Onimusha: Warlords ★★★☆☆

I said that I wished that Devil May Cry was a bit more like Resident Evil and so I decided to revisit a game that sits somewhere in the middle of them. I do largely prefer Onimusha: Warlords slower and more deliberate combat, though it didn’t challenge me as much as Devil May Cry did. I never really got the hang of counters against most enemies but you also never need them unless you want to show off.

While you get to explore Inabayama Castle a bit more naturally than Mallet Island Castle it’s still a fairly straightforward location compared the Spenser Mansion and seeing as there is no inventory limit and enemies are a resource source rather than a resource drain (other than the brief sections where one plays as Kaeda) the central tension of exploration is not really present. If you are at least somewhat competent at the game then you can get back up to full health and magic just by grinding against basic enemies for a while as you wander from place to place and earn a few upgrade points at the same time. The biggest point of tension is that if you die to a boss or that really annoying timed sliding block puzzle then you will have to sit through several unskippable cutscenes again when restarting.

The climax hits rather abruptly, with the game both being a bit shorter than I was expecting and the story also being very slight. Why is Oda Nobunaga set up as the villain? He’s barely in the game and does nothing.