Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams

very good
key review info
  • Game: Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams
  • Platform: Playstation
  • Show system requirements
  • Gamepad support: N/a
  • Reviewed on:

Every now and then we see some fine examples of hack and slash games that leave a pleasant memory even after the next genre hit comes along. Onimusha has just reached its fourth installment, maybe the final one, but that doesn't diminish its cult game status. You can start to argue, especially when taking a look at the title of this review. I'm not saying that Devil May Cry and Onimusha are one and the same, but two hack and slash giants like those, must have some elements in common. Be it Soki or Dante, the main character of such a game will cut and hack throughout the game like there's no tomorrow and usually transform into a beast with a hellish look. Being an RPG fan, I was enthusiastic to find such an abundance or role-play-related elements in Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams. Also, I really must mention this: the first cutscene made my day...just watch it and you'll understand what I mean.

Story Still under the influence of the third Onimusha game, I was stunned to see the fourth part appear so soon after Onimusha 3: Demon Siege. I mean... we're talking about four games in five years! Oda Nobunaga, the main villain in the first three games, was defeated 16 years ago and now, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, one of his most feared subjects managed to unify the country stopping the wars that had torn it apart for many years. Although that may sound good, Mister Hideyoshi must have made a pact with the devil as some rather bizarre phenomena started to happen: earthquakes, eruptions, meteor showers and the apparition of the Genma.

For those that may wonder what Genma exactly are, those skinny fellows are zombies and evil spirits that were gathered under the rule of Hideyoshi in an attempt to conquer the world. Laughable or not, one of the main desires of the crazed ruler is to plant cherry trees all across the country, OK, all over the world if possible. Quite a romantic fellow this Hideyoshi. Packing a lot of steam with some sort of samurai-lookalike robots, one can only wonder what will stop the possessed bald guy from becoming an emperor. Soki is the name of the hero and he might not be Jean Reno from the third installment, but he has some charisma. Far from being any devilish Dante, this blond warrior wields two swords that he carries on his back like his previously mentioned alter-ego. He isn't alone on his quest to defeat the vicious emperor, as four other characters assist him in the task.

By far the most fascinating of them is Roberto Frois, a Spanish guy with Japanese origins and big destructive arms. The feminine side of the party is made by two pretty but deadly girls, Jubei and Ohatsu, while the wise and mysterious man is Tenkai, a monk that uses a spear and talks to the dead. While exploring the country and defeating the Genma, Soki will try to find out what came over Hideyoshi, making him go berserk, but the best guess is a huge dark star in the sky and a very powerful omen. And something really puzzles me....they have some quite powerful robots for the 16th century, but...it's just a game and these little unrealistic glitches shouldn't bother anyone.

Concept I guarantee that these will be the best twenty hours of your life and I mean gameplay time. You may finish the game in 16 hours of less, but if you want to go back through the levels and collect all the items that you missed it will take a little bit longer. Let's talk about the characters now, as this is really worth mentioning: the game has 5 playable characters and I bet you'd wish they you could control them at the same time. However this is no Final Fantasy, so you'll have to do with having only two of them under your control in each stage of the game. The RPG fans will surely focus on developing the characters by gathering skill points and souls for their weapons.

Yes, you heard me, young Soki and the others can gather souls to gain new abilities and replenish their health and magic points. Each vanquished enemy will leave behind a couple of colored bubbles that will float in the air and eventually go away. There are three types of these bubbles: the red ones, which are the souls of the departed enemies, the yellow ones that represent a bonus for your hit points meter and the blue ones that are the rarest and recharge your magic points. Similar to the God of War ability upgrading system, the gathered red souls will be available as points that level up your armor or weapon. This soul vacuuming will happen once you press and hold the X button and when you'll defeat bosses there will be a lot of "soul searching" to do.

Players will get points also through level-ups that will happen once you'll have gathered enough experience to reach the next level and get more hit points and defense or offense points. Usually one boss fight is enough to level you up, but keep in mind that there are 5 characters to bring to the ultimate skill. Speaking of which, each of the members of the party will have special abilities that really come in handy when the screen gets crowded with Genma. Roberto Frois can hit them and do punching combos, similar to those that Tiffa Lockheart did in Final Fantasy VII and he'll be very useful when breaking doors or moving heavy boxes. In the extremely well done cutscenes, you'll notice Soki, also known as the Blue Demon wearing two swords, a blue one called Lamentation, that he uses for normal attack, and the rarely used but deadly Requiem. However, these won't be the only two weapons you can use and I could go on an on with a huge list of deadly items that characters can equip in their anti-Genma effort. You might recognize some of the blades, by their mythological references, or maybe just from other games: Excalibur, Masamune, Onyx etc.

The elemental system is also present in the game and you will be able to do some fire damage against the enemies that have a certain weakness when taking on pyromaniacs like yourself. Also some armors and necklaces protect you from elemental attack like earth or water spells, by reducing the damage to half or taking it to zero. I wrote "stages" earlier and it was not used by mistake because Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams is divided into 17 stages and makes a pretty long and entertaining game. It's not all hacking and slashing, though, because the Blue Demon takes a break every once in a while to solve a puzzle, that implies arranging colored balls by moving them around within a fix number of turns. Those puzzles get more difficult as you progress and have the nice habit of giving you pretty good weapons as rewards for solving them.

Gameplay With two characters on the screen most of the time, you'll really start realizing that one of them is the star and the other is just a sidekick. The secondary party member can take orders through the directional pad, and the four commands go something like: all out attack, stay, follow and attack and an ability button. A useful feature of this party mode is that the "stay" command allows the character's health to replenish while you take on the enemies. However, the Genma have the nasty habit of attacking a character that is under the stay command, because he or she won't fight back. Keep this in mind when you use the secondary character as bait, or you use the stay mode with the main character to prepare him for more damage in a boss fight.

The same zombies over and over again tend to get boring, and you'll thank God (or Budha) for every spider, lizard or huge crab you get to fight. There is more to gameplay than that, because there are some areas where the player can get into a valor test. That's some sort of a time trial, that starts with an arcade-like screen and its purpose is pretty clear: vanquish a group of Genma within a time limit, usually 2 or 3 minutes. That gets you herbs, mushrooms and other items like these. While at first these items seemed useless, Soki's talks with Jubei, another secondary character will let you know that you can combine the items into new and stronger ones. She has the power to do so, but Jubei can't combine an infinity of objects, because she'll complain that she's tired at some point.

White, red or yellow spheres will be scattered around the levels and you'll surely be glad to see them, because they represent the save points and the places that allow you to upgrade your abilities, weapons or do some shopping. AI appears in two extreme forms in Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams: the boring, repetitive AI, that's created by the waves of Genma falling under your sword...and the evil twin of the artificial intelligence, the bosses and the sub-bosses. Those will be the real challenges and you'll have a very hard time defeating them, especially in the first fights. With the new abilities and mostly by using the triangle button to do some magic, you'll soon forget the AI handicap. What's the deal with Soki and Oni? Our brave lad has the power of Oni in him and he'll trigger it, when you'll push the L3 and R3 together, turning him into the cool creature from the first FMV, a beast with long white hair and tremendous power. I really forgot to parry most of the times when I played with Soki, because the button mashing and chaining hits can become pretty addictive especially when the end of a combo is welcomed by a slow-motion sequence worthy to be called a gameplay cutscene.

The difficulty of Onimusha is not in the lack of items or gold, but in the boss fights and you'll be pretty thankful when after you die you'll be returned to the challenge you were facing and not the very distant save point. Another reason to mention the producers in the Thanksgiving list is that fact that, once the secondary character dies, you can just leave him there to rot and he'll be resurrected in no time with about one fifth of his HP recovered. It is finally the moment to mention that annoying little critter that will bother you the whole game. His or rather its name is Minokichi and he has the unusual habit of sitting upside down in a vase. The characters developed the habit to poke him, specially the ladies, but that doesn't make the weird kid more popular or less irritating.

At least he'll advise you on what to do next in the game, but those indications can also come with some documents or memos that you'll find scattered around the levels. Soki may be one tough Oni, but he can't do everything by himself, considering that he doesn't have as many abilities as the other party members do. When you'll acquire certain characters, later in the game, you'll be able to return to the already completed levels and explore the areas that you couldn't access, move the boxes that seemed impossible to push or use a grappling hook. If you think that this was hard, wait till you unlock the other difficulty levels by completing the game. Now that's a real challenge for an Oni!

Video Previous Onimusha games have had problems with the camera view and generally orientation. The right analog stick saves the day again, by allowing you to rotate the camera as you please, but only in some environments, as certain actions require a fixed view. Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams looks and feels nice and the fights are very fluid and anime-style, with flashy combos and chain actions. There's not one single bit of magic without sparks and beautiful effects. I bet you'll be stunned by the superb lit cherry trees in the level where you'll encounter such neat backgrounds. The characters don't quite excel in facial expressions, but what would you expect from a game that delivers the dialog through speech bubbles attached to a character's picture, where he or she smiles?

I particularly liked the way that Soki's weapons look like and you'll feel the difference between a Lamentation and a broadsword, not only in weight but in the better wielding of the first. There are some fun moments while playing Onimusha, some of them involve Soki hitting on Jubei with very very pathetic lines, while each apparition of the Minokichi kid is a gateway to cheap childish humor. Those will be seen in the cutscenes that use the game's engine, but the brilliant CG cutscene are class A material if you ask me. The first one was so nice, that I quit the game a couple of times to watch it again and again. Japanese-style combat, energies, the little guy beats the huge demon, all the pleasant anime cliches are here, with a little bit of extra for the die-hard fans.

Sound I had the chance to see a cutscene from the Japanese version of the game and I must say that the voice acting was much much better. We all know the Asian passionate nature when showing emotions and that applies to games, cartoons, movies and whatnot. They scream, punch, growl, cry or laugh at the top of their lungs spitting each threat and enjoying each taunt. Dialogs are a good way to find out what's really going on around Soki and I suggest you take your time and talk to the other characters, because their voices may not be much, but the information is essential. The soundtrack seems taken from an action movie, it's rather poor in-game repeating the same pattern, but the orchestral score from the FMV-s is a real trip and a pleasant experience. Combos and generally sword strikes will sound nice and you'll feel the metal blades crossing when you fight the Genma.

Multiplayer "What's a multiplayer mode doing in Onimusha?" some of you might wonder. It's not quite multiplayer, it's rather a battle between various characters unlocked once you complete the game the first time. There's also a cooperative feature, that's also unlockable and I guess that two joysticks can do a better job than only one. Anyway, you first have to finish the game in single player to gain access to these two and if you don't lose it till then, you'll be able to test the battle mode and have your fun.

Conclusion Dawn of Dreams is an exquisite experience and you can compare it without mistaking too much with God of War and Devil May Cry, as if they were mixed in a cocktail and became a Japanese version of that. You'll feel acutely the need for a jump button, at least I did, but it might be the jumping I had to do in other games recently. Once you get hooked by the charm of the first cutscene, there's no escape and even if you won't like the game, you'll play it waiting for the next FMV to start. All in all, I can say that Capcom didn't fail us and we'll soon see another Onimusha title, this time on the PS 3.

Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image
Review image
story 8
gameplay 8
concept 8
graphics 8
audio 7
multiplayer 7
final rating 8
Editor's review
very good