[00:00] What's going on everybody, Mordom here, this time bringing you my review after 100% for Onimusha, Way of the Sword, a return to that franchise from Capcom that has honestly been great.
[00:18] I've had a really fun time with this one, but before we get into all that, I'm sure most people watching this one have heard my spiel by now. If you're interested in the 100% reviews, there is a link to a video covering all of that down below,
[00:30] and my Steam profile is public, and it's down below as well. But in the case of Unemotional Way of the Sword, it released pushing two weeks ago, in fact, and the reason I'm bringing you this review now is that I did not get a review key for it. I, of course, purchased it and then have been working on this review,
[00:44] but it honestly released at a really bad time for me personally, so it has taken longer than normal to get through this one. Though, to be fair, when that happens, it does usually make my life a little bit easier, as anything I need to look up has usually been solved already, which is always going to save me some time.
[01:00] But other than that, let's dive right into it and talk about this game. So, Onimusha has been around for a while. This is a return to that franchise, but it does not really, like, require any prior knowledge to get into.
[01:13] And to be clear, I am not by any means like super up to date on the franchise itself. In fact, one of the reasons I wanted to take a look at this game initially is that I remember being younger and watching some of my older brothers play some of the older entries.
[01:27] But nonetheless, Revive It, they did, and they did a pretty fantastic job in doing so. This game ran very well. The combat is super fun. It's very adaptable to whatever your skill level happens to be.
[01:40] The story, while honestly the actual narrative of it is just okay, it is carried very hard by some really impeccable characters, which all sort of coalesces into, honestly, I would say one of the better action games I have played across the board.
[01:53] And I do want to emphasize action there. I have seen some people referring to this game as a souls-like, and it just isn't. But I can certainly understand with how prevalent that genre has become why you might make that assumption. Either way, all told, I definitely got the $70 I paid for it out of this game,
[02:09] and so let's dig a little deeper. First up, we got the technical state. So this game is running, for me at least, incredibly well. I did have a couple of nitpicks, but they are just that, nitpicks. This game does have the same issue that a lot of action games have with the camera,
[02:25] where sometimes when you're fighting something like a boss, you'll get pushed up against a wall and suddenly you can't see anything. And while it is, thankfully, not usually going to cost you the fight in the case of this game, it's just, like, a little annoying sometimes.
[02:37] And then on top of that, I do also think that some of the menus were a bit clunky as well, but that's, again, not exactly the end of the world. And so, let's move on to difficulty and new game plus. So, I mentioned that this game is very adaptable to your skill level, and that starts with choosing between either story or action to begin with.
[02:55] So, these will be your first playthrough. And one of the larger differences between these difficulties, or at least by default anyway, is that on story you will actually see button prompts for what type of counter to whatever the enemy is going to do pop up on the enemy telling you to, of course, do it.
[03:12] And while the game does not handle the timing for you, it does basically say, like, perform this action. Action difficulty doesn't do that by default, though I do believe you can turn it on for that setting. I didn't bother with it personally, but I think you can turn it on.
[03:24] And so you've kind of got to get the feel for all of that yourself. I would say if you've played a fair few of these action games, action difficulty will come to you fairly naturally. In my case, on a first run, there were like a couple of bosses that threw me for a loop,
[03:37] but most things I was able to kill on the first try without too much of a fuss. But really, that's just the start of things, because once you finish your first playthrough, you can then enter New Game Plus, and New Game Plus unlocks Carnage difficulty.
[03:49] Now, if you played your first run on action, the jump into Carnage feels very natural, and was probably most felt for the bosses in particular. The regular enemies, honestly, I didn't notice too much of a difference outside of them dealing more damage,
[04:01] but the bosses are definitely more punishing as a result. However, after playing through the game on action and practicing, I think Carnage difficulty is perfectly manageable, and combine that with some approaches that have already been sorted out
[04:15] for some of the more difficult bosses, like the final one, this entire thing is very, very manageable. And if you follow the difficulty progression curve, I think the game does a great job of, like, slowly introducing you to more and more things
[04:27] and helping you advance your way through that experience. And when you finish Carnage difficulty, you actually get, like, a super sword that makes you much, much stronger, which makes the boss rematch mode that you can complete much easier as a result.
[04:41] But long story short, most of Onimusha is very manageable. I don't want to say easy per se, depending on your skill level, but I would say if you're familiar with these types of games, the only like real challenge I
[04:53] felt like I was really running into were some of the final bosses on Carnage Difficulty Moving on however next up we got the story setup and my thoughts on it Now I am trying to avoid spoilers as this game came out recent so there are certain things I trying not to necessarily show but just for the sake of staying out there for somebody if you don want any
[05:12] spoilers at all, maybe skip past this part, but I'm mostly just going to be covering the plot setup and giving some general thoughts here. Now, general thoughts wise, I would say the actual, like, story narratively is fine. I didn't hate it or anything, and it was perfectly okay and serviceable.
[05:27] However, that story is hard carried by how great they did with the characters, starting with our character, Musashi, who they packed just a ton of character into. Now, I understand that there was some notable instances around the person playing Musashi.
[05:45] I'm not super up to date on that, but from what I understand, the person playing the main character also played a notable character in a similar way for a different series. Something to that effect, I'm not sure. but honestly, the guy crushed it.
[05:58] That performance, alongside of some of the other notable characters like Takamura or Genryu and Akumi, they just really, really nailed it. Those guys are fantastically well portrayed, and they draw you into a story that, at least for me, I would have been neutral about otherwise.
[06:14] But beyond that, the game begins with Musashi basically just being a young samurai looking to prove himself and taking on all these different fights. However, that quickly goes sideways after he escapes the very elaborate scene where he's fighting tons of other people at once, which, while I was playing through that intro, felt very long, but the reason they take all that time to set up that fight, other than just being, you know, a pretty cool little set piece, is that shortly after this, you run into Ginma, beings from the lowest depths of hell that have started seeping into our world, and you get pretty much immediately destroyed by them, just kind of showing you how strong these guys are meant to be, and that mortal swordsmen aren't really a match.
[06:52] However, while you are on your way to hell, apparently, you are pulled out of that and forced to wear an Oni gauntlet, a gauntlet that feeds on souls, including the ones from the Ginma you'll be fighting, which grants you powers well, well beyond mortal means.
[07:07] And so you're going to use that power to fight against these Ginma when you discover that the gauntlet itself is possessed by an Oni who plays a role in the story, but also that another individual wearing the Oni gauntlet, Takamura, is currently guarding the main gate into hell.
[07:23] and in order to stop the flood of his Ginma flowing in, you need to do what he can't currently do, which is go track down their sources since he's stuck at the gate. And that's just a sort of bare-bones generic plot setup for the rest of the game,
[07:37] and it goes some pretty fun places there. You encounter your rival a bunch of times, you get to the bottom of, like, what's going on here, why this is happening, while also settling Musashi's personal doubts about, you know, what his reason for fighting may actually be,
[07:50] and it's just a well-told story. But with that all said, let's actually dive into the rest of this, starting with progression mechanics. So Onimusha has relatively straightforward progression. It comes down to your equipment, skills, special skills, charms, your armaments you'll be picking up as you go, and things like that.
[08:08] Now this unlocks slowly as you play through the beginning points of the game, but you have three bits of equipment. Your clothes, sword, and gauntlet, and you'll be picking up resources as you explore and everything. you'll spend some of those resources upgrading your equipment, which increases your base stats,
[08:23] in order to make you more effective in combat. In addition, you'll be spending the Gin Missiles you pick up, as well as some of the special items like Power and Oni Stones, to unlock skills and special skills.
[08:35] These simply enhance the abilities you already have, or enhance your Oni Armaments you'll be picking up, which are different weapons you can unleash. But basically, the more of these you get, the more effective you are in combat, and then you also have Charms.
[08:47] You'll equip one initially, but can increase that up to three as you go. These charms provide a variety of different effects. You usually get them as rewards for completing some of the game's side content, and just sort of, you know, pick the three that suit you and upgrade them, and you'll be good to go.
[09:01] Now, I did mention Oni armaments. While you primarily use your sword to do most of the combat, you'll also find these special weapons as you move through the game. As you absorb, again, the souls, they come in a few different types,
[09:14] and the boom type charges your ability to use these Oni armaments, and once that's charged up, you can do a big attack with them. It usually gives you some iframes and affects a large area, and you can slot between all of them and use them in different ways.
[09:28] So just a fun little bit of extra progression that gives you some different options, though some of those are missable if you are not exploring thoroughly. But that's pretty much it as far as progression goes. I mean, other than just playing through the game, it's a relatively straightforward system,
[09:41] which then brings us to the gameplay and world section. So, I was very curious about this personally, just because of them bringing back this old franchise and how they were going to handle that. And the answer is that you do operate out of a sort of main hub area eastern Kyoto that you will then unlock slowly over the course of the story And it expands and how much you can explore and go do expands with it But while you are chasing down various game story threads this main hub will
[10:10] then also eventually lead you to side areas, so to speak, that you'll usually access through a fast travel shrine, but those areas act as more like traditional levels or dungeons that you'll be moving through and advancing by taking out enemies before it ultimately leads you to a boss
[10:25] for that section of the story, and then once you're done, you'll usually head back to your main hub. But you are, however, free to travel between these places, explore, and do side quests. Now, that said, yes, there is side content.
[10:37] A good chunk of it, nothing too crazy. All of it gets marked on your map, so it's not really possible to miss any of it unless you just choose not to do it. But as part of the main story, you'll encounter a character who is looking at the curious instances
[10:49] of things happening around Kyoto and other places. That gives you some of the longer side quests. You can also do some shorter ones for the citizens that start coming back to the town after you start clearing the Malice, which has been caused by the Ginma running rampant, and is lethal to mortals.
[11:05] So once you start clearing that out, they start coming back. And those two types of stories combined with collecting lion dogs and getting rewards for it is the bulk of the gameplay outside of the combat itself. And speaking of, before we jump fully into combat, I did want to mention that there is, as a result of all of that, an aspect of exploration that does make exploring and kind of looking around each corner and seeing what's in each place rewarding in the sense that it gives you the resources to then pump back into your equipment and upgrades.
[11:33] And so while it's not like an especially deep system of exploration, it does manage a really rewarding gameplay loop. But the big thing here, realistically, is the combat system. So let's talk about it.
[11:45] Combat provides you a few different options of mitigating the way enemies attack you, and you can lean into one of them, you can mix and match them, or weave them together, just kind of whatever floats your boat. They're all pretty viable, and they provide different effects.
[11:59] These are basically a dodge, a parry, and then what are called if-and-attacks, I believe it is, which come in a few different forms. But the difference is that dodging is, you know, dodging, dodge out of the way. Parrying requires more precise timing.
[12:11] However, that basic window is decent enough if you're into games that do that. You can also just block, of course, if you want, but timing it gives you better rewards, so to speak, which we'll talk about in a moment.
[12:23] And ifs and ifs are a little more complicated because it requires you to attack right as the enemy is just about to attack you, and the timing on that is super precise, outside of a couple of things that make it easier as you progress through the game.
[12:36] Now, ifs and attacks are particularly deadly because not only do you stop what the enemy is doing, and you actively attack them as well, dealing damage and continuing to work on breaking them. Breaking enemies effectively means staggering them.
[12:50] So as you've probably seen on screen up to this point, the yellow bar is your actual health, and that red bar underneath it for you and the Ginma is like a stagger bar. Once you deplete that on an enemy or yours gets depleted, you are staggered,
[13:02] and so are the enemy for a short while, and you can attack those broken enemies with another type of if and attack that deals massive damage. Now, the point of reacting to what the enemy is doing, outside of just mitigating damage, of course, is that it will usually make breaking them easier.
[13:17] And this refers to two different systems. So, if you choose the parry option, parrying and deflecting enemy blows will then charge up your blaze meter, which, upon it being full, you activate a blazing stance, which then allows you to deal more damage and cut into their stagger bar more with your attacks.
[13:34] Dodging gives you access to the reflex combo. So if you successfully dodge a bunch of attacks and do that really well, when this meter is full, when you next dodge, time will slow down and you'll get an option to counterattack, dealing damage and not just dodging out of the way, of course, which is obviously very beneficial.
[13:50] And then with your if and attacks, if you can pull those off, which again, they're harder in comparison to everything else, it's possible to chain those if and attacks to other enemies and deal even more damage. And so, while your weapons and stuff don't necessarily change, those are kind of some of the general approaches to a given combat system, and you have some options to find the one you are comfortable with, which is another way the overall combat system is much more adaptable.
[14:13] But we still have a few other things to talk about. So there were those Oni armaments that I mentioned. You can pull those into combat as you defeat enemies or attack them even. They spew out their Ginma Souls, and you need to absorb those into your gauntlet.
[14:25] Because if you don't, the enemy might. And that will power up the enemy and generally make them more deadly. Or you could pull those Souls in and prevent them from doing that while also powering you up. Red Souls are the basic Souls. Those are usually used as currency for various upgrades.
[14:39] But the other ones, the blue and the yellow ones, do different things. Blue charges up your Oni armaments so you can use them in your attacks. Again, usually for iframes and a whole bunch of damage, it'll stagger stuff. And the yellow souls will actually just heal you, so those are useful.
[14:53] And a really cool thing about using the Oni armaments, once you've gathered enough blue souls, is that triggering those attacks also releases a bunch of yellow souls for you to absorb and get your health back Now much later in the game you will also then unlock your Oni Awakening This starts seeing the purple soul spawn that will increase your Awakening meter
[15:11] and once it is full, you can go into like a supercharged state where you don't take damage, but rather the time gauge for this state does, and you'll deal, you know, just generally more damage and be more effective while not taking damage to your health, yes. But another really
[15:24] important thing this transformation does is it actually makes the window for instant attacks to be much wider, which makes them easier to pull off, and you can be more deadly in that way on top of all of the other benefits. And right before that moment ends, you can unleash a giant attack, which will do massive
[15:40] damage. It will usually kill anything that's not a boss outright, and bosses themselves take huge hits. And one of the ways you get those purple souls is by breaking enemies, so, you know, perfectly dealing with what a boss is doing, only to break them, and then hit them with that massive
[15:53] attack will then spawn new souls, which might actually allow you to go into only awakening and so on and so forth. and then that's before you start talking about consumable items, which weren't really necessary in Action Mode by any means,
[16:05] but there are consumables that allow you to, like, regenerate your Awakening Meter, and that can actually really help with some of the later bosses, or Carnage in particular. And once you get all of those things working in unison, combat just has this really great flow to it,
[16:18] based on, you know, what you're comfortable with, what the difficulty is, the settings, learning enemy patterns, etc. And it all just sort of results in this system that feels really great to actually play and learn. Now, there are also a couple other things I want to mention as well.
[16:32] A little later in the game, enemies can start wearing armor. You get an attack called the Eight Pillars or something like that to break both blocks as well as armor. Enemies happen to be wearing those features in a couple of boss fights, actually.
[16:45] And then there's also environmental effects. You can find cards playing around. You can push them into enemies, the ever-present classic explosive barrel. there are a few portions of the game that allow you to interact with the environment in different
[16:57] ways, like manipulating platforms and stuff, so don't forget all of that as well, but again, just broad strokes, really wonderful combat system that hard carries an action game, that is definitely the most important part of a game like this, and they nailed it. Genuinely had
[17:12] so much fun with this combat. But let's move on and talk about the Steam Deck and the Steam Machine. So, the Steam Deck has an official rating of playable, and the Steam Machine has an official rating of verified, and the Steam Deck is dinged for small text, which is true. Some of the stat
[17:28] menus and stuff have pretty small numbers and things to read on that smaller screen. However, other than that, it does genuinely play really well there, so much so that I was actually a little surprised about it. The minimum specs for this game are a little higher than what the Steam
[17:42] Deck actually has, but I was able to get a really consistent frame rate, even in the larger open areas, and while you do have to play with, of course, lower settings, so it doesn't look nearly as good. It's definitely a game you could absolutely play on the Steam Deck, and then,
[17:54] of course, that problem kind of vanishes once you get up to the Steam Machine's higher power overall and larger screens. Presumably, you're playing it on a TV or something like that, but simply put, yes, it is playable on the Steam Deck, and honestly, as long as you don't mind the small
[18:08] text on screen, as well as the game, of course, looking a little worse on that smaller screen, it's very playable there, and then the Steam Machine is a great place to play it overall, Which then brings us to positives and negatives, and we'll wrap this thing up.
[18:20] So, on the positive side of things, the two biggest positives for me were the combat and then the characters themselves. The combat is obviously the showpiece here. They did a fantastic job with it. It's very rewarding to learn and play through it, and watch how the game sort of incrementally pushes you through the game's challenges in a way that ultimately feels, again, very rewarding.
[18:41] On top of that, the incredible performances from some of these characters, especially your main character, really does just make the game so much more enjoyable. All of that said, while I do have a couple of negatives, they are relatively minor, to be honest with you.
[18:55] Like I said, the camera can be annoying in some of the boss fights as you're deflecting and dealing with their blows. Sometimes that can push you into a wall, and that's terrible for the camera. That's not unique to this game. That happens in a lot of these types of games, generally.
[19:08] And on top of that, I do think some of the menus are a little bit clunky in general, but beyond that, it was a pretty great experience, which brings me to my conclusion, which is that I paid $70 for this game, and I definitely got my money out of it.
[19:22] I had a lot of fun, and I would go so far as to say this is one of the better action games I have played, just period. And if any of that is of interest to you, I definitely think it's a game you should check out and look at for yourself,
[19:34] if you are so inclined. But that is where we are going to leave this one. Certainly hope you enjoyed it. If you did, by all means, like, comment, subscribe, all that YouTube jazz. But regardless of any of that, truly, just thank you so much for watching.
[19:46] I really do appreciate it. May you wander in wisdom and have an amazing day.
[20:05] you