Capcom waited twenty years to bring Onimusha back, and the wait was worth it for one reason: the swordplay is extraordinary. Everything around those fights is a little less sure-footed.
Onimusha: Way of the Sword is Capcom’s first mainline Onimusha in twenty years, and it knows exactly what it wants to be: a samurai picture you play. It is not a Soulslike, not a Devil May Cry clone, and not an open-world checklist. It is a third-person action game about reading a swing, meeting steel with steel, and cutting something monstrous in half. When that loop is firing, few games this year feel as precise.
The series began in 2001 with Onimusha: Warlords on PlayStation 2, a fixed-camera action game that mixed Sengoku history with Capcom’s grotesque Genma demons and the now-famous Issen counter. Sequels followed quickly: Samurai’s Destiny in 2002, Demon Siege in 2004 with Jean Reno, and Dawn of Dreams in 2006, after which the franchise went quiet aside from remasters. Way of the Sword is the first new mainline entry since that last PS2 game, rebuilt in the RE Engine with a free camera and a young Miyamoto Musashi in place of Samanosuke Akechi.
In Onimusha: Way of the Sword, You play as Miyamoto Musashi, still young, still arrogant, modeled on Toshiro Mifune. He arrives in Edo-period Kyoto looking for a duel. He finds one that ends him and sends him to the afterlife. Demons called Genma and a blight called Malice get there first. A mysterious benefactor welds an Oni Gauntlet to his arm and sends him back to the living. Musashi hates the shortcut. The way of the sword, in his view, is something you earn with your own body. That tension—pride versus necessity—is the best thing the story does.
Combat is the whole argument
Musashi does not float. You feel the weight of the katana. Light and heavy strings exist, but they are setup, not the point. Defense is how you earn the kill.
You can block from a full guard stance. You can parry almost anything and lock blades in a shower of sparks, then steer the enemy’s momentum. You can deflect to drain posture. You can dodge; a perfectly timed Reflex Dodge looks like a samurai film. And then there is Issen: strike in the exact window before their attack lands and you turn their swing into a death sentence. Chain it and regular enemies evaporate. Timing is tighter than a parry. The payoff is bigger.
Capcom hired swordsmen for motion capture. It shows. Clashes have mass. Follow-through has consequence. Once you learn the color language of attacks—what you must parry, what you must dodge, what you can only deflect—fights become conversations. Button-mashing dies early. Reading the opponent does not.
Souls still matter. Yellow restores health. Red buys upgrades. Blue fuels Oni Armaments: limited, spectacular weapons (twin blades, naginata whirlwinds, earth hammers, a flute that summons firebirds). You also flip tables, ram carts, and parry demons into torches. The kit stays focused. One primary sword. A handful of supernatural answers. No inventory bloat.
Bosses are the reason to finish the game. These duels are theatrical, readable, and vicious, with mid-fight limb targeting when you break posture. Several already feel like some of the best action-game bosses in years. The animation work sells every clash.
The world around the sword
The campaign is roughly 20 hours if you rush, closer to 30 if you hunt everything. Traditional levels are the stronger half: an underground “ghost house” lab of fused bodies and hanging kimonos; a twilight climb up Mount Oe past rolling logs and forts. Capcom still knows atmosphere. Horror and folklore sit next to campy villainy without collapsing.
The weaker half is Eastern Kyoto as a semi-open hub. Side quests—“Mysteries of Kyoto,” fetch-and-kill jobs, archery repeats—exist to feed upgrade materials. They are formulaic. The culprit is almost always another Genma. The map is never huge, which helps, but it still feels like a modern obligation bolted onto a game that wanted tighter corridors and more set pieces. The combat is so good that the filler around it is more obvious.
Story pacing is front-loaded with cutscenes. After that it settles into popcorn dark fantasy—straight, sometimes funny, sometimes grim, rarely profound. Musashi himself carries it. The Mifune likeness is not a gimmick; the shrugs, the neck-scratch, the cocked eyebrow survive the leap into RE Engine. Japanese VO is the stronger option. English is inconsistent.
Verdict
Onimusha: Way of the Sword is a combat game first. Everything else—hub, side content, early exposition—exists to get you to the next duel. That is both its identity and its limit.
If you want a 40-hour map full of activities, look elsewhere. If you want to feel like a swordsman who wins by watching, waiting, and then ending the exchange in one clean motion, this is the sharpest revival Capcom has given this series. Fighting is everything here. For once, that is not a slogan. It is the design.
Play it for the bosses, the Issen, and Musashi’s face when a demon finally surprises him. Skip the archery errands if your pride will allow it. The way of the sword does not require them.
8
Onimusha: Way of the Sword review code provided by publisher and reviewed on a PS5. For more information on scoring, please read What our review scores really mean.
