On this day 25 years ago, the Japanese Capcom added another success to its rich catalog – the action series Onimusha.
At the end of the nineties, Capcom enjoyed the great success of Resident Evil, so someone there came up with a completely legitimate idea: Resident Evil – but with ninjas! The project began development and was internally called Sengoku: Biohazard, before coining a different name – Onimusha.
Onimusha was originally conceived as a trilogy and was initially developed for the first PlayStation. However, when the game finally launched on this day in 2001, we only got a version for the then PlayStation 2. It was one of the console’s first major hits, as well as the first PS2 game to sell over a million copies.
Onimusha: Warlords introduced us to the story of the samurai Samanosuke Akechi who fought against the demonic forces of Oda Nobunaga. Along with him, we also followed the ninja Kaede. Both had different weapons and skills, and punched opponents to earn currency to upgrade equipment, similar to Dino Crisis 2. Although it used a similar performance to the Resident Evil games (fixed camera angles, tank controls), Onimusha was much more action-oriented gameplayu.
Although it used a similar performance to the Resident Evil games, Onimusha was much more action-oriented gameplayu.
Onimusha: Warlords was well received upon release, with praise for the graphics and gameplay. It has sold more than two million copies worldwide. A year later, the game is next ported to the Xbox console under the name Genma Onimusha and was expanded into gameplayu and improved in presentation. From the success of the first Onimusha grew a series of three more main games and two spin-off title.
Today, Onimusha: Warlords is available on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch through 2018 remastered edition. Remaster added a modern way of controlling, expanded the picture to widescreen and introduced a change of arms without going to inventory.
In 2023, Onimusha got its own animated series on Netflix, and a big comeback with a new game was announced for this year.