form a circular symbol resembling a target. Though I’m not usually fond of puzzles in games, I do have a soft spot for Onimusha’s puzzle boxes as they aren’t compulsory and can be skipped but provide a rather nice change of pace from the combat. Some of the puzzle boxes are pretty straightforward though others can be quite challenging to figure out. You will feel stupid when you finally figure them out though. Still I do have to admit that figuring out these puzzle boxes was quite fun and that maybe I do actually like puzzles in games, just as long as they aren’t mandatory puzzles.

One feature that separates Onimusha 2 from other games in the series is that you can influence certain events in the game’s story through the game’s gifting mechanic. During the early portions of the game, you will find yourself in a small mining village, here you can buy items from the local shop and interact with people in town, kinda like a RPG. It is here that you will meet up with the characters Oyu, Ekei, Magoichi and Kotaro who are all based on real historical figures if that interests you. What is more interesting however is that these characters act as your companions throughout the game and assist you in battle. At times you will even have to control one of these companions yourself for a short time. While this could be an issue in theory due to players having to constantly adapt to playing as different characters, they all play similarly enough to Jubei to be easy enough to get to grips with, though they do have some nuances that allow them to stand out from one another.

It’s important to note however that much like with Valkyrie Profile 2’s einherjar, it is impossible to play as every single character in a single playthrough. This is where the gifting mechanic comes into play. Whenever you acquire a new item that seemingly does nothing, chances are that it’s a gift and can be gifted to one of the four characters. Depending on the item gifted to them, you will get different results. For starters, each gift can impact a variable which affects numerous things in the story as well as what characters you’ll end up playing as during certain sections of the game. On top of all this you’ll also get gifts in return which can range from other gifts to give to a character of your choice or a useful item like a medicine or a power jewel. There’s a surprising amount of depth to this system as there are some unique items that are only available if you gift a particular item to a particular person, some of the gifts required may be gifts received from another person who you previously gifted. They clearly put a lot of thought into this system and as someone who’s a sucker for these systems, I found it to be a pretty enjoyable diversion.

Story-wise, I think that Onimusha 2 lacks the sense of urgency that the first game’s story had and the early portions of the game are pretty slow, though this could be seen as a good thing as you get to interact with the characters more in this part of the game since in the second half of the game, it’s mostly on rails and you barely get to interact with other characters at all, heck you lose access to the shop completely so you can’t even buy gifts for them anymore making your gold completely useless. I think the story does its job well enough though even if it isn’t the primary focus of the game, it is mildly entertaining at times, particularly when you encounter Gogandantess who I found to be quite an interesting villain. If you’ve played any Capcom game before that isn’t called “Breath Of Fire” then you should know what to expect from the story by now, it really is nothing special.

One thing people will be glad to see in Onimusha 2 is the gorgeous pre-rendered backgrounds it has. There’s a great variety of locations ranging from mountains, ruined villages, caves and many more. I find that the pre-rendered backgrounds do a pretty good job at building up a tense atmosphere too as do the fixed camera angles since you never know if there will be an enemy around the corner until you go there. Fans of survival horror games will love this, however there are a few areas where the camera leaves much to be desired, particularly in small, cramped hallways where there are 5 different camera angles and 2 of them zoom the camera in further which only serves to hinder the player, making it difficult to tell how far away you are from an enemy, which can be quite annoying at times. If you played the first Onimusha game then you should be prepared to expect more of the same in Onimusha 2 and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. They even brought back the castle area from the first Onimusha which looks strikingly similar to it.

Onimusha 2’s soundtrack does its job, it compliments the visuals well enough to build an atmosphere but aside from a couple of tracks here and there, nothing particularly stood out to me as memorable. Perhaps I’ve just been spoiled by the later games in the series which have an arguably superior soundtrack by comparison. Still I do think the soundtrack fits the setting really well, even if it’s not something I’d regularly listen to.

I can safely say that fans of the first Onimusha will feel right as home in Onimusha 2 and though it isn’t without its flaws, it’s easily one of the best 3D beat em ups of its time. If you’re looking for a 3D beat em up with survival horror vibes, this is definitely the game for you. Personally I do not consider myself to be a fan of survival horror games but I still enjoyed this game nonetheless. I think out of all the Onimusha games, Onimusha 2 offers the best of both worlds, so both fans of beat em ups and survival horror will get something out of it. It should be noted however that Onimusha is still an action game at its core and therefore I can’t recommend it to people looking for a pure survival horror game as I find it lacks the fear factor that survival horror games are known for mainly due to the fact that you’re playing as a badass samurai.

Story/Plot: Satisfactory

Visuals: Good

Gameplay: Great

Music: Satisfactory

Lifespan: Quite Short

Difficulty: Medium

Would You Replay? Yes

Overall: Great

Value: £30.00