Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams Review

I always knew about this particular Onimusha game despite beating the initial trio of games years back, I always held off playing this one. I would always attempt to start it up but I wouldn't get very far. With the PCSX2 emulator getting updates that the game can run consistently and with me also knowing about the Japanese version of the game which allows for english audio, text and much more balanced difficulty by comparison to the North American release, I decided to finally play Dawn of Dreams from start to finish.

I would say as a whole, I'd consider this to be the worst in the series but not a game I consider bad just more so that I'm not really big on the genre shift and how long the game is. For the latter, it seems the devs took the compliants about how Onimusha 3 was too short to heart but I argue a game being longer doesn't equate to being better which Dawn of Dreams can attest to more on that later.

The story is just okay, I wouldn't consider it amazing. The big issue I have with it is how it feels like you are watching a TV show mid way into a seaon. Many of the character relationships and backstories are often never shown and it expects you to know them already before starting up the game. This would be fine if you played the other Onimusha games but this game stars new a new cast of characters and the series main villain Nobunaga Oda has been dead for some time.

However some positives I can say is that the villains are quite flamboyant and over the top and what I really like the game is that most of the members in your party have their own villain to sqaure off against which is something I really like since it gives each party memeber a personal stake in the story rather than them being there for the ride. The character interactions are also decent too.

I did enjoy the ending and I liked how it definitive it felt and considering how long the final boss rush towards the end of the game was, the fact that the ending felt conclusive is a massive point towards DoD's favor. This isn't Kingdom Hearts levels of eregious where you fight a really long bush rush and the game ends on a "to be continued" note.

The gameplay is where things get interesting. Where Onimusha 1-3 were action games with RPG elements, DoD is full on RPG with the exception of a gear system all though you do get items. You also have a Street Fighteresque input based command system but you never really need to use this since basic attacks will kill them just fine.

There is also a player controller camera and lock on system and I don't care for this. DoD as a result controls more like a Kingdom Hearts game than a traditional Onimsuha. At it's best the camera is tolerable but at it's worst it's easy to get attacked from enemies from the side or behind you. What also doesn't help that the lock won't let you hit airborne enemies even with Soki's purfication attack. Only Ohatsu can hit airborne targets since she uses guns so I always had her in my party. One big negative is that since save points don't restore health means that you have to share healing items with party members and I mainly want to keep them for myself and since the AI for party members never goes above serviceable so at best they either occasionally lend a helping hand or just barely a efficent meat shield at worst. 

Some good things about the combat is that the lockon is mostly reliable and never got in my way outside of the aforemnetioned airborne enemies. The game was at it's best when you had a follow camera and in conjuction with the lock on system can make for combat that felt more reliable with the strafe mechanic than Onimusha 3 did. I wish the whole game was like this. Purfication is also a nice addition to basic strikes and magic attacks since if you kill enemies with purfication attack, you get rewarded with extra orbs.

Final complement is that I liked switching between as far as level exploration is concerned. The game does a decent enough job at giving the player the incentive to switch between characters and using their abilties to get secret items or level progression items. However this does become a problem later since the game does a lot of asset reuse.

This leads to a big negative that you will be going through the same levels again constantly. You could complain about Oni 3 being a "short" game but that game always gave you something new to look forward to with different changes in scenery and location. Dawn of Dreams has you go through some levels at least twice. The Research Lab was nice to go through once but it got dull doing the same objectives twice a second time.

The final and big negative is that DoD does the KOTOR 2 thing where you are forced to play as characters you don't want to play as. At least Oni 3 prompted you to play as Jacques and you'd be familar with him by the end. DoD forces you to play as characters you aren't accustomed to at random points in the story on top of that you need to make sure they are well levelled since you will have a much harder time later game when you have to play as them. The boss rush towards the of the game hinges on you making sure you put points into them and gave high levels items and weapons or hope you have lots of items to cheese later boss encounters with. The items to keep Oni Form going on for much are especially the most useful. 

Overall, decent game but not something I'd play again due to length of the game, how you are forced to play as characters you don't want to play as and heavily invest into them to get past later parts of the game.