Onimusha 2: Samurai's Destiny Remaster Hands-On: Slick And Polished
I'd never played any of the Onimusha games. For whatever reason, I was always under the impression they were relatively mindless hack-and-slash samurai action games so I just didn't really give them a second thought, even though I love so many other Capcom properties like Resident Evil, Mega Man, and Devil May Cry. As it turns out, I was very wrong for all those years.
Capcom sent me a download code to check out a preview build of the remaster for Onimusha 2: Samurai's Destiny and I'm sincerely happy I decided to give the series a chance finally. What lies within isn't a mindless hack-and-slash game at all, it's more like taking the underlying framework of classic Resident Evil, giving it the combat of a more methodical version of Devil May Cry, and layering on tons of samurai flavor and mythology. And it absolutely rocks.
In Onimusha 2: Samurai's Destiny, you take on the role of Jubei Yagyu on a quest for revenge against an evil resurrected lord and his demon army. Since Resident Evil is the Capcom series I am most familiar with, a lot of comparisons jumped out at me from the very beginning.
For starters, just like in the classic Resident Evil games, Onimusha uses a fixed camera angle. Each time you enter a scene, the camera show the environment and your character from a pre-defined position and you control your character's movement relative to the camera's view. It works well for framing scenes in a more cinematic way and can help setup things like tension or emphasize certain elements like characters or puzzles around the world.
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It can also be extremely frustrating. The first major boss fight is against this sort of humanoid scorpion demon creature and it's positioned in the center of a large room. Instead of placing the camera in the corner somewhere so that you can see the entire space easily, there are two cameras that show only their respective halves at any given time. Once you cross the invisible line separating the sections, the camera angle switches and disorients you. To make matters worse, the boss frequently would backpedal into the blind spot of whichever camera was attempting to show the action.
On the one hand, this camera format allows for some beautiful shots and really cinematic action. But on the other hand, it could be incredibly frustrating and it's clear why this style of game design is mostly abandoned these days.
Onimusha 2: Samurai's Destiny Remaster
It's not a deal breaker though, by any means, and this sort of thing is absolutely part of the game's charm. Onimusha 2 is clearly a PS2 game, even as a remaster. And what I mean by that is it's very intentionally and clearly designed to be exactly what it is without much filler. To me, that's a very good thing.
Action is fast and fluid in Onimusha 2 and they've done a great job of gradually ramping up the things you can pull off. I appreciate that it starts out relatively simplistic, but before long you're able to pull of Critical Strikes, charged attacks, and more. It took me a little while to get the hang of holding the shoulder buttons to sort of lock my stance so I could pivot and dodge more fluidly, then go for blocks and strikes to interrupt enemies.
My hands-on preview of the game covered the first few hours of gameplay, so I got to see a pretty hefty chunk of content. This wasn't just a vertical slice, but an actual full version of the game.
Onimusha 2: Samurai's Destiny Remaster
As far as changes made for the remaster, it's mostly a list of things you'd expect. You can toggle between 4:3 or 16:9 aspect ratio, which is great, but the game really looks sharp in full widescreen so I'm not sure why you'd play it in 4:3 other than for a few minutes of novelty.
All assets including character models, visual effects, backgrounds, cutscenes, and even the UI are fully updated for HD displays. They've also thrown in a gallery of goodies for series fans that includes things like art work and music.
For longtime fans of Onimusha the most exciting update though is probably the inclusion of 'Hell Mode' difficulty, which is available from the very start. When you play in this difficulty mode, taking any damage at all whatsoever results in instant death, reloading your last save. I have a serious amount of respect for anyone capable of finishing the game that way.
There's of course other difficulties included, even an Easy Mode, as well as a new autosave feature and the ability to quick swap weapons without opening the menu. That's extremely handy and heavily incentivizes mixing up your playstyles more often.
Onimusha 2: Samurai's Destiny
This is a textbook remaster of a game that's over 20 years old at this point. Other than some new difficulty options, improved resolution, optional widescreen support, and autosaving functionality, it's the exact same game. In my opinion, this is the ideal way to do a remaster because it preserves and improves the experience without sacrificing its identity.
Granted, if you're not a fan of early 2000s era video games that have a bit of camp, difficulty spikes, and less than ideal UI quirks, then this might be a hard pill to swallow. But if you approach Onimusha 2 with an open mind and understanding that it's a product of its time, you could be in for an extremely fun ride.
I could be way off base though. Maybe the rest of the game doesn't hold up as well or loses its luster. Maybe combat gets stale and it's like pulling teeth to finish it. Fortunately, we won't have to wait much longer to find out.
The remaster for Onimusha 2: Samurai's Destiny releases on PlayStation, Xbox, PC, and Switch on May 23. You can get it by itself or in a double-pack alongside the remaster of the first game, Onimusha: Warlords. Even though the games are not connected narratively, you do get a bonus cosmetic outfit Onimusha 2 if you have save data for Warlords.
Disclosure: A representative on behalf of Capcom provided me with a digital download code for Onimusha 2: Samurai's Destiny on PlayStation for the purposes of this hands-on preview.
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