Onimusha: Way of the Sword review: "It's no Sekiro, but goofiness, accessibility, and tight combat help this rough diamond shine"

Despite the fact that you collect souls from fallen enemies, Onimusha: Way of the Sword is not a Soulslike. In fact, if you've ever dabbled in the genre but found yourself thinking "I'd probably be enjoying this if I felt that I was making any progress", this may be the game for you. The only punishment for death is being sent back to the last autosave, difficulty increases over time rather than the game resenting your very existence from the first moments, and – oh my goodness – you can pause. There are even accessibility options!

In fact, the game asks you to go through a selection of these options before starting to play (larger subtitles are always great to see). This is great, but it did result in me accidentally selecting English audio rather than Japanese – something that can only be changed via the main menu for some reason. I ended up keeping the English audio though, as it soon became apparent that this is a game that's not afraid to be goofy in any language. Some of the line deliveries in English wouldn't sound out of place in a corporate training video, which fits in nicely.

Hell to pay

Miyamoto Musashi (sporting the likeness of Toshiro Mifune, as seen in the likes of Seven Samurai and Shogun) is a samurai aiming to prove his might in Kyoto. Ambushed by Genma – creatures escaped from the depths of Hell – he is killed, and sent on his way to the hottest joint in the afterlife himself. However, he is resurrected (against his will) by having the Oni Gauntlet thrust upon him, which gives him the power to fight the Genma and absorb their souls.

I enjoyed playing through Onimusha: Way of the Sword, but one word that kept popping into my head as I played was "inconsistent". This certainly applies to the storytelling. Appropriately enough for a game including Mifune's likeness, it feels somewhat like a movie, but very much a wonky B-movie rather than a samurai classic.

One moment, the goofiness shines through with athleticism in a cutscene, or one of Musashi's dismissive comments at the end of a fight ("They were shit," the mighty samurai declared of a band of unearthly horrors after one encounter, to my great amusement and delight). The next moment though, it might be aiming for an entirely unearned moment of intense emotion, or lean on unremarkable melodrama. In a few rare moments, there is a surprisingly effective horror angle, and I do wonder what the game might have looked like if this had been the direction throughout.

Onimusha: Way of the Sword does have a difficulty curve, but this is where inconsistency comes in again, as that curve wobbles about quite a bit. Things start off a little too easy, then the challenge jumps up in some areas while remaining trivial in others. By the halfway mark, it more or less hits its stride, although some bosses prove more of a hurdle than others with no clear rhyme or reason.

Nonetheless, credit must be given for allowing the player good time to get to grips with the intricacies of combat before mastering all corners of it is necessary. Generally speaking, you know the drill; dodges, parries, counters, enemies become vulnerable to a pre-rendered attack when you knock their stamina bar to zero. What's particularly interesting, though, is that there are two countering moves that are more demanding than the others, not essential to use but highly rewarding.

The parry window is marginally more generous than it tends to be in similar games. Opt for a deflection instead, and your timing must be more precise, but the enemy's stamina loss will be greater (this is worth learning, and it's not too hard to do so). The real challenge is Issen attacks. By hitting an attack button just before an enemy attack connects, you'll leap forward and counter with a mighty blow of your own. The timing on this is incredibly demanding, and messing it up will see you punished in no uncertain terms. You can get through the game using them little or not at all, but it's a great layer to explore for those who like to challenge themselves.

As the game becomes more challenging, combat becomes more satisfying. Weapon attacks are best parried or deflected, while unarmed attacks are most effectively dodged and then countered. Working out which is which (not always immediately clear with demonic enemies) and reacting accordingly in a split-second, again and again until you emerge victorious, is a thrill. There's nothing like successfully deflecting a series of boss attacks, getting some hits in, then dodging or parrying everything again until they lie vulnerable for a big ol' chop with your sword.

As you land hits, different souls will emerge (red for upgrade currency, yellow for health, blue to charge the Oni armament gauge for a brief use of a special Oni weapon). There's an upgrade you can unlock to absorb souls while attacking, but still, choosing your moment for absorption so you don't leave yourself vulnerable remains important. Leaving them floating around is always a risk, though. If an enemy lands a particularly heavy hit on you, you'll be knocked to the floor, and they'll absorb souls from you (as well as any unclaimed in the arena) in order to power up. This can turn the tide against you fairly quickly in a boss fight, and you'll need to be vigilant until they power down again. Think of it like killstreaks in Call of Duty; if a boss is doing particularly well against you, they'll be handed extra abilities for even more of an advantage.

Fireman samurai

This isn't an open-world game. There are missions, fast travel, plenty of cutscenes, and quest areas that exist in isolation from the Kyoto map where the shrine you base yourself at is. Unfortunately, Capcom didn't have the confidence to stick with the linear approach. There are activities and side missions in the area around the temple, primarily to help bolster your collection of upgrade materials. OK, fine; but Onimusha commits the cardinal sin of introducing such activities by forcing you to complete one more than once. This shatters the flow of the game up until these points, and crucially, running around town really isn't as fun as following the carefully curated path of one of the main story missions.

While I can't give any detail regarding the game's final area, I should tell you that it really feels as though the developer had run out of ideas (and/or time and money) by the time they got to the end. It's not bad, just distinctly unimaginative. Also, a warning: the final boss is, in my most humble of opinions at least, significantly overtuned. Considering the fact that this area is a point of no return (which you are explicitly warned about) that cuts you off from almost all opportunities to gather upgrade materials, I strongly recommend that you ensure you buff yourself up as much as possible beforehand.

Still, I applaud Capcom's approach to accessibility here. In addition to options that allow for color blindness and various UI tweaks, you can adjust the difficulty whenever you like (although there are only two options), and both allow you to enable on-screen button prompts if you wish. I played around with this for a little while, and I was surprised at how effective it is. I'm not a huge fan of enemies wearing button prompts like brooches, but boy oh boy does it work well. Maybe it was because I'd already played through the game, but I found that these prompts enabled me to react to attacks correctly instantly every time. They enhanced my reactions without feeling intrusive; it was like I'd developed my own spidey-sense.

I've not held back in shining a light on what doesn't work here, but that's because so much of it does work well. A lot of the success comes from what isn't here. Not every action game needs an open world, a hundred weapons to collect, item crafting, and running through empty fields. Onimusha: Way of the Sword may not have Nioh 3's mastery of risk and reward, or Beast of Reincarnation's intelligence and rich atmosphere; but it has heart, and it has respect for you and your time.

Onimusha: Way of the Sword is fun, not afraid to be goofy (including with a few post-credit unlocks that encouraged me to keep playing), and the flow of combat feels great. It's certainly not perfect, but whenever you hit a point of frustration, you can be sure that there's another moment of greatness close by.

Our best action RPGs has more recommendations if your own way of the sword directs you on even more adventures.