Game | | Onimusha: Blade Warriors | Format | | PS2 | Publisher: | | Capcom | Release date: | | Out now |
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Whether you're talking about movies, books, TV shows, or games, there must be some unwritten rule that says offshoots are never quite as good as the original content they're derived from.
Such is the case with Onimusha: Blade Warriors, which takes characters from both the original Onimusha and its sequel and places them in multi-tiered arenas to do battle. Sounds like fun, to be sure, and if you've never played Capcom's Powerstone games (released on Dreamcast), then the novelty of running around small Onimusha-type environments, hopping from ledge to ledge, collecting items, and killing enemies is enough to keep you interested-for at least 20 minutes or so. At that point it becomes painfully obvious how incredibly shallow and boring the game is. The single player story mode offers little in the way of plot other than a few cut-scenes here and there that explain why all these characters have soul-absorbing gauntlets. The fact several characters share some of these cut-scenes makes the story all the less interesting. There is some extra incentive to play through the story and versus modes to unlock some cool hidden characters and acquire new weapons and items, some of which can be purchased with souls as opposed to just finding them in one of the several arenas. But ultimately, none of these items are really worth going after since they don't dramatically change the gameplay. They do give bonuses to individual character statistics, including strength, defence, and magic, but these are just as easily increased after the end of a match when you can spend souls to level up. Beyond that, the Blade Warriors experience largely boils down to using a single combination of attacks. Of course, the varying difficulties require you to adapt your strategy, but you can always rely on the default combination to do most of the dirty work instead of having to use a variety of different attacks. The same applies to the multiplayer mode. It's fun for the first few fights, but after a short while, all the hopping and sword slashing just becomes repetitive. You have to use more moves, which is good, but the move sets are just too limited to begin with. Blade Warriors' problems are also caused by the environments, which look good but aren't all that interactive, save for trees, walls, or signs that you use as cover from projectiles. Otherwise, they're all pretty static and don't do much to add any variety to the gameplay. Most of these types of games have a deceptive level of depth that requires you to use items, your default weapons, and the environment to succeed in a battle.
But Blade Warriors almost completely ignores this formula in favour of simplistic "smash this single button repeatedly" gameplay.
4/10
Darkfader | 
