I never had a chance to play the Onimusha games when they originally came out, so my introduction to the series was through the remaster of Onimusha: Warlords. I had a great time with it and finished my playthrough hoping that they would eventually follow through with a remaster of the other games as well, so you can imagine my excitement when Capcom announced the upcoming Onimusha 2: Samurai’s Destiny remaster.
When demons led by Nobunaga Oda attack throughout Japan, young warrior Jubei Yagyu races home to find that his village is under attack by demons and swears to defeat Nobunaga at all costs. The opening scenes were epic, and I couldn’t wait to get started. Onimusha 2 is an action-adventure game featuring both melee and ranged combat against demons, with a variety of weapons as well as magic at your disposal. The remaster lets you use either tank controls or modern movement controls, both available to you at the same time. In the Switch version that I previewed, that means using the D-pad for tank controls or the left stick for modern controls.
As you defeat enemies, they release souls that you can absorb. Since you do this manually and souls don’t stick around forever, that often means you need to find a safe opening during combat to claim the souls. Defeated enemies also drop gold. Many times, enemies will simply keep on coming if you stick around in an area, so even though fighting is rewarded, it’s sometimes beneficial to just move on instead of fighting every enemy in sight.
Souls come in different varieties, each with its own uses. Yellow souls restore your health when you absorb them, blue souls replenish your magic, red souls are stored up for you to spend to upgrade your gear at save points, and purple souls let you trigger a transformation that makes you temporarily invincible. From what I understand, this happened automatically in the original game once you had enough purple souls, while in the remaster it’s the player’s choice of when to activate it. That’s a welcome change, since you can save your transformation for a time when you really need it.
Puzzles are another piece of the gameplay. Most of the puzzles I saw during my preview were either inventory-based puzzles like finding two halves of a crest to open a door or puzzle boxes where you have to slide tiles into the correct arrangement within a limited number of moves. These puzzles are simple in concept but can take a few tries to figure them out. I like puzzles in games like this, so it was good to see them here.
The biggest surprise for me was arriving at a small mining town and discovering NPCs to talk to. Since my only experience with the series was the first game’s remaster, and it’s largely structured like a more action-oriented Resident Evil, I didn’t expect NPC dialogue and shops. Not only that, but you make allies during the game that you can give gifts to. Giving a character a gift results in them giving you something in return, whether it’s a consumable item or another gift item you can give to someone else. This is a fun feature, and I love having a little home base where I can talk to my allies.
Several special features are also available in this remaster. There are a handful of mini-games to play, a built-in achievement system called Honors, alternate outfits for Jubei and Oyu, and a gallery. The gallery includes both the original soundtrack available for you to listen to and a wide variety of sketches, concept art, and other artwork. Difficulty settings are also available from the special features menu, including the all-new Hell difficulty, in which you die in a single hit.
My preview let me play the opening hours of Onimusha 2: Samurai’s Destiny, and that was enough to make me interested in these characters and where their story is going. The gameplay is solid, the bonus features are nice, and overall this looks like it will be a great remaster. I’m looking forward to the full game when it launches on May 23.
