// PC GAMER — GAMING
Onimusha: Way of the Sword review
A sublime mix of classic Capcom action and weighty physical swordfighting. The only enemy it can't overcome is its own pacing.
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Miyamoto Musashi, the legend goes, defeated his rival Sasaki Ganryu with a single blow to the head using nothing but a crude wooden sword carved from an oar.
What is it? The art of swordplay, revolutionized after the discovery of physicsRelease date September 3, 2026Expect to pay $70/£60Developer CapcomPublisher CapcomReviewed on Radeon RX 9070 XT, Intel i5-13600K, 64GB DDR5Steam Deck PlayableLink Official site
This is, of course, ridiculous: In truth Musashi first parried dozens of Ganryu's strikes, softened him up with a flourish of reflex combos, and then ran him through with the Flashing Void, a spear harnessed from the power of lightning in an ancient demonic hellforge. He was perhaps a bit too modest to recount the more baroque details of the battle in his memoirs, but blessedly Capcom is less bashful.
I've been told that two words don't qualify as a review, though, so let's talk caveats. I'd put the action in this long, long-awaited reboot up against the best Capcom's ever made, though it's spread out across a 10K that should be a sprint. It begins with a foundation of weighty swordplay that made me feel the muscle and bone behind each strike, and eventually challenged me to parry increasingly ostentatious bosses with a patience and precision I haven't exercised since Sekiro. The reward each and every time was the exhilaration of locking in and nailing the timing, graduating from a quick game over to a calm, clean execution.
Well, not that calm—other than the adrenaline a few of Onimusha's harder fights left pulsing in my hypothalamus, this game sets itself apart from FromSoftware's taciturn tone with a swagger reminiscent of early 2000s Capcom. One of its great strengths is the use of legendary actor Toshiro Mifune's likeness as Musashi, an act of digital necromancy that could've easily left a rotten stink if it wasn't handled precisely this deftly. But it doesn't just work, it makes the game.
I loved Onimusha's lavishly animated cutscenes just as much as the combat: Musashi is brash, fiery, and incredibly expressive, tilting his head with a cocky boast, cartoonishly gawping at monsters, contorting his whole face into a snarl when he gets his blood up. A throwaway moment where he scratches the back of his head exactly like the real Mifune does so much to make Way of the Sword feel like an homage to bloody '70s samurai flicks down to its bones.
Onimusha needed to nail that authenticity, because the dozen samurai roles I've seen Mifune in add up to significantly less screen time than the 35-odd hours I spent finishing the story and a healthy chunk of sidequests. Too long? Yep! Unfortunately the Capcom that made Resident Evil 9 and Pragmata lean, briskly paced adventures wasn't talking to the Capcom that thought Onimusha needed a dull hub world, grindy crafting materials and bosses that show up for an encore to an encore to an encore well after I stopped applauding.
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