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We've played almost 3 hours of the upcoming Edo action adventure filled with curses, Oni and Genma, and here we explain to you why it differs from both Soulslikes and hack and slash games.
"How do you stand out among today's flood of dark fantasy action RPGs? Especially when everyone seems to be making either another Hardcore Souls-like or another flashy hack and slash. Well, if you're Capcom, you do what you've always done best, you look back at your own history and bring back one of your dormant franchises with a slightly different spin. We still expect Devil May Cry 6 sooner rather than later for those craving speed and style, but after spending almost 3 hours with Onimusha Way of the Sword, we came away thinking this game doesn't really want to compete with either extreme, instead it sits comfortably in the middle. It's much more of an action-adventure. It isn't as punishing or methodical as A Soul's Like, nor as frantic as Devil May Cry or Bayonetta. You'll definitely die a fair amount, especially against some deliberately nasty bosses, but it's a much more focused experience where you rely on your sword, your Oni Gauntlet, and above all, your own judgement. it also has personality. Despite the darker themes, the game doesn't take itself too seriously. Miyamoto Musashi isn't constantly throwing out one-liners every few seconds, but there are enough humorous exchanges to balance what is often a genuinely grim story. And yes, the opening follows the classic Japanese tradition of bombarding you with names, factions and concepts all at once, but once the systems settle down it becomes surprisingly easy to follow."
"Musashi and his rival Ganryu Sasaki both bear the same curse, they need to feed their Oni Gauntlets with Genma souls. The difference is simple, Ganryu is perfectly happy slaughtering innocent people while Musashi would much rather hunt monsters instead. The obvious question is whether our hero will eventually give in to the power himself. Combat was immediately promising. The standard enemies couldn't be much more generic, but the larger monsters are where the game's identity really starts to shine. One of the first bosses we encounter was Daidara, this bizarre unicorn boar-looking creature with enormous prehistoric tusks and the personality of an anime comic relief character. He keeps shouting, smells like Oni before charging at you, but underneath the jokes he teaches you two of the game's most important mechanics. First, precise parries and deflections that completely shift the flow of combat by draining enemy stamina, and second, constantly absorbing the blue and brown souls enemies release before they recover themselves. The fight also showed us that bosses can destroy parts of the environment and use them against you, or vice versa. Outside combat there's a surprising amount of variety too. Elemental attacks allow you to ignite parts of the battlefield, Musashi moves through the world with plenty of agility and although you can't manually jump like in most modern action games, the Zelda Ocarina of Time comparison kept coming back to our mind because the game simply lets you vault naturally over small gaps whenever it makes sense. Early exploration is fairly linear, taking you through eerie caves and cliffs full of environmental puzzles and hidden Oni Glyphs that only Musashi's Oni vision can reveal. But later on the structure opens considerably. Kyoto becomes a much larger interconnected area with optional objectives, side quests and several paths to explore. It is an open world, but it's enough to change the pace nicely after the more scripted opening. Around this point another important character joins the story, Shizuka Gozen, a mysterious Oni woman trapped inside your gauntlet, basically becomes your Navi through the adventure. She's also responsible for reminding Musashi that this power comes at a price, as without the gauntlet, you'll die. As the story progresses, the RPG systems gradually open up as well. You unlock new Oni weapons, different elemental powers, a surprisingly comprehensive skill tree, new combat abilities and equipment upgrades. Nothing feels overwhelming because Capcom introduces every mechanic one step at a time, and before long all those different resources simply become part of your natural gameplay loop. One thing we especially liked was that almost every new upgrade had immediate practical use."
"Improving your deflections, for example, quickly became one of our priorities because the tougher enemies really demanded it. Later on we also played one of the side quests. On paper it sounds like typical fetch quest filler, asking you to recover stolen idols around the map. In practice though, the narrative context made it surprisingly memorable. It tells the story of a blind woman and a crippled man who believe they no longer have to suffer because they've literally lost the senses that allowed fear into their lives. It's wonderfully bizarre, slightly disturbing and exactly the kind of strange Japanese storytelling we were hoping to find here. The quest culminated in another excellent boss fight against Rasho-gan, an unsettling creature with countless arms and hands. Infuriating at first, extremely satisfying once you finally understand its patterns. Actually, that's probably how we'd describe Onimusha's bosses in general. They'll kill you repeatedly, but rarely because the game feels unfair. Instead, every retry teaches you something. We won't spoil much beyond that, but the second half of our demo introduced more powerful enemies, larger areas, additional traversal options, and another spectacular boss called Bayuke that literally grabs you using its own fur. As for the visuals, don't expect Capcom's most impressive RE Engine showcase, Resident Evil Requiem is technically more spectacular, whereas Onimusha spends many more resources on sword combat, enemy interactions and larger environments. Even on PS5 Pro it looked good rather than breathtaking. We also had the chance to briefly try the Nintendo Switch 2 version. The performance in handheld mode still needs some work, particularly regarding the framerate and some of the hair physics, but it already feels like another perfectly competent day 1 port for Nintendo's new system. One thing we really hope Capcom patches across all versions though is broader motion control support. Using detached Joy-Cons to actually swing your sword and essentially to aim the bow feels surprisingly natural, and after trying it, going back to the analogue sticks almost feels like a downgrade. So after almost 3 hours, where do we stand? Onimusha Way of the Sword probably won't reinvent the genre, but we don't think that's its goal. Instead, it seems perfectly happy carving out its own space between Souls-likes and hack-and-slash games, mixing a satisfying swordplay, memorable monsters, light RPG progression, and just enough personality to make it feel distinct. And honestly, after this hands-on session, we're really looking forward to seeing whether it can maintain that balance throughout the full adventure."
