Action game sickos have a lot to look forward to with Onimusha: Way of the Sword. This upcoming hack-and-slash action-adventure is the first new console release for the series in two decades. After going hands-on at Summer Game Fest, it’s clear that this time away hasn’t dulled Onimusha’s blade in the least. With tight, bloody action and a grotesque monster to slay, this has the potential to be the grand return that Onimusha fans have been waiting for.
When we last saw Onimusha, we were introduced to Miyamoto Musashi, the famed Japanese swordsman, portrayed in the likeness of legendary actor Toshiro Mifune. While that was a look at a linear fight through the demon-like Genma in Kiyomizu-dera temple, this time we are taking on a more open-ended series of quests in Yasui Konpirahu Shrine, another real-life, centuries-old Shinto Shrine in Kyoto.
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People from the nearby village have been visiting the shrine to cure their various maladies. That has some appeal to Musashi; the sentient gauntlet named Shizuka is permanently fused to his hand, and he’d gladly be rid of it. However, while those aided outwardly seem happy with the results, these have come with a monkey-fist-like cost.
Onimusha: Way of the Sword’s demos continue to showcase Miyamoto Musashi.
One woman, seeking a cure for her vanity, had her eyes stricken from her head. An old man experiencing leg pain found his relief cost him his limb entirely. It seemed likely that a demon at the heart of the shrine was twisting these requests, and Musashi would need to deal with it and purify the area.
From here, I was free to investigate. Citizens moved about the area as I looked for the clues, eventually leading me to a small wooden structure with a few stones, carved to resemble small people. They revealed themselves to be the Eight Stout Pillars, though three of them were missing. If I could find their missing brethren, they’d help me cleanse the shrine. Time to begin the search.
The town surrounding the shrine was an openly explorable area of streets, alleys, and houses. I could chat with some of the townsfolk and potentially take on some optional objectives, but I opted to focus on the task at hand and looked for the missing Stout Pillars. Shizuka offered to guide the way, and a golden, glittery path led ahead to the missing stones.
The first Stout Pillar was in the courtyard of a large house, but a group of Genma stood in the path, and my first taste of combat began. Every combatant, Musashi included, has a health and stagger gauge. Combat is an intricate dance of slashes, blocks, parry, and dodges.
You can chip away at enemy health with your sword, but I found using my parries to quickly break the guard of the humanoid-looking Genma swordsman to be a fast way to stagger enemies and set them up for spectacular finishers, driving my sword into them or cutting them in half.
Meanwhile, a pair of flying creatures, resembling deformed heads held aloft by tiny wings, fired a blast of blue energy at me. I cut one down with my sword, and finished the other by deflecting its attacks back at it.
As enemies fall, they leave their souls behind, which Shizuka can absorb to heal Musashi and power limited-use special weapons, like a pair of high-speed daggers that shred enemies quickly. After gathering these souls, I collected the first of the missing Stout Pillars and sent off in search of the next.
This looks at Capcom’s latest Onimusha, giving a deeper look at Shizuka.
I found the next Stout Pillar atop a collapsed building, another group of enemies lying in wait to ruin my day. I was especially cautious of one enemy in particular, which walked like a person, but its back and long tail were covered in spikes, somewhat resembling an alligator. It put those spikes to use, too, using a series of rolling and spinning attacks to take big chunks off of my health and keep me off balance. Fortunately, I had one more trick up my sleeve: Issen.
Issen is a risky maneuver; you have to let the enemy attack, then strike just as their blow lands, causing you to dodge and repost the attack in an instant. The window for success is narrow, but if successful, as it was on this spike-covered weirdo, it can instantly kill many enemies. I used it to cut him down, before finishing the rest of the group on a flurry of chained finishers, red mist spraying from each as I drove my blade through them all.
As I approached the building with the last Stout Pillar, a villager sprinted out of the gate of its fenced yard. Two Genma were in pursuit. While leaving him to whatever end they had in store for him, I decided to step in, slicing one in half with my Issen, and stab the other into the ground after dodging its attempt at a grab.
Optional encounters like this will pop up from time to time. While you are free to ignore them, saving the villager earned me his gratitude, and he gave me a healing item in appreciation.
Reunited, the Stout Pillard condensed the malice that had engulfed the area to a singular dark mass for me to cleanse. However, as I approached it, a shadowy creature named Rasho-Gan appeared. A woman being forced to endlessly practice playing the Shamisen was begging to be freed from it.
Rasho-Gan granted her freedom, severing her fingers so that she couldn’t be asked to strum the Shamasen’s strings. Detecting Musashi’s desire to be rid of his Gauntlet, he offers to remove it for him and leaps from the darkness, blades in hand, to cleave through the offending arm.
Musashi manages to block the attack thanks to a well-timed warning from Sizuka, and I finally get a good look at the monstrosity. It seems his body-part harvesting has been fruitful; his torso is wrapped in a crisscross of several pairs of arms, his face encircled by dozens of fingers. A long appendage, like another overgrown arm, extends from his back, and the boss fight begins.
Onimusha is pushing combat further in this boss battle demo.
As expected, Rasho-gan is far more powerful than any enemy I’ve faced so far. His attacks mix a massive blade, leaping strikes, and rapid-fire blasts of a red substance I fear might be blood. I’m slowly able to chip away at his health and stagger, however, I mistime a dodge, and he grabs me, holding me aloft with one set of hands while the others pummel mercilessly.
I decided to change tactics. It’s faint, but I can make out a strange line of flesh, almost like a massive umbilical cord, attached to his back. I focus on that, and I can tell that severing it hurts him. As he mounts his counterattack, I parry and return an attack of my own, draining the last of his stagger.
This triggers a short period of slow motion, and I’m given the choice of which part of his strange body to target. I opt for the strange appendages on his back, cutting clean through one of them, and dealing substantial damage in the process.
After a few more counters, I finish off the last of his health, but Rasho-gan isn’t done yet: phase 2 has begun. With renewed strength, he attacks again, but this time I time my evasion of his grab perfectly, slipping through his hands and delivering a kick to his horrific face in the process. He leaps back, and another mass of flash reaches out from his body and picks up an entire building to drop on him. I’m able to avoid it by pulling out my bow and destroying the strange limb, as the building falls on him instead.
It’s a fierce back and forth as I adapt to his new attack patterns, but one last perfectly timed parry sets him up for the finish, a lightning quick slash as I stow and draw my sword. Musashi is victorious.
Onimusha: Way of the Sword is intense. It’s also cool as hell. The spectacular action and grotesque enemies seem like the perfect marriage of blade work and things I want to drive my blade into. I’m just glad I won’t have to wait much longer to do it.
