Onimusha Warlords Review - A Remaster That Illustrates How Far We Have Come Since PS2

Written by Stephen Varner on January 15, 2019

Reviews: Onimusha is a series that clearly inspired some other popular franchises but there wasn’t enough done here to bring in new players.

The original release of the first Onimusha game takes us all the way back to early 2001 on the PlayStation 2. It was a wildly different time for action games and there have been many strides in the genre to improve the formula since. A remaster then begs the question: how does it hold up?

The story is that of samurai Samanosuke Akechi as he is summoned by Princess Yuki for his assistance in regards to strange things that are happening in her castle. He arrives to find that the Princess has been abducted and the castle overrun by demon monsters. It's up to Samanosuke and his partner Kaede to track down the princess and find out what the demons are after. The story is punctuated by a number of journals that you can find throughout the game that fills in some of the backstory and provides additional context to the events that are happening in the game.

Now, as remasters go this is one that seems to fit firmly in the "budget" category but given that it retails for just $19.99 that makes sense. Little if anything has been changed from the original outside of an up-res to 1080p and while it looks and plays as sharp as it ever has this only really serves to highlight how far things have come since the early PS2 era. The backgrounds are pre-rendered and the game operates with a fixed camera just as it did in early 2001 and where that probably worked at the time it's perhaps the camera that has been the most frustrating hurdle to overcome. Enemies can often attack you from off-screen or from behind a corner you can't see and the camera changes can be off-putting at best and dizzying at worst. There is a boss fight fairly early on where the camera changes so many times in such a small space that it was disorienting to the point of getting me killed at least once. Of all the monsters you fight in Onimusha Warlords it's perhaps the camera that is your biggest enemy.

Putting aside my issues with the camera, even if it worked flawlessly the game itself would be rather dull in 2019. With a single attack button and another for magic based attacks, there's little room for intricate combos and combat. Most of my fights consisted of jamming the attack button a couple of times and then retreating for a second to dodge an attack that I wasn't sure if the block would actually stop. I could pretty reliably beat most enemies this way despite a few of them having some attacks that occasionally felt cheap as there was no clear way to avoid them or break/counter a hold they had on me. This became especially frustrating when it happened between save points with any kind of cutscene because they are unskippable. I had a bit of trouble with one particular room that killed me a couple of times and there was several minutes worth of unskippable cutscenes I had to watch multiple times because I hadn't reached the next save point yet. It's a thing that just shouldn't be allowed to happen in a game released in 2019 be it a remaster or not. When you're not fighting demons you'll probably be searching for items or solving puzzles to open up the next area or one of the many treasure chests within the game. The structure is very much in the vein of Resident Evil or some other action games that would follow and while none of the puzzles or items are particularly difficult it adds a little bit to the formula outside of tapping X or Square to kill demons.

There is an option for Japanese voice over which I highly recommend you switch to even as somebody that is generally fine with most English dubs in games. The English voice-over really is that grating and I wouldn't wish it on anybody considering the cutscenes you might very well be watching multiple times. There is a nice orchestral soundtrack but outside of the decent music, there isn't a ton to write home about in terms of sound design.

Onimusha Warlords Remastered checks the bare minimum of boxes to qualify as a product that should be resold to people. While it does hold some value from a historical perspective and it's interesting to see where games like Devil May Cry and others found some of their inspiration it's difficult to recommend it to anybody that doesn't already have some measure of nostalgia for the game. The action genre has made great strides since 2001 and Onimusha Warlords Remastered doesn't do quite enough to smooth out those rough edges for a modern audience.