Every cameo but Ranmaru :(

[croik]

So I finished Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams. They probably could have called it "Onimusha 4: Stay Tuned For Onimusha 5" but it was decent. The gaphics were really good, the combat was good, the puzzles were (mostly) fun and the story...passable. The ending was all cheese and melodrama but that's a Capcom action game for ya.

(RE4 was better >.>)

I'm not sure if I'm going to go through the Dark Realm, because...man, it's really long this time around and I hear you can't take your ultimate weapons with you if you go to hard mode. Suck. But it was a pretty good game and I'm not selling it back yet XD

It's kind of disappointing that the Onimusha games have been kinda hit-or-miss since the first one. Onimusha was my first PS2 game and I loved it (Yey Samanosuke~~~). Two was good, and it was cool being able to control more people, except that I only ever liked playing with Jubei and Kotaro. The trade system was kind of odd, and the final boss was...well, lame. With the exception of Gogendantess I didn't like 2 as much as 1.

3 had a lot better control, better characters (yey Ranmaru~~~) and great puzzles. I really enjoyed 3, except that it was...so damn ODD. Modern day France? WTF?? And then of course the hordes and hordes of GIGANTIC living tanks and FANTASTIC martial arts moves in the CG sequences you never got to duplicate in-game. But I sure liked whipping things.

Now there's O4, which is kind of a mixed bag. I like having lots of different characters to play, but they all have different moves with different button combinations that take some time to pick up on. There's so many weapons with only slight differences between them you never know which one you should be using.

And the bosses! The bosses were the worst. Every boss was the same pattern of "block for 20 minutes until the weakness appears - ATTACK - block for another 20 minutes." And most of them you fight twice, if not three or even FOUR times. The final boss was a horrible bore, especially after how awesome looking and fast-paced the one just before it was.

But the part I'm having the most trouble deciding my opinion of is the story. When it comes to action games, my preferences is either a lot of really good story (like Metal Gear) or a bare minimum of totally non-obtrusive story (like DMC1, or even O1). I hated DMC3's story; there was a lot more of it than the other DMCs had, but it wasn't exactly good, either. If you're not going to surprise and amaze me, make the cutscenes as short as possible so it doesn't kill my stabbie buzz, plz. O4's story wasn't awful, but...it certainly wasn't anything amazing and original, either.

One character is out for revenge (or is it two?), one's a childhood friend, the wise monk...blah blah. Soki's not all that interesting, either. What IS interesting is reading their their little talk-jam sessions when everyone's at the hideout. That's where Soki spills his REAL backstory--the life he had which was so much more interesting than "I am cocky I kill things." Where he hits on Roberto and talks about historical characters that sends my inner samurai-geek into happy squee time.

(Soki lived with Yukimura Sanada??? EEEEE!!! XD)

It's just such a shame none of the interesting bits of his character made it into the ACTUAL game :(

And speaking of characters, I have to say I'm really disappointed in the handling of Samanosuke. I don't want to spoil anything, but...he just felt out of character to me. He's still damn fine, of course, but they took out the things about him I liked most, and that makes me sad.

And OMG what a waste Minokichi was. *stabz*

I suspect the next game will feature Jubei/Akane, all grown up as a slick Ninja Chick. But I'm not sure who'll be the new evil dude, since Tokugawa came after Hideyoshi, and he wasn't so bad :\

But I sure hope Mr. White Suit makes it back somehow. Mmm, very fine.

So I guess I'd give the game... 7/10. And here's to O5.