verdict
Onimusha 2 Remaster does exactly what you say in tin. The sharp visuals breathe new life and colors into a cult classic worthy of life beyond the PS2. However, Capcom’s dedication to the original experience means that decades of problems remain uncontained and undermines the credibility that the surrender to the analog movement has been laid down to achieve.
Do you remember Onimisha? you should. It can be considered the predecessor of Devil May Cry, Sekiro and Nioh, the creators of Keiji Inafune. In my opinion, for anyone interested in the intersection of PlayStation, Capcom, and character action, it’s “need to read”. However, until last year, Onimusha was entrusted to cult status. It was once a record-breaking, and is now a footnote to the legacy of the game that followed. But before we see what the new Onimisha looks like, Capcom blessed us with the amazed Abelichif: Onimusha 2: Samurai’s Destiny Remastered.
If 2024 is the year of friction, then 2025 is the year of remaster. Sims, Forgetfulness, Snake Eater – There are even rumours that a remaster of GTA 4 is scheduled for later this year. The Nostalgia train left the station years ago, but there’s no doubt that this is a groundbreaking year for the 30 gamers who pinned it for their childhood. I said this in my remaster review of Forgetting, but I’ll repeat: the remaster is Strange. The remake has a decisive intention. Remastering is a much more vague effort.
Mercifully, Capcom announces the intentions of the Onimusha 2 remaster on a splash screen sandwiched between the health warning and the main menu. If Capcom wants to struggle to drag a black label copy of Onimusha 2 from the Ikea storage box under my bed, that’s fine for me.
Its predecessor, Onimusha Warlords, is one of my favorite action-adventure games. It was billed as a Sengoku Flavored Resident Biuld, and its compact plot and economic behavior makes it too easy to come back year by year. But the sequel is a different story. Onimusha 2 is still a production of Keiji Inafune, but it is also a very different beast. It drives away the shadow of Resident Evil to establish its own series identity, but in doing so it separates itself from what came before. Warlords is the horror of action sub-raval, but Samurai’s fate is a feudal fantasy adventure.
Soon, this remaster will bring the richness of the texture of the pre-rendered background in Onimusha 2 to a high resolution. The caves and forests are as monotonous as ever, but distinctive areas like Judolma’s bedrooms offer a gorgeousness that the PS2 could not capture completely. His return to Gifu (née Inabayama) castle proves that Capcom took the same approach as the warlords. It looks the same as what I did six years ago.
For beginners, Inabayama Castle is similar to the Spencer Mansion in Resident Evil. Although both are well defined locations, Inabayama Castle is a real historic castle that you can visit today – their structural layout and dream logic convey extratemporal quality. This contrasts with Imasho, a golden village full of miners, drunks and comfortable women. Onimusha 2 refrains from leaning entirely against the historical bend established by its predecessor, but it certainly enjoys it. You can also take the undertone of the warrior camp and dial it up to 100.
The main character, Jubei, returns home to discover that his entire family is being slaughtered by the devil. “Who did this?” he groans. His fist clenches. His brows tremble. Lightning illuminates the sky behind him. He then takes a moonlight gallop of love interest behind the mechanical horse. She stares at him, and with starry eyes, she could have been hit by his cut glass jawline and a handsome squid-like pout. However, this does not touch on the heights of the self-styled Gogandantess camp as “the greatest swordsman of all demons.” If the rest of the bosses in Onimusha 2 are your standard cartoon side Viren, Gogandantess steals the show with nipple armor, a lacking gravity bob, and an unwavering code of honor that pushes him firmly into the territory of the anti-villain.
Conversely, warlords are lonely events designed. With the exception of Kaede (coincidentally crowned by FHM as one of the “sexiest ninja babes in the game”), Samanosuke is Princess Yuki’s final hope. In Onimusha 2, Jubei gathers with Beck and Cole. I’m sure I’m going to care about this supporting cast, but their support seems more contingent than collaboration. Their appearance is determined by a rudimentary gift system that gives a little insight into their personality. Magoichi loves books. Kotaro loves strange trinkets. Ekei loves alcohol and women. It’s not enough for me to invest, and the token items they offer in exchange is an obvious trading interpretation of friendship that indicates the age of Onimusha 2. The series of betrayal and revelation in these scenarios is as clumsy yet serious as the scenario system itself.
With more interactions on the table, Onimusha 2 tends to adopt racy brands of certain brands in JRPGs at the turn of the millennium, but ultimately adopt harmless, suggestive endemic disease. Often fleetingly, it nevertheless constitutes a dramatic tone shift in the series. The warriors are completely sexless. With the fate of a samurai everyone It’s horny. Oyu is horny to Jubei. Jiu-jitsu is horny for bunaga. Ekei is horny for a woman who is still standing long enough. Onimusha 2 doesn’t overturn the mark, but it does make some weird beats, such as when Jubei and Friends save the villager’s “cute” daughter. This makes for a fun lampshade moment until Ekei is sent to a PTSD flashback where his wife and child burn and die. I was able to file an insurance claim for this tone whiplash.
In classic samurai fashion, Jubey is horny just for revenge, and the Onimusha 2 combat system certainly offers. The weapons that Samanosuke uses as warriors are of different shapes, but they are not working. They are all blades on the surface that hit with different speeds, powers, and elemental magic. Onimusha 2 is well based on these basic principles and is well based on a little light strategy. Jubei’s Hammer is the best way to defeat a giant beast, but it’s too late to deal with acrobatic enemies. Conversely, his spear keeps the enemy away for a long time, and his naginata brings a relentless barrage of light attacks. All of this (ahem-issen) at a smooth frame rate of butter to better land those parries. Approaching the fate of the samurai as a basic hack and slash game is completely feasible, but frankly, you’ll end up taking your own dopamine shots that a successful counterattack offers.
Like the 2019 warlords, the Onimusha 2 Remaster includes the option to abandon traditional tank controls for analog movement. I’m sure this will be a relief for many, but in my mind it is a tragedy. Yes, tank controls are cumbersome when handled improperly, but so are Samurai Swords. Both demand accurate movements and acute recognition of your surroundings, and I’m not trying to prescribe the same portrait, but the analog movement eliminates all the tension in the battle of Onimsha 2, like the air of the Hoo Peak cushion. Can you just be able to dance around them with the twists of analog sticks and feel threatened by a demonic mob that advances in every way? Frankly, I can’t. The only difficulty of analog movement is to run in the wrong direction every time you enter a new screen.
Look, I’ll get it. You can’t throw rocks into Onimusha’s fanbase without bumping into anyone trying to remap emulation controls. However, I argue that tank control is just as crucial to Onimisha as Resident Evil. The convenience of analog is the temptation to remaster both, and the moment you follow the path of least resistance, you lose the “real experience” that Capcom pledges incredibly sincerely to maintain.
Despite my enduring love for tank control, I have a huge bone to choose from with the fixed camera angle of the Onimusha 2. Given the claustrophobic environment, the warlord’s realm is silent to each other by doors where player input needs to progress. The static screen of Onimusha 2 is open-ended. This makes the world feel somewhat connected, but if you stumble on the next screen, or even worse, if your enemy pushes you into what you’ve pushed you forward, it can be a source of great frustration.
Even in large areas, it’s not that good. Cameras often cut back and forth from corner to corner, at the expense of gaze. It has a great effect on the fear and suspense of warlords. In the fate of the samurai, they are suffocated. I am often surrounded by invisible boundaries that mark camera transitions desperately to avoid being blinded by enemy movements. I don’t know if my showdown against ODA Nobunaga required seven camera angles, especially when more than half of them work against me.
The incredibly high spawning rate of Onimusha 2 certainly doesn’t help. Samurai’s fate diversifies the Genma Army, but the novelty of alligator men, strange rotor bugs, and masked demons quickly disappears as they have to fight those waves on every screen. I can only speculate that this is for balance, but given the amount of demon souls, Capcom has the capacity to relax both. No doubt, such adjustments will compromise on the “real experience.” Perhaps you need to be grateful that you don’t need to level up weapons and orbs separately like weapons.
The remaster of Onimusha 2 may be true to the mistake, but special mentions must be made to some small but substantial additions that Capcom has properly measured. By including Japanese dubs, we finally disagree with the stubborn English performance with lip sync, but we miss Dee Baker’s vocal attitude as Gogandanz. Hell Mode is also available. You will not be able to clear the KO difficulty level for one hit. That aside, but it all seems to be 2002. I don’t know if Onimsha 2 is strictly necessary, just like Oblivion has been remastered. So It stays true to the original blueprint. Unlike Oblivion was remastered, the availability of fate on Onimusha 2: Samurai’s PC and Modern Consoles is a decisive victory for game saving, with the date of Onimusha: Way of the Sword release rolling.
