Onimusha Warlords was the first PlayStation 2 game to pass 1 million salesOnimusha Warlords
ANOTHERCAPCOMNOSTALGIATRIPBRINGSTHEMUCH-LOVEDSAMANOSUKEBACKSTEVE BOXER
PUBLISHERCAPCOM/DEVELOPERCAPCOM/RELEASE DATEOUT NOW / COST £15.99/$19.99
bonkers but surprisingly absorbing
storyline which sees Samanosuke and
his sidekick Kaede questing to rescue
Princess Yuki from the clutches of
the demons who have resurrected
Samanosuke’s nemesis, the evil
warlord Nobunaga.
Onimusha Warlords also contains
plenty of satisfyingly tactical boss-
battles and its level-design can be
admired: most of its action takes
place in a somewhat claustrophobic
castle keep, with various locked areas
which either require keys or upgrades
to Samanosuke’s various coloured
magic orbs.
At times, it feels reminiscent of
the Resident Evil games, thanks to
elements like save points (magic
mirrors rather than typewriters) and its
interior environment, plus the need to
solve puzzles and hunt down keys –
and indeed, it was originally conceived
as a sort of feudal Japan Resident Evil
spin-off with swords.
If you approached Onimusha
Warlords with the same mindset you’d
adopt for any typical Xbox One game,
you’d find plenty to pick holes in. TheIn recent years,
Capcom has busily
applied the modern-
technology remaster
treatment to much
of its large and
impressive back-catalogue.
The latest beneficiary, Onimusha
Warlords, will certainly stir a sense of
nostalgia among anyone who once
owned a PlayStation 2: originally
released in 2001, and featuring the
iconic protagonist Samanosuke, it
combined hack’n’slash and puzzle-
solving gameplay against a backdrop
of a feudal Japan infested by demons
and monsters. Arguably, it helped
establish the modern Japanese
action-adventure genre typified by
franchises like Devil May Cry.
But Onimusha Warlords won’t be
hailed as one of the finer examples
of the remasterer’s art: it’s laughably
shonky by modern-day standards.
Plus it has an annoying control
system quirk – its map is accessed by
pressing the left stick and the Xbox
One X controller’s joysticks have a bit
of a hair-trigger so, at first, you often
find yourself inadvertently launching
the map mid-battle.
Good old daze
However, if you treat Onimusha
Warlords as an unashamed exercise
in nostalgia it has plenty of merit.
It’s great fun to play, with a nicely
responsive sword-slashing system
and a growing roster of magic swords
that can be upgraded thanks to a
soul-collecting mechanic.
There are plenty of top-notch
puzzles, too, and an agreeably
camera can be hugely unhelpful,
monsters you’ve already killed will
respawn when you backtrack (which is
actually a boon since you need those
souls to upgrade your kit) and some of
the rooms you enter are tiny.
But if you instead treat it as a
sort of guilty pleasure, it has plenty
to offer. It’s satisfying to play and
surprisingly meaty for a game with
such a frugal price-tag. The storyline
may be preposterous, but it sucks
you in very effectively, and among the
often bizarre monsters and human
characters you meet, along with its
art-style, you often catch glimmers of
the more modern games it influenced.
By modern standards, Capcom’s
remaster of Onimusha Warlords,
then, isn’t a particularly impressive
game. However, it does offer a great
nostalgia-trip either for those of a
certain age who have been gaming
since the 1990s or for those who are
curious about what games were like in
less technologically advanced times. Qshort
cutWHAT IS IT?
A remastered version
of the influential
2001 hack’n’slash/
puzzle game.
WHAT’S IT LIKE?
Very much a
quick-and-dirty
remaster, but its
gameplay and general
vibe remains
thoroughly beguiling.
WHO’S IT FOR?
Those who remember
it from the turn of the
millennium and the
retro-curious.“If you treat it as
a sort of uilty
pleasure it has
plenty to offer”
OXM VERDICT
Not an especially
great game, but
an enjoyable
nostalgia-trip
nonetheless.6
LEFTOnimusha
Warlords hasn’t
received the
full force of
Capcom’s
high-tech
remastering
expertise.More Xbox news at gamesradar.com/oxm THE OFFICIAL XBOX MAGAZINE 085REVIEW