Poking around a new Open Zone & unveiling new RPG upgrade systems in Onimusha: Way of the Sword
Although Onimusha: Way of the Sword released a public demo a few days ago, Capcom revealed some new never-before-seen aspects about the game at Summer Game Fest as it nears its September 25 launch. This time, it featured an open zone level in Kyoto that started at the famous Yasui Konpiragu Shrine. In Onimusha: Way of the Sword, this location is depicted as a place that can grant wishes - though it has its own way of carrying them out.
I won’t get into specifics for the story reasons of why the protagonist Musashi is around this area. Entering the vicinity of Yasui Konpiragu Shrine does inject the game’s surroundings with vibrant colors, which is a stark contrast of the more bleaker environments shown off in its marketing so far. Musashi interacts with a shrine consisting of small stone figurine Stout Pillars that can speak to him. Though they are supposed to be the Eight Stout Pillars, a few of them are missing. He is tasked with finding the rest before proceeding on.
Players can activate Musashi’s Oni eye vision to spawn in a small orb of light that he can follow to get to where he needs to be. It’s important to note that this will only lead players to the general area of where Musashi needs to be looking around, not the exact pinpoint location of where these missing stone figures are. He’ll usually need to clear a small group of enemies to explore the area safely, and they may be hiding in a chest on top of a ladder or inside one of the breakable pots laying around.
One thing I noticed is that if I was dawdling the area for too long without noticing anything obvious to interact with, I was often at the wrong area and needed to go into the immediate adjacent area to find them.
There weren’t any new common enemies I encountered in this new hands-on with Onimusha: Way of the Sword that couldn’t be found already in the public demo. It did feature a new Oni Armament - the Wind-Whipper. This double-sided naginata summons a whirlwind around Musashi upon activation, which makes it handy for crowd control against numerous foes. The Wind-Whipper is also decent against more powerful single foes, since it can lock them down for a few seconds as it constantly hits them to interrupt what they want to do.
As Musashi wanders around the open zone, there will sometimes be an exclamation mark icon that spontaneously pops up indicating there’s a chance encounter nearby. This usually means that a poor villager is about to get slain by nearby Genma enemies and attentive players can save them for some consumables and potentially other items in the full game. These can be failed though, and the Genma won’t wait for Musashi to come rescue their prey.
After retrieving all the missing stone figures and fully reuniting the Eight Stout Pillars, the big showdown of this new hands-on with Onimusha: Way of the Sword began. An immensely powerful Genma that’s been corrupting wishes made their appearance after a brutal cutscene of cutting off all of a lady’s fingers simultaneously.
Enter Rasho-gan the Wish Warper, a fleshy humanoid being that is covered in distorted arms and hands. All of its movements and animation work are as eerie as its appearance. The fight itself is tougher than anything in the public demo and in the new hands-on, though I still managed to beat it on my first try on action mode with no button prompts. I don’t want to give away too much of what the boss can do, though I’ll mention that some of its attack patterns do require a bit more situational, and environmental, awareness than just the standard parry or issen responses. I do wish that Musashi’s companion Shizuka spoke a bit less of how to tackle this encounter, though.
While I couldn’t get a good sense (nor concrete confirmation) of how prevalent this open zone stage structure would be over the traditional linear path featured in the public demo, I did poke around the shrine menu to see if this new build surfaced any RPG-esque elements in Onimusha: Way of the Sword, and it does!
Upgrading Musashi’s sword upgrades stats such as his Attack Power, Issen Power, and Armament Power. Meanwhile, choosing to invest resources into Musashi’s clothing will up his Health and Stamina stats at the cost of some in-game money and collectible resources. His Gauntlet can be upgraded too, which increases the speed and range of Musashi’s soul absorption ability when defeating foes.
Digging further, there are linear upgrade paths for each of Musashi’s toolkit. His Oni vision can be upgraded to highlight nearby interactable objects in the environment, while his Blazing State, bow & arrow, and assassination techniques feature their own upgrade lines. Those that want to opt into a more stealthy playstyle can invest in enemies being less able to detect Musashi as he’s sneaking around. All of Musashi’s Oni Armaments are also upgradable.
If there were any lingering doubts on Onimusha: Way of the Sword’s on whether there would be any RPG-esque upgrade systems, feel free to let go of them at last. Onimusha: Way of the Sword is coming to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Switch 2, and PC on September 25.
