>>FULL REVIEW
I was honestly nervous about Capcom bringing Onimusha back because this is exactly the kind of old series that can get “modernized” until it barely resembles what people liked in the first place. Way of the Sword avoids that. It feels new, expensive, and much more polished, but the core idea is still wonderfully simple: you are a samurai fighting demons and the swordplay needs to carry the whole thing.
Thankfully, it does.
Musashi feels great almost immediately. There is weight to his attacks, but he never feels sluggish, and once the parries and Issen timing start making sense the combat gets addictive fast. I found myself wanting to take fights I could have avoided just because landing a clean counter feels so damn satisfying. That is probably the biggest compliment I can give this game. I am not pushing through combat to get to the next story beat. The combat is the reason I want to keep moving.
Bosses are where it really shines. Some of them force you to stop playing sloppy and actually learn what they are doing, but it never gave me that exhausted feeling some modern action RPGs do where one fight starts eating an entire night. There is challenge here, but the game still wants you to be aggressive and look cool once you understand the systems. No stamina bar constantly telling you to calm down. No need to circle somebody for three minutes waiting for one safe opening. It feels much more direct.
The setting helps a lot too. Kyoto looks incredible, especially once the supernatural side starts bleeding into everything. Capcom gets a nice balance between grounded historical detail and the ridiculous Genma stuff. One minute you are walking through somewhere that feels believable and lived in, then the next room looks like hell has started leaking through the walls. That contrast is very Onimusha and I am glad they did not sand it away.
Musashi has more personality than I expected as well. He is not just another stone-faced samurai standing around saying serious things. There is enough arrogance and attitude there to make him entertaining without turning him into a joke. The story itself takes a little while to really hook me, but once the characters settle in I cared more than I thought I would.
Where the game loses me a little is all the extra modern stuff wrapped around the good parts.
There are upgrade materials, side objectives, repeat encounters, and little progression systems that sometimes feel like they exist because a full-price game in 2026 is apparently supposed to have a pile of systems around everything. None of it is terrible, but I do not think Onimusha needed all of it. The tighter sections are almost always better than the ones asking me to poke around for another resource.
Enemy reuse starts showing up more than I would like too. The combat is good enough to keep familiar enemies enjoyable for a while, but there are definitely stretches where I wanted something new to walk into the room. The camera can also get messy when several enemies crowd around Musashi, which is especially annoying in a game where reading attacks clearly matters this much.
Performance is the one area I would keep an eye on at launch. My overall experience has been strong, but PC players are reporting crashes and stability issues. That is worth mentioning because technical problems are much harder to ignore in a timing-heavy action game than they would be in something slower. If Capcom cleans that up quickly, great. I just would not pretend the launch is completely spotless.
What matters most to me is that this actually feels like a return instead of a reboot wearing an old name.
Capcom could have chased an open world. They could have turned it into another Souls clone. They could have shoved loot rarity and endless build crafting into every menu. Instead they mostly trusted the idea that fighting demons with a sword is still fun if the sword fighting is good enough.
It is.
I would have cut some of the filler, trimmed a few systems, and probably tightened the middle of the game a bit, but those are complaints around something I am genuinely enjoying a lot. Way of the Sword makes Onimusha feel relevant again without making it unrecognizable, and after this long away that is about as good of a comeback as I could have hoped for.
WHO THIS IS FOR
Players who want a focused samurai action game with excellent sword combat and enough challenge to reward learning without turning everything into another Soulslike.
SKIP IT IF
You need a giant open world or hate timing-based combat built heavily around parries counters and learning enemy attacks.
