@goodownmike's review of Onimusha: Way of the Sword
★★★★½
9.5 - If you’ve read or listened to any reviews of this game, then you know the gameplay is top notch. If you’ve played the game then you’ve felt how elite the sword fighting is second to none. This has the highest of highs of any game I’ve played this year and of damn near any game I’ve ever played. While the story is straightforward, it’s shone with its characters. The main protagonist Miyamoto Musashi is filled with charisma and the facial animations bring the cut scenes to life. Your rival Ganryu, similar to a Genichiro in Sekiro, steals every scene he is in. It’s crazy how the game can go from being funny to gut wrenching within minutes. The first proper dungeon/ temple of this game is pure horror, a great embodiment of what I’d imagine a horror samurai resident evil game would be (original game concept for Onimusha). While i cannot talk highly enough about this game for 90% of its contents, what keeps this game back is its open world hub sections. This game took me ~30 hours to beat. I did complete every optional side quest which almost all take place in Koyoto, but I’d say at least 10-15 of those 30 hours consisted of doing mandatory main story missions of closing the same rifts and fighting the same mini bosses. If this removed all of the repeat Koyoto rift missions then this game would be closer to 15 hours, which would have been perfect. The first time you close a rift, its new and fun but your excited to see what new location they are going to take you. Then you remain in Koyoto for at least 2-3 hours more doing the same thing of closing rifts. This happens every damn time you complete a new location. You go back to Koyoto and do 2-4 hours of rift closing. This is my only gripe, it would be a bigger deal if the combat and mini bosses weren’t so damn fun, but after you 10+ time fighting the same mini boss, it’s just gets a bit dull. This is where the mix of subjectivity and objectivity in reviewing games gets tricky. I think for games released this year, RE9 and Splatoon Raiders are perfect. Splatoon is so straightforward but I pumped ~40 hours into it. RE9 I could not put down and platinumed the game over 5 playthroughs over 1 month. However, as I said above this has the highest of highs of any game I’ve played this year and maybe of any game in the last couple years. While I’ll give the game a 9.5/10, I just can’t ignore the tedium of the Koyoto rift missions, I still think this may be my favorite game of the year. It’s better than Splatoon for sure, and MAYBE tied for RE9. Either way, if you like action/ souls games, this is a must buy. A game I’ll go back to for a playthrough on the hardest difficulties sooner then later.
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