Onimusha Warlords is the samurai Resident Evil I never knew I needed [CATCH-UP CORNER]
Rhianne Ward
At the Game Awards last December, there was an announcement for a long-forgotten Capcom franchise called Onimusha. I'd never heard of this, but apparently it was a series from the PS2 era with a small but deeply dedicated following. Seeing some people I respect a lot get incredibly hyped for this revival definitely piqued my interest, and when one of my favourite gaming outlets, MinnMax, announced they were playing it for their game club show The Deepest Dive, I figured there was no better time, and picked it up for my Nintendo Switch. I was basically going into it knowing nothing other than it was a Capcom game, and it stars a samurai who fights demons. Hey, I'm not picky; that sounds like a whole lot of fun to me.
What you should know about me is that I'm not particularly well-versed when it comes to games that released prior to the PS3 era. I didn't really grow up with the PS2! I had one, of course - I'm not an animal - but my parents mainly bought me movie tie-in games or whatever was popular and age-appropriate, so my palate was basically just Shrek 2 and FIFA for a solid chunk of my life. I've dipped my toes in the realm of early- to mid-2000s games - Silent Hill 2, Persona 3, Resident Evil Remake and 4 - but I'm not as knowledgeable on the era as I'd perhaps like. Jumping into a game like Onimusha, even the remastered version, I was expecting a bit of a learning curve while I got used to the style of game this would be. However, to my surprise, I was able to get into it really quickly!
Onimusha has aged shockingly well for a 2001 title. There are definitely some staples of the era to be found here - fixed camera angles, goofy voice acting, and some quite unforgiving save points - but overall, I found it relatively straightforward to slip into the samurai armour. Bear in mind, of course, that this is the remastered version, but as far as I'm aware, beyond a resolution unlock, updated textures, and an option to use analogue stick controls, it's functionally the same experience as the original release. Still, I expected more obtuseness or jank from it, but to my surprise, it plays really smoothly. Samonosuke, the protagonist, can hack, slash, dodge, block, and strafe like he's in a whole other console generation, and the controls are intuitive enough that I mostly never got mixed up or confused. The only exception to this was whenever I needed to switch between melee and ranged weapons, a process which required about two button presses too many to achieve. Thankfully, there's only one boss fight that really requires a ranged weapon, and at some point I managed to figure out that I could main a gun build for that entire encounter and muscled my way through.
In a sense, this is frustrating, but it's also part of why I loved my time with Onimusha so much. It's just the right amount of obtuse that you actually have room to learn the mechanics organically and solve problems with your actual brain, and I appreciate that! There are cornerstone moments of my playthrough that felt insane to figure out, and while I could list them here, I kinda don't want to for fear of taking that experience away from someone else. That being said, if anyone needs tips and tricks for when they do play this game - and you will, because I said so - then feel free to let me know. I am happy to be your Onimusha head for a day, free of charge.
Alright, let's get back on track. That sense of overcoming or outsmarting the game has always been critical to the Resident Evil series, so seeing it here in Onimusha, manifested not through navigation tricks or inventory management, but through combat, is awesome. It also extended to little things too, like figuring out the blocked colour doors or using key items where and when I was supposed to, unprompted by the game itself. At its best, it gives me the same rush as plotting routes in Resident Evil 2 or mastering the backstep in REmake. When Capcom hits, they bullseye, and I hope this minimalist design mentality carries over into Onimusha’s 2026 revival.
The game is not without duds, however. My first is probably the most obvious one for anyone who has played it. The unskippable cutscenes! Even in the remake, which is the version I played, I could not skip the cutscenes. This would be fine if I were to see them, let's say, throwing a random number out there, ONCE, but when you're dying over and over to some of the genuinely difficult bosses in this game, it is diabolical that I am expected to fumble through multiple minutes of backtracking, just to watch the same exact cutscene with the same fucking “Come Marcellus! Go Marcellus!” ass villain. I love the game, and I even like playing it sometimes, but come on, man! Don't get me wrong, I can't get enough to the delightfully hammy Lichtenstein or whatever his name was (editor's note: his name is Guildenstern, and I love him), but there is such a thing as too much exposure to evil tentacle demons.
It's weird. Even with the cutscenes thing and how frustrating I found it, it gave the game this unforgettable charm. The more games I play, the more often I find a strange appreciation for the dumb shit in games. Would Onimusha be better if I could skip those cutscenes? Probably, but at this point, it's an integral of my memory playing it, and something would be lost with its absence. The same goes for the obtuse orb key mechanic, or the nonsensical enemy spawning habits. It all comes together to create his beautiful oddball of an experience. It's just so 2001, and I love it for that.
You may have noticed that I haven't mentioned the narrative of this game once, and that's because there isn't one. Okay, I tell a lie; there does exist a story within Onimusha, but it is both incredibly simple and oftentimes incomprehensible. You play as Samanosuke, samurai extraordinaire, summoned to the palace of Princess Yuki as she fears for her life. She is quickly kidnapped by demons who plan to drink her blood from her skull (classic) so you've got to stop them, with the help of a ninja friend named Kaede. It's about as complex as your average Mario plotline, but it simultaneously inserts various famous faces from Japanese history, who show up like Marvel cameos to make fun of Samanosuke for being just so ontologically good and kind, and I have basically no idea who these assholes are. If I were a history buff then I'm sure I would be pointing and screaming and crying tears of joy but since I'm not, it doesn't really mean much to me. It's fair to say that narrative is not among Onimusha’s list of priorities.
And yet, despite everything, there is clearly something going on in this game. I'm going to spoil some stuff here, and while I'd always recommend avoiding that, to be completely honest, it won't make much of a difference to your experience. Still, here's your warning.
SPOILER SECTION START!!
There's this recurring thematic thread that runs throughout Onimusha of referencing mortality and history. The main antagonist, Nobunaga, dies in the opening cutscene from an arrow to the throat, but finds himself revived by demonkind to rule as their evil king. His evil sidekick, Hideyoshi Toyotomi, is given his own unique introduction by a narrator who never speaks again, letting the player know that this guy will one day rule Japan in its entirety. He does not show up again after this. At the end of the game, Samanosuke appears to sacrifice himself to save Kaede, Yuki, and her brother Yumemaru, and an ending card explains that his body was never found despite Kaede, explained in that same card, spending her remaining years searching fruitlessly. She is given a death date. Nothing more is said.
All of this frames Samanosuke and Kaede as tragic figures, good people who did good, in a world that only seems to remember the powerful. I have no idea if these characters appear in future games, but I do know that Onimusha 2 takes place decades after the events of the first, lending credence to my theory that this is deliberate. Warlords is simply a moment in time that would have been lost, were it not for those who choose to tell the tale. Someone, against all odds, elected to cook at Capcom, and somehow I came away from Onimusha with a feeling of sombre reflection.
SPOILER SECTION END!!
Don't get me wrong: I'm not about to sit here and pretend Onimusha is secretly a work of genius. The implementation of its ideas is messy and incoherent at best, and completely accidental at worst. Like I said, Onimusha’s main goal is to be samurai Resident Evil, and it definitely succeeds in that. However, were it not for the game's many eccentricities, I don't think I would be nearly as compelled by it. It's just a very odd game that benefits from its strangeness.
Onimusha 2: Samurai's Destiny is scheduled to release in May of this year, and I am so excited to give that a try. I want to see what Capcom managed to conjure up after a full game’s worth of experience in this series. However, for now, my Onimusha appetite is sated. I will return when the hunger returns, and I am called to don the ogre gauntlet once again. Bye!
