I was honestly quite worried about how bad I might be at Onimusha: Way of the Sword by the trailers and gameplay I had seen beforehand. I was also unable to play the demo before my preview. I was surprised, however, to have multiple difficulty settings that made even me enjoy my time all the way through.
You play as Musashi, a young man with a messed-up hand that gives him significant abilities and keeps him alive on more than one occasion. During my preview, I was dropped into a horrifying situation as an entire town had made deals with an entity, ending up in a lot of “monkey’s paw” situations where they technically got what they wanted, but with a horrible result. A woman was jealous of the beauty around her, so the entity took her eyes. A young musician was tired of being forced to practice, so the entity took their fingers so they couldn’t play anymore, regardless. These moments were horrifying to listen to and really set the stage for Musashi to save the town from the demon-like entity terrorizing them.
The art is fabulous in Onimusha: Way of the Sword, with interesting villains and enemies, extremely detailed backgrounds and textures, and I had a lot of fun running through the creepy town, seeing everything this world had to offer. The game felt constant the entire preview and never left me feeling like there was any stuttering or frame drops.
Gameplay was extremely smooth and intuitive, with action prompts coming up that you can take advantage of, but you don’t have to to move forward. These action prompts can be hitting buttons right at the correct moment for a fun attack or a block to try and save you from damage. You have a light attack and heavy attack that will be your main fighting ability, and the sword feels great cutting into the enemies. You’ll collect orbs of different colors from these fallen enemies that you’ll need to power up, heal, and more. Don’t forget to pick these up as you go!
I was able to play the game on Story Mode and had an amazingly fun experience playing through the story I had access to during the preview. You will, of course, have a higher difficulty level at your disposal for those looking for a much harder challenge. Having multiple levels makes this game much more accessible to players like me who might really love the art in games like this but don’t have the trigger skills to make it through the toughest of battles.
I had a blast playing Onimusha: Way of the Sword’s preview and awarded it one of GamingTrend’s “Best of Summer Game Fest” awards due to the amazing graphics, smooth gameplay, and accessibility of the game itself.
You can play Onimusha: Way of the Sword on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch, and PC on September 25, 2026!
