I was really looking forward to playing this game. The first Onimusha was one of my favorite games back when the PS2 was in it's infancy, and I was expecting this to be a huge game. Well, I just finished it and I hate to say it left me a bit disappointed. Not that it's a bad game, by any means. It's just not the 'next-step' that I thought it would be.
Onimusha 2 starts with a GREAT cutscene telling the first part of the story. Basically, Nobunaga (yes, the same from the 1st game) has a plan in place where he will take over the whole country with his army of demons. In this process, he overuns your town and kills everyone there while you are away. You return to find most everyone slain and you seek revenge.
The story itself is kinda complicated and not as appealing as the first game. I got confused many times wondering what the heck is going on. It does keep you intrigued, but you don't play this game for the story. You play it to whoop some demon ass.
The gameplay has basically remained unchanged. That's a good & a bad thing for me. While it is fun to hack up a bunch of demons, it does get old. And the benefits of doing it (red orbs to uprgrade your stuff), isn't a big payoff, since 3/4 of the way through the game I maxed out everything. After that, it's almost smarter to avoid battles, since you don't get many healing items.
The game itself is much more difficult than the first one. This is a good thing at times. At other times, it is rather annyoing. Not because of the game being harder, but the amount of the cheap hits you take from the camera and the control system. Why they didn't make this game fully 3D is beyond me. It has the same old Resident Evil controls that we all know and hate. Other than that, the game is a blast to play. It's just that after awhile you feel like it's a suped-up hack-and-slash game without much gameplay depth.
There are other little new things that they added to try to spice things up a bit. There are now NPC's that you talk to quite a bit. Each has his/her back story. In the main game there are certain choices or paths that you can choose to alter which story you see the most of. And if you make the right choices, you can even play as these characters in the main game. I tended to venture towards the Oyu (the romantic interest) in the game. But, there are 3 other characters to learn about.
And then there is the gift system. During your quest, you will find various items that seem useless when you pick them up, but give them to the right NPC and they will give you something useful in return. Basically, it is a cheap way to get you to fight and make some $$$ to buy said items to give to your friends to get healing items and such. It would have been just easier to have a shop selling herbs or medicines, but that wouldn't bring the gameplay time up like the gift system does. It's a cheap ploy, but at least the combat is entertaining.
Maybe the biggest improvement from part one is the visuals. Not that the first one was a slouch. It's just that Onimusha 2 looks outstanding. The presentation with the pre-rendered cutscenes is a sight to behold. And the in-game graphics are some of the best I have seen.
The music and voice acting are vell well done, as well. Never in the game did I get annoyed with the voice acting and get taken out of the experince of playing a game.
Onimusha 2 is a great game. I just think it could have been better. The graphics and sound are excellent. And the combat is still fun, even though it gets old after awhile. The story could have been better, but I found it entertaining. I liked part one better, but that's just because it was a new experience. This feels like a rehashed version of part one with a new story and fancier graphics slapped on. It's still a must-buy, just don't go expecting a revolutionary game.
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