If you're rolling with Castlevania, just skip the first one and jump straight to Legacy of Darkness.
I might heed this piece of advice myself, although the platforming is still eww for my taste. Do the Castlevania games for the PS2 feature platforming?
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Onimusha: Warlords [2001] for the PS2
The idea behind Onimusha (meaning '
Oni Warrior') first originated in 1997 as Capcom veteran Yoshiki Okamoto wanted to create a 'Sengoku Biohazard', replacing zombies and biological horror with Japanese demons and the iconic mansion with a castle filled with ninja booby-traps. The game was being developed for the PS1, but then hastily remade from the ground up for the new Sony console.
While the project got delayed, Onimusha didn't stray too far from the original blueprint. Its deep roots in Resident Evil are definitely there for everyone to see. Featuring fixed camera angles, tank controls, 3D character models on pre-rendered backgrounds and a familiar puzzle/combat/exploration gameplay mix, Onimusha wasn't merely RE in the Sengoku Era though, but it also delivered a new-found focus on combat that rewarded the player with 'orbs' to power up their weapons. For this reason, the game is often seen as the missing link between RE and Devil May Cry. Not fully embracing the survival horror genre, nor the frantic hack 'n slash action from Hideki Kamiya's title.
The entire game is set in Inabayama aka
Gifu Castle - an actual place - during the 'Age of Warring States' in the 16th century. After infamous general Nobunaga Oda dies in battle, the man conveniently seals a pact with demons and is brought back to life. He now sets off to conquer all of Japan with his demon legions. Nobunaga is also going to be a returning villain for the rest of the series - he's Onimusha's Dracula.
The main character is a wandering samurai named Samanosuke Akechi - whose likeliness and Japanese voice come from actor Takeshi Kaneshiro (House of Flying Daggers). A kunoichi named Kaede also travels with him and you'll get to play as her briefly throughout the game. Samanosuke receives a letter from his cousin Princess Yuki, asking for help. But when they finally arrive at the castle, the place has already been overrun by demons and the princess is nowhere to be found.
Soon enough, Samanosuke finds out he's powerless against the demons, but he's promptly gifted the 'Gauntlet of the Ogres' - this allows him to collect souls left by slain demons. Orbs come in three types: red orbs are points to upgrade your items, yellow orbs give you HP back and blue orbs refill your magic powers. His katana also gets quickly replaced by three elemental weapons - powered respectively by thunder, fire and wind.
Combat relies heavily on button smashing. The game does reward the player for well timed blocking and such, but mastering it is not a requirement to make it easily through the game. There are no combos to speak of. There are also a bow and a matchlock rifle, but ammo is very limited. The game is rather easy, short and somewhat anticlimactic - it definitely felt to me like playing the original RE... If the final lab section were entirely missing.
Famous actor or not, Samanosuke is not a very interesting character. He's as stoic a samurai as samurais can get and the game doesn't tell you anything about him outside of a measly 20 seconds cinematic. Kaede is a bit more interesting and playing as her definitely lends a certain survival horror vibe to the game as she can't collect orbs, her kunai is not that great a weapon and so you'll want to avoid fighting whenever possible.
As for the villains, the game doesn't fare much better. Minor villains keep hyping Nobunaga throughout the entire game but you never get to confront him or even see him outside of cinematics. The
actual final boss is a lame looking demon and an absolute pushover - the easiest boss in the game. He just sits there and takes it. Pathetic - no comparison to the Tyrant.
The game features a somewhat infamous timed puzzle. The puzzle is actually quite simple, but I can see how it being timed and the cutscenes being unskippable could really annoy people. Didn't bother me that much though. While the pre-rendered backgrounds do their job well, I didn't think the game was that amazing looking either, especially insofaras character models are concerned. It's also very counterintuitive how some doors require you to power up your 'elemental orbs' to open. That is, you can't just enhance the magic swords, but also the orbs attached to them - these orbs serving the sole purpose to unlock said doors. They are essentially glorified keys you have to kill X number of enemies to obtain.
All in all, the game just lacked that flair that makes the best RE games stand out to me. Perhaps it's the repetitive combat, flat characters, predictable story or underwhelming finale - or a mix of all those things. Ultimately, Onimusha does most things right and it's a good time, but I wouldn't put it next to Capcom's giants such as RE 1 & 2, but rather somewhere closer to RE3. I'll also point out how the NA release lets you switch to Japanese voices - which is much appreciated. Unfortunately, the PAL version has no such option.
Onimusha 2: Samurai's Destiny [2002] for the PS2
Onimusha 2 is both better and worse than Onimusha 1. For one, Onimusha 2 delivers slightly improved combat - new weapons, charged attacks and very basic combos - as well as the 'Oni Morphing' mechanic they borrowed from the Onimusha Xbox port. It's basically a 'demon form' that triggers itself once you collect enough purple orbs. Sounds good enough, except you can't decide when to trigger it, but it automatically does. Meaning that 90% of the time, morphing into an Oni is going to be an entirely useless gimmick as the fight is going to be over anyway - too bad, since you'd really need it during some boss fights.
You play as master swordsman Jubei Yagyu - his character model is based off late actor Yusaku Matsuda. Unlike the previous game, this time Japanese voices are not an option and the English dub is... not that great. The game starts off promising enough as Jubei returns to his village after several years. Unfortunately, the place has been raided by Nobunaga's army. Everybody's been killed. Jubei also learns he's half Oni and has the power to absorb souls and wield Oni weapons. Being half-blood, he doesn't need the Gauntlet of the Ogres unlike Samanosuke.
Yes, there's been a small translation retconning. The 'Ogres' from the previous game are now 'Oni'. Probably a bit confusing for Westerners, as Oni often gets translated as demons, but in Onimusha they are the good guys as opposed to the actual demons or 'Genma'. So, combat has been somewhat improved, visuals are now stronger with some great looking 2D backgrounds and better character models and the game has a more meat to its bones clocking around 10 hours. What's not to like?
Well, right after that pretty cool introduction, Jubei starts its quest by a town near a gold mine infested by demons. Here's where the game start to feel more like Way of the Samurai than Onimusha - really hurting its survival horror roots. You visit the town in plain daylight, NPCs with silly dialog are all over the place, there's a shop where you can buy... items - more about that later - with the gold now demons conveniently drop. And there are companions.
Onimusha 2 features different 'paths' and cutscenes depending on which of the 4 companions you get along better with. How do you get along with them? Well, you either find or buy 'gifts' at the shop and you give them to these NPCs you're supposed to care about even though Jubei never met them before in his life. In fact, the shop sells nothing but 'gifts'. If you want useful items such as medicine, you can only hope the companions are going to appreciate your gift and give you something nice in return.
Luckily, after the early chapters you leave the town for good: no more shops and silly NPCs, but you're still going to have to deal with companions for the rest of the game. Sometimes they help you in battle, sometimes you play as them. Each time I played as one of them, I wished I could play as Jubei instead. They even find a conveniently placed 'bracelet' that allows them to absorb souls, so it's definitely not like playing as Kaede in the first game - where playing as her felt different and it also made sense how she wanted to help Samanosuke. If they can just pick up a bracelet lying around and absorb souls, then what's so special about the 'Gauntlet of the Ogres' or Jubei? But hey, if the devs don't care about the lore, neither will I.
All in all, the RPG-like town and companion system kind of soured the experience for me. Other than that, the game has slightly better gameplay and visuals than its predecessor, but loses most of the survival horror elements along the way. I'll say the final boss was not a disappointment this time around and I appreciate that.