During the 3D fighter heyday of the mid 90s to early 00s, you were guaranteed to end up with a game that locked away half or more of its roster, requiring playthroughs of the Story or Quest or Mission or Whatever mode to unlock everyone. It didn't matter if your favorite publisher was Namco, Capcom, Konami, Sega, SNK, Nintendo, or Takara. They all had one or a dozen games where one could burn the hours away unlocking characters, costumes, or a gazillion other things. I can see why some would find it annoying, especially in the competitive scene. Like most other games, the budgets for fighters have increased a thousand-fold, so season-passes and purchasable costumes are the new normal.
Capcom's Onimusha: Blade Warriors was one of the many unlockable-driven games released during this forgotten era. Normally with fighters like these, I don't put them down until I've acquired all of the juicy content. However, this couldn't maintain my interest for very long. If you want the short answer, I'll give it to you right now: It's repetitive, has a very dull sense of progression, and its characters are as interesting and diverse as a stack of blank paper. Fans of long answers are welcome to stick around for the rest of the review.
Instead of anything that could be considered traditional, Blade Warriors opts for the Platform Fighter subgenre. However, instead of just having Samanosuke Akechi smash Nobunaga Oda offscreen and into oblivion, the direction is distinctly Onimusha. Its combat mechanics revolve around short & simple combos, kicks to break through defenses, and absorbing souls to gain power or win a match. Most importantly, there's the technique known as issen. When an enemy is about to swing their weapon, there's a small opportunity for you to hit the attack button and perform a critical counter. In a blinding flash, your chosen hero will rush through the opposition and deal incredible damage. Alternatively, if you tap the guard button at the right moment, you'll deflect the enemy's attack, leaving them wide open for issen. The defensive option is the safer one, but if you're guarding too much, you're going to get kicked and then hit with a combo. The developer did a fine job bringing rock-paper-scissors to a 4-person fighting game.
The movement is also quite good. Each arena has multiple floors, and combatants can freely jump between them by double-tapping up or down. It is often necessary to maneuver around the opposition, especially if you're attempting to charge up an attack or trying to open a treasure chest. Allowing one's back to face the enemy is not a great idea, but guarding works no matter which direction an attack is coming from. This also means you can't get crossed-up by jump-ins, and it's nice to have one less thing to worry about. You can also quickstep by entering the "ready" stance (R1) and tapping a direction; great for getting behind someone. The ready stance has a couple of other abilities tied to it, but you can learn about those and more in the tutorial.
When the battlefield is plunged into chaos, you're certain to see plenty of souls floating about. Holding the circle button absorbs them. Red gives Experience, Yellow replenishes HP, and those are the most common of the bunch. Flashing souls are "Victory Souls". Sometimes a certain number of them are required to win a battle, otherwise they're currency. Also, grab magic orbs anytime you see them, if only to keep them out of the opposition's hands. These enable magic attacks that can ruin anyone's day.
If two or more combatants are trying to absorb souls, priority is given to whomever pressed the circle button first and/or is closest. At least, that's the impression I get. It's a workable system but can be frustrating when battling the CPU. I'm not going to pretend to understand how this game functions in a bout between actual players. All of my experience was in the Story and Versus (CPU) modes. My issue with the system is that it often favors the opposition. When I defeat an enemy and some souls appear from its corpse, I'm going to be stuck in my attack's recovery frames while everyone else is free to absorb the souls. This often leads into scenarios where I'm faced with a tough opponent made even tougher because they keep lucking into magic orbs.
Story Mode is divided into 10 chapters. Think of them as 10 battles, each taking between 1 & 3 minutes to complete. There are also five difficulty settings, though you should probably start on easy or normal and work your way up. This is because a large part of the game is spent building one's abilities. Experience souls are spent on upgrades to attack, defense, and magic. Weapons and items can also be obtained by fulfilling certain conditions. It sounds like something that should be engaging... except it isn't. Several weapons are obtained from the Phantom Realm, which is a series of ten battles against various enemies & bosses. Spending 1/2 to 2/3rds of the story in the same location gets to be very mind-numbing. I actually really like some of the other locales. The "papercraft ship" arena is especially nice. Problem is that I can't unlock everything unless I spend absurd amounts of time in the ugly Phantom Realm.
Your route through the story is determined by the human or demon you've decided to play as. Humans face bosses such as Jujudormah and Gogandentess while Demons battle it out with the likes of Ekei and Oyu. It's a neat concept that falls apart almost instantly due to a complete lack of story. This is supposed to be a canon game aimed squarely at Onimusha fans, yet there aren't any interesting cutscenes or fun endings. The incentives to play through each character's story are limited to getting stronger and unlocking stuff. This is something that I might've been able to tolerate. I mean, Marvel Vs Capcom 2 didn't have character-specific endings or anything of that sort but replaying it over and over is always a blast due to the huge variety of characters and possible team combinations.
Something I probably could've mentioned earlier in this review is how strange it is that Onimusha: Blade Warriors has a tutorial mode, but no training mode. The reason for that is quite simple: everyone has practically the same moves. Now I'm not going to say that everyone plays the same, because that's obviously not the case. Each fighter has attacks that vary in speed, range, and timing. The grunt for example has a combo string that's two quick strikes, then a third that takes forever to come out, making him extremely susceptible to issen. Marcellus has long reach, but every attack is slow, so even if he doesn't whiff, he can still be countered. In order for this game to maintain its identity, the roster had to be limited to a universal move-set.
Having a couple dozen characters with hardly anything to differentiate them makes this a pretty unexciting game. Did it have to be this way? Well... probably. I mean, it wouldn't be right to make an Onimusha only to leave out its defining mechanic. I just don't see how the final result could end up being so unimaginative. There are only so many ways to play rock-paper-scissors. With hardly any unique moves to work with, the deepest it can get it is Acchi Muite Hoi.
I get the feeling that a lot of corners were cut to get a game made with a nothing budget, and the unlockables were purposefully stretched out to create "content". Seriously, there's no reason that I should be carrying the worst fighters through the Phantom Realm multiple times just to potentially unlock somebody cool. Even then, the most I'd have to look forward to is the slightest possible variation on a standard combo, or if I'm lucky, an uppercut that sends the opponent flying backwards instead of straight up.
Granted, that all depends on whether or not I still have any remaining sanity after the constant fights with Nobunaga Oda. This is one obnoxious final boss, and it's all because of his arena. The top floor is packed with fire breathing statues, the bottom floor is a conveyor belt with a health-draining poison pool in the center. There's hardly any place to stand let alone fight. Also, without fail, a random enemy will get drawn into the pool and killed, giving the demon lord a free source of magic orbs. Abysmal.
Onimusha: Blade Warriors is one of those games where I can't fault its core gameplay too much. Everything works as it should, and a lot of thought went into adapting its mechanics in an interesting way. That's it. No really, that's it. There's nothing else. All it had to keep me playing is a (admittedly long) string of unlockable shit. The instant I lost interest was the instant the game ceased to exist.
Still cost me 7 or 8 hours of my time. Oh well.
