First Impressions: It’s time for another episode of Soooooooouuuulll Traaaaaaaain! *Coughwheezehack*
The original Onimusha, first released at the end of 2000 in Japan, was the PlayStation 2’s first million selling title. Upon its release on American shores, the game also pulled in some good numbers, giving starved PS2 owners a great game that didn’t come out of the PS2’s launch period.
With that in mind, Capcom is gearing up for the sequel to this best seller, the surprisingly titled Onimusha 2. Compared to the original, Onimusha 2 seems to have much, much more gameplay, tons of interaction, and a host of improvements over its predecessor. As long as it plays as solidly as the original, Onimusha 2 is a sure bet for PS2 success.
Onimusha 2 takes place 13 years after the original. That undead twerp Nobunaga Oda is still as ruthless as ever, desperately trying to unify the nation of Japan. I’d suppose with that huge assortment of demons and stuff to use on hapless people, that’s not exactly a difficult task.
Of course, this is a video game and there’s gotta be a hero, right? Well there is one, and his name is Yagyu Jubei (bless you!). Like Samanosuke before him, Yagyu is a megabadass, with a big sword and the ability to carve up those demons like a butcher carving meat. Also like Samanosuke, Yagyu was created in the likeness of a famous Japanese actor; this time the late Masadu Matsura, who died some 13 years ago at the age of 40. He’s most known in this country for his appearance in the movie Black Rain, when Michael Douglas actually was in decent movies. But I digress.
Where the similarities end is with the interaction of the characters. Unlike the original, which only had 3 characters that you controlled and/or had friendly interaction with, there will be many others to interact with throughout your journey. Besides the standard NPC’s (non player characters), you’ll be working with Oyuu, a female knight, Hideyoshi Kinoshita, a commander in Oda’s army (unsure how he fits in), and Yagyu’s constant companion, Magoichi, who fights along with him in battle. Also appearing is Kaede, who of course was Samanosuke’s traveling partner in the original game. It’s possible that Sam may make an appearance here, but it’s unknown for certain.
Besides that NPC interaction, the game is largely the same, with a handful of additions. For instance, the extra soul powers that was first shown in Genma Onimusha for Xbox will appear. Working similar to Devil May Cry’s Devil Trigger command, acquiring these souls will build up a meter that makes you invincible and a supermegabadass. However, if the demons get ahold of this soul type, they turn into supermegaundeadbadass and become extremely powerful. Thus, you kinda sorta wanna get those souls before your enemy does.
On the visual end, the graphics are to be immensely improved over the original. Yes, the game will still use the pre-rendered background style that Resident Evil made famous, but there will be some major improvements. Instead of just being static, there will be some animations put into the background, such as rainfall and the like. Obviously this lets Capcom make the backgrounds still static, but less like a painting and more like an actual 3D rendered background. I’d still hope that there are fully 3D backgrounds for a 3rd Onimusha game.
