Onimusha 2 is Insane

 

I'm a big fan of the first Onimusha game.  To sum it up in a pithy, not quite accurate way for anyone who’s never played it, it’s essentially classic Resident Evil but with samurai.  It’s one of those games that I return to at least once a year or so to take up the blade as Samanosuke and show the demons of Gifu Castle what for.  Despite my deep love for the first game though, I have extremely limited experience with the sequels.  I played 2 and 3 briefly at launch, never beat them and then largely forgot about them.  I briefly watched the final moments of Oni 3 in a video game bar a few years ago but I was off my face drunk and not really paying attention so I can’t tell you anything outside of “Jean Reno was there” and you can tell that from the box.  

So recently I decided to make a change to this lapse in my gaming experience and I sat my ass down and played through Onimusha 2 and I did not quite get the experience I was expecting at all.  I hesitate to call the game “bad” per se, but maybe I’ll sink as low as “weird and annoying” 

Right out of the gate, from the moment you hit start the vibes are just off.  Onimusha 1 was a different beast compared to Resident Evil but the DNA was still there.  The horror elements didn't really hit with the fantastical designs and stilted English voice work but an effort was being made.  Oni 2 kicks off with an honest to goodness anime OP but with the vibes of a period drama shown on Japanese tv at 1pm for the housewives circa 1995.  This vibe sticks throughout the whole game with an extremely corny and forced romantic sub plot which is occasionally broken up when it remembers what it’s supposed to be a sequel to.  

The weirdness continues as you are greeted with a gold counter on your menu and the ability to gift items to a number of side characters, which by itself is fine but what makes it weird is that you are totally locked out of the system about 2 hours in.  My 6000 gold from the start of the game sat in my inventory untouched until Nobunaga ate shit at the end.  The other thing is that neglecting this system, because I thought I could engage with it later, completely FUCKED my play through.  I found Onimusha 2 to be brutally difficult, something I wasn’t expecting considering the first game is a free clear.  The ending stats showed me, however, that my neglect for the friendship system locked about half the game out for me which is cool from a replayability standpoint but bad from a first play stress standpoint.  I struggled HARD with the final boss due to a lack of healing resources, a lack I would not have had if the ninja could have opened the trick chests or having extra scenes which I assume would have had more meds and herbs.  

Despite the easily missable game systems, the moment to moment sword play was great.  Basically the same as Oni 1 but the enemies in this game are actually sort of threatening and not just piñatas full of exp to farm as I run from one boss to another.  That said though, the bosses are insufferably shit, feeling mostly unfair rather than posing any kind of interesting challenge.  The worst being the weird pig woman with the umbrella who has attacks that I swear cannot be blocked and does insane damage unless you’ve been pumping your armor and completely ignoring your damage output.  The final form of the final boss also just drops the sword play to turn into a boss fight from Sin and Punishment (N64) but with bad controls which was certainly something I wasn’t wanting or enjoying 

The cutscenes are where things get really unhinged though.  I want to call the English voice work terrible but it’s SO bad that I have to wonder if it’s actually being done on purpose and if that’s true I have to wonder why this game is being treated as such a joke.  The game as many laugh out loud “what the fuck?!” moments that need to be seen to be appreciated such as any scene with the foppish umbrella haircut demon swordsman.  Introduced as what I thought as comic relief, harasses you until the end of the game as a main antagonist where you then have a climactic duel with him in the penultimate area.  The one that got the biggest laugh out of me is when Nobunaga’s first form goes down and he shoots some orbs into a slot machine that spins and then turns into an elephant.  Not a sentence I thought I’d be able to write about Onimusha of all things.  I hate that cliche gag of “were they high when they made this?!” But SOMETHING was being abused in both the writing room and the office of the people making the cutscenes, I’m sure of it.

Overall, I like 2 significantly less than 1.  That said though, I’m excited to go and revisit it now equipped with the hindsight of a first play through.  The weirdness of the presentation is something I don’t think I’ll ever get over but I’ll be interested to replay and re-evaluate in about a year.  Watch this space