Onimusha 2: Samurai's Destiny (2002)

The second entry to the Onimusha franchise is a remarkable sequel that successfully expands on the foundation laid by the original entry. Set once again in a dark, demon-infested version of feudal Japan, the MC this time is called Jubei Yagyu, a wandering samurai seeking revenge after his village is destroyed by the forces of the demonic warlord Nobunaga Oda. From the opening cinematic, it sets an intense tone, combining historical fiction with supernatural horror and stylized action in a way that feels distinctly cinematic for its time.

Gameplay revolves around tight sword-based combat and puzzle-solving in richly detailed pre-rendered environments. The combat system is simple but satisfying, timing parries and using elemental weapons against demons feels fluid and rewarding. Jubei can also absorb the souls of fallen enemies to upgrade weapons and items, a system that gives a light RPG flavor to the otherwise linear progression. One of the major additions in this sequel is the ally system, throughout the story, Jubei can interact with several supporting characters, and his choices, gifts, dialogue, and actions, influence who will join him and how the story unfolds. This feature adds replayability and emotional depth rarely seen in early 2000s action titles.

Visually, the game is stunning for its era, with gorgeously designed backdrops, expressive character models, and cinematic cutscenes that still hold up in terms of atmosphere. The haunting OST and high-quality voice acting enhance the game’s dramatic tone. While this game retains the fixed camera angles and tank-style movement of survival horror titles like Resident Evil, these elements can feel dated or clunky by modern standards. However, they also contribute to the game’s tension and visual storytelling, framing scenes like moments from a film.

Overall, this sequel is a worthy continuation of the series, deeper, more ambitious, and more emotionally resonant than its predecessor. It’s a blend of action, atmosphere, and mythic storytelling, and it remains a must-play for fans of samurai epics and classic PS2-era action games. I tried to finish this in the original hardware back in the day, but bad resource management and hard boss fights prevented me from doing so, not to mention I didn't quite understood the ally system, which can make or break your playthrough.

Two days ago I finished Onimusha 2. Fun game but I think I'm committing to my position that it's the weakest of the mainline games. The structure is a messy cluster fuck of nonsensical story logic and game progression. There's a shop that disappears 40% of the way through for example.

I restarted on Normal after abandoning my Hard mode run at the second to last boss. Just like 1, there needs to be a difficulty between normal and hard. Look at how many healing items I had by the end of my playthrough on normal

I restarted Onimusha 2 just two boss battles from the end and put it on normal difficulty. I can't take it. I have no health and the developers intentionally made the point of no return area have finite spawns. I can't get health Souls and the only way to grind reds is through the phantom realm which gives jack shit for souls in the first few floors but I also can't afford to go deeper with my lack of health. I have very little healing items so I need to not get for these long as fuck boss battles. I determined I would probably get through the game again faster than grinding red souls.

My advice for anyone who plays this game is to NOT pick hard mode unless you're very experienced with the game. it isn't just more challenging, but punishing in ways that require familiarity to mitigate. Issens, for example, have smaller frame windows to trigger than in normal. Even learning where these windows are requires a lot of practice and memorization, things you're not afforded on hard mode where any hit risks pseudo-softlocking you on the next boss. I want to become better at the game, but it's not structured in a way to facilitate learning. I'm sick of sitting through load screens every time I did. I don't want to look up guides so that I don't miss upgrades via the game's arbitrary trading system. I don't want to have to look up what your various armors do so I can strategize how I spend my souls. Etc., etc. Foreknowledge is so mandatory.

EDIT: OH! I should mention that foreknowledge actually used to be required! The original version of the game needed you to beat normal mode to unlock hard, which makes much more sense. The remaster enabled hard by default. On paper this is fine, it's just an option and a particularly useful one for returning players. However, the developers could have added a warning about what hard mode changes and recommend having beaten the game before. If I had known right from the beginning just how much more health enemies had, and how there were more spawns, I likely would have picked normal mode. It's frustrating to be someone who cares about being challenged but have it delivered in a way I find so tedious. To my credit, I did get 95% of the way through...

I was also lured into a false sense of security by how easy I found the first game. Boy, they got me good.

The pacing of this game is batshit crazy. Ordinarily, I would be along for the ride. But there's an NPC you can talk to like, 40% of the way through the game who, without warning, puts you on a sequence of one-way paths all the way through to the end of the game.

When this happened to me, I thought I would eventually go back to the game's hub area and be able to get more restorative items. Fucking nope. I blitzed through the back half only to just now find myself in the final area. You have an entire resource (Gold) that becomes irrelevant less than halfway through the game. It's bonkers.

What really chafes me is that I'm on hard mode, so I needed those items. I've barely been scraping by. On that note, I would have to recommend against choosing hard mode for anyone not looking to extend replay value. It's incredibly tedious. Enemy spawns just don't stop coming, and the amount of health that bosses have is just obscene. I've had bosses where I unloaded three weapons' worth of full MP onto them, restored to do it all again twice, used Onimusha mode, and the fight kept going for another five minutes. In the last fight with Gogandantess, I had over 50 bullets from trading. I fired all of them into him (along with magic, etc.) and he still took a few more hits. Just die. PLEASE.

It's a good thing this game is portable now so I don't mind replaying to see event variations for allies, because it'll give me the chance to play on normal difficulty again. I might end up having to grind out my armor before the final few bosses to make up for my lack of healing items. I probably wouldn't mind just practicing if I could instantly restart a boss fight, but even with the slight QoL improvements, you generally can't do that.

I really want to like this game, but the bosses are ridiculously hard. Because the Onimusha games are kinda survival horror games at their core, your resources for health and ammo are limited... So, of course, the second boss is a master swordsman that blocks basically all of your attacks and hits you super easily.

The first game was very doable - challenging, but fair. This one? Man... I just don't think I have the patience for it.

Having greatly enjoyed the remaster of the original Onimusha, I got myself a copy of the sequel to get more strategic demon slicing action. Even though the core gameplay remains the same, the tone and identity of the second entry are pretty different. Instead of a lonely and foreboding quest, we get light horror wrapped in action movie corniness.

Initially I struggled with the controls. Since the remaster implemented the analog stick, I was surprised to find that the original PS2 games control with the D-Pad resulting in a tanky movement that makes it hard to steer. Dodging was difficult because controls were mapped to the direction the character was facing instead of the direction of the camera.

After braving these inconveniences though, I was happy to find a combat system that benefited from this tankiness. It is thoughtful, methodical, and rewards your mastery of it. The Ihssen techniques (similar to parrying mechanics were you react right before being hit by the enemy) add a great layer of risk reward for players that want to truly master the way of the samurai.

This was highlighted to me by the boss fights, which I found challenging and engaging. Many of them are recurring (similar to Devil May Cry) which allows you to notice your progression and increase in confidence as you advance. Some of these encounters deserve to be remembered as landmark gaming boss fights.

Regarding the story and characters, I found it very entertaining and endearing. Introducing a gift giving mechanic, you can make gifts to several other warriors. You have to figure out their likes and dislikes, as well as take into account the rivalries they have between each other. Everyone is characterized well enough to make it intuitive to figure out what objects will deepen your friendship with them. This leads to branching paths were you will get the help or even get to play with the people you befriended.

The characters are very fun/funny and have a semi-good semi-bad voice acting that works really well with the corniness of many scenes, where machines show up in a feudal setting for no reason and villains have petty arguments over the right to fight you. I really enjoyed the casual interruptions in the adventure to see the interactions with allies and enemies. My favorite one was Magoichi killing Ginghamphatts in seconds with a bazooka. It was anticlimatic and hilarious.. I disliked however how Oyu's warrior badassness was downplayed to make her a damsel in distress romantic interest.

If you are expecting more of the horror atmosphere from the first game, you might be disappointed as this is not fully delivered here. For me, the tone change to action was refreshing and makes the game stand on its own as a unique entry. This is a wonderful game deserving your attention.

P.S. The section where you have to rotate levers really fast with the analog sticks is a sure way to get carpal tunnel. My partner helped me beat it with each of us rotating one of the sticks. Hands were in pain after that. Fuck that sequence.

Beat on loan from my coworker immediately after beating the first, so I was already familiar with the gameplay and controls. I overall had a bit of an easier time. I think I used the sword for the most part, with the spear coming in second. I did max out each weapon and beat all the optional Realms, except Green because I missed it. I did beat Purple and got the ultimate weapon, but I don't recall it being all that useful for the final boss.

It still has the same terrible dodging that relies on keeping track of what way your character is facing. I was a bit more used to it this time but I believe I avoided dodging as much as I could. The unwinnable fights were annoying because I almost always had to redo them to conserve healing after figuring out you were not supposed to actually fight. I liked the other characters that you play as but the whole lively town setting did not mesh well with this style of game; felt more like a Jrpg than survival horror. And I could not spend money on herbs or ammo. Why even have money then?

7.3/10.

ugh. i have this stupidand weird problem where i cannot play some games from updating my OS to windows 10. i can bind keys, and even see feedback from some things in menu. but nothing actually works when i play! I had really hoped to finish Yakuza 0 (its no fun at all with K&M) as well as start this for Grouvee Game of the Month but I cannot for the life of me figure how to get my old school simple USB Logitech Dual Action working.

Guess that's how they get you to go cyberpunk and buy a $80.00 XBONE wireless one. :'(

I can still play other things with it (in retroarch it works fine) its just the most annoying /endrant