Onimusha: Warlords / 鬼武者

I went in expecting a creaky museum piece and came out genuinely surprised how much the core loop holds together. Onimusha: Warlords is a 2001 PS2 action-adventure from Capcom, now remastered for PC, and the pitch is essentially Resident Evil with a katana: fixed camera angles, pre-rendered backgrounds, key-and-puzzle progression through a demon-infested feudal castle, and healing herbs tucked behind breakable pots. That DNA is unmistakable, and for players who bounced off it the first time, this remaster is not going to convert you. But for anyone with patience for old-school rhythm, there is something here that still works. The combat is the centrepiece and the best argument for playing this in 2024. You control samurai Samanosuke Akechi as he works through Inabayama Castle, collecting three elemental weapons - Raizan, Enryuu, and Shippuu - each with its own magic attack powered by blue souls harvested from fallen enemies. Red souls act as upgrade currency for your weapons and health, yellow souls restore health mid-fight. The kill loop of defeating demons, absorbing their souls with the oni gauntlet, and reinvesting them into your build stays satisfying throughout. Fights are paced like considered duels: enemies circle rather than spam, and a well-timed button press triggers an instant-kill counter called an Issen that rewards attentiveness. When it clicks, the weight behind each swing feels deliberate in a way a lot of modern action games forget. His partner Kaede, a female ninja, takes over in select sequences and plays noticeably differently, giving the short runtime a bit of variety. The remaster adds analogue stick movement as the new default, and it makes a real difference in navigating the fixed-camera corridors. You can revert to the original d-pad tank controls if you want the authentic experience, but most players will stick with the stick. The PC port runs at a locked 60fps with widescreen support, the re-recorded soundtrack holds up, and input prompts correctly switch between controller and keyboard - a small detail a lot of ports get wrong. The pre-rendered backgrounds, though, are the persistent weak spot: they were built for standard-definition televisions and look muddy against the sharper character models, creating a visual mismatch that no amount of filtering fully fixes. Boss arenas are the worst offenders, with camera angles that fight you as much as the bosses do. Unskippable in-engine cutscenes also sting when you die and have to sit through them again. The big caveat is length. The main story wraps in roughly four to six hours on a first run. There is an optional twenty-floor Dark Realm combat gauntlet worth doing for the reward, plus a handful of collectible Fluorite stones and a mini-game unlocked by finding all the secrets. None of that extends things dramatically. Whether that runtime bothers you probably tells you whether this game is for you. It never overstays its welcome and never pads itself with filler - the pacing is tight and the structure never goes slack - but players expecting a weekend-filling action game will feel shortchanged. It is the kind of game that knows its own limits. Steam players are clearly on board: 94 percent positive across over three thousand reviews signals genuine affection rather than nostalgia bias. That said, this remaster is light on extras compared to the Genma Onimusha Xbox version, which added new enemies, costumes, and an additional area that remain absent here. If you are coming in brand new to the series, manage expectations: this is a snapshot of early PS2 design philosophy, warts included. If you remember it fondly, or if you just want a short, focused action game with a feudal Japan atmosphere and combat that still has genuine mechanical backbone, it earns its place.

Alex · Scout Team

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