Onimusha on Xbox with extra content compared to PS2. Samurai action-adventure remains excellent, perfect Sengoku and demon atmosphere. Well-optimized Xbox port. The best way to play the first Onimusha on Microsoft.
Your verdict
Category
Action Adventure1 player16+
Description
Samanosuke Akechi, a samurai with demonic powers, battles Nobunaga's armies in an enhanced adaptation of the PlayStation 2 classic. Published by Capcom, released in 2002 in the United States, Europe, and Japan. An Xbox port of the original Onimusha with improved visuals, an oni soul absorption system, fast and intense battles in feudal Japan, and an added difficulty mode.
Genma Onimusha review
4/5
Art direction
★★★★★
"Striking"
4/5
Music
★★★★★
"Excellent"
4/5
Story
★★★★★
"Captivating"
The settings are fixed tableaux painted at high definition, and the camera does not move: each room of the castle is composed once and for all, with its light, its cast shadows and its calculated perspective. The character moves through these images as through a series of paintings, giving every change of room the effect of a page being turned.
The accompaniment adopts the vocabulary of the swordplay film: a solo shakuhachi in the corridors, dry percussion when a demon appears, strings held very low during exploration. Silence works as a signal, since it almost always precedes the opening of a door with something waiting behind it.
The story grafts the supernatural onto a real date: the battle of Okehazama and the figure of Nobunaga serve as historical footing, and only from there do the demons intervene. That documentary base makes the betrayals and alliances more legible than pure fantasy would, since you already know who is supposed to win.
An expanded Xbox version of Capcom's first Onimusha, Genma Onimusha transposes the action adventure to a feudal Japan overrun by demons, blending sword combat, soul absorption and Resident Evil style puzzles. The added enemies, weapons and a challenge mode enrich the original experience. The fixed camera angles and the tank handling divide today. An excellent action adventure for fans of snappy sword combat and of samurai facing the supernatural.
