When we previously previewed Onimusha: Way of the Sword, the long-awaited successor to Capcom’s action fantasy franchise, we went out of our way to say it isn’t Dark Souls.
It may seem strange to talk about what a game isn’t, but we know how all-encompassing – and, honestly, overbearing – FromSoftware’s gameplay format has become. While we’re big fans of the Japanese developer here, not every game needs to be Elden Ring or Bloodborne, right?
And, while it may share some surface similarities, we’re comfortable concluding this new Onimusha is definitely not Dark Souls – it’s more Stellar Blade, if you need a recent reference. Yes, there’s some heft – but you’re going to spend more of your time here doing cool sh*t rather than dodge-rolling out of the way.
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Parrying is a massive part of the gameplay loop here – practically essential, in fact. The timing is generous on the Action difficulty setting – this is the default option, as far as we can tell, although we did notice there’s also a Story difficulty option in this demo. Another win for FromSoftware non-fans.
Basically, we got to play the demo we previously only watched, so it involved superhero samurai Miyamoto Musashi – based on the likeness of legendary Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune – arriving in Kyoto and instantly making a charge on one of its most iconic temples.
As you’d expect of any modern Capcom release, running on PS5 Pro the visuals are absurd and the art direction is exquisite. The animation work is outstanding, although we’d probably like to see a bit more variety in the final release, as some actions seemed to repeat a little too obviously for our tastes.
The demo slowly layers in new combat techniques, such as dodges and the aforementioned parries, as you make your way towards the temple. This seems extremely early in the campaign so it’s hard to get a feel for how the action will evolve, but there’s no doubt it’s all very tightly designed and feels great in the hand.
The demo ends with a boss battle against a hatted hard-man named Ganryu – another exceptional character design from Capcom’s unstoppable art team. His flowing robes and lanky frame contrast against his conical hat, which gives him a memorable silhouette.
As you work down his health, you can choose whether to destroy his hat or target a different part of his body, giving you some autonomy on how you approach the battle. Breaking his hat rips through his armour, so that’s the path we chose, before we eventually brought him to his death…
Or did we, because we suspect Ganryu is probably going to be an ever-present in this game – he wields a mystical Oni gauntlet just like Musashi, after all, so that’s all going to play into the plot, we assume.
Perhaps our biggest criticism here, aside from the fact that it’s a little derivative of other action games, is that the English voice dub is bad. There was a Japanese voice option in the demo we spotted, so we’ll probably be using that come launch day. We’re not British soap opera haters by any stretch, but we don’t want our Japanese power fantasy to sound like one.
Assuming the Japanese dub is good, though – it will be – we think we’re down for some top-notch Capcom action. This may not be reinventing the wheel, but much like with Devil May Cry 5, this company has proven it knows what it’s doing when it puts a sword in your hand and asks you to strike down all sorts of demonic adversaries.