Onimusha: Way of the Sword

Latest in each market: best JP #4, worst FR #84 · 13 markets collected

US · last 30 days

Matched by title — a reused name can pair the wrong games. * is a critic aggregate. Prices and positions are each store's United States storefront; Epic charts worldwide. Audience and Score too, except Steam's, which is worldwide.

Hours played at review time, across 2.3K reviews with recorded playtime.

positive critical· bar length = how often the theme comes up

Fun and flawed. The combat system and the bosses fights were so good, but the other elements were made to stretch this game longer, not more fun. It is understandable that in the year of 2026, having any game shorter than 15 hours could be seen as a sin for a AAA game, but this game is really bloated with stuff that made pacing quite awkward. It is especially ironic when Musashi himself has complained all the time about all the lackluster opponents. I will be blunt, the normal enemies are too easy. And it's not just one flaw that comes with that design. Despite the easy = boring that pretty straightforward, the lack of aggressiveness in the trash mobs made the defensive flow of the combat system feels awkward. You tend to staring enemies awkwardly, waiting for them to attack you. It was cinematic as hell doing the staring down with bosses, but for trash mobs, it was annoying. The open world is... serviceable, it was not much of a substance, more like a leisure that giving you an illusion of a living world. There are something to do to expand the protag's arsenals and skills. But compared to the other Capcom's lately amazing streak so far, this feels like it was not needed. The healing items could be handy for the most part, but something like timed buffing items are feel totally unnecessary. Mostly because this game isn't that hard, you can solve most of the problem with combat alone (and it felt amazing.) The idea of you needing the help from all the items you gather comes from the difficulty that push you to feel the necessity to use said items to even the odd. But for all the normal (action) difficulty, it was not that useful. I don't know why Capcom is too afraid of giving players a "Hard" difficulty from the start. Also, the UX in this game is very handholding, it was like the dev was not trusting players as much as the other games. All I can put into a sentence is it was a great game that was designed awkwardly. Okay, what about good parts? The animations are chef kiss. Capcom has been cooking hard on the animations part lately, this is no exception. Musashi's fighting style is raw, unorthodox, and expressive. You feel each cut, each stab, little additional movements like he has to use his foot to help pull the sword out of the enemies is such a small detail but give a huge impact to the feel of the combat alone. All the glazing of the beautiful animations and the control of the fight has been nicely balanced (not taking too long, but still giving a satisfy shot and a nice breathing room.) I find the more generous timing windows for parry, deflect, issen, dodge, grab reversal, ETC are fitting the new combat mechanic well. It's not one-shot high-risk-high-reward like the old games, the new system is more like a classic Onimusha, Sekiro, and Metal Gear Rising blending together. It was more engaging, with more back and forth trading blow than ever! It such a dynamic mechanic that reminded me of a fighting game (which Capcom is excel on.) This system alone could carry the whole package together with amazing bosses design, which is not as hard as Sekiro but the dynamic of the combat making it not just a parry-until-win game. You can have fun with so many tools this game gave you. All I can say is, I love this combat system to the point that I forgive everything that I have mentioned in the con section. Still, this also ironically fitting the vibe of Musashi that was so annoyed about his subpar opponents, that's because the real fight with bosses feel so good! In conclusion, a great game! It has an amazing combat system as the core, surrounded by some fat and bloats, but when you get to the good part, it's a fricking great fight after great fight!