Latest news with #ToshiroMifune
Yahoo
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Onimusha: Way of the Sword Is Capcom Sharpening It's Sword
During a hands-off presentation at Summer Games Fest, Onimusha: Way of the Sword quietly emerged as one of the most exciting things on the horizon. Capcom let the game speak for itself. And what it said, loud and clear, is that they're not just reviving Onimusha to ride nostalgia. They're rebuilding it from the hilt up. It's been nearly two decades since Onimusha felt like a pillar of Capcom's portfolio. But with recent remasters and with Way of the Sword on the horizon, the studio is treating the return like an event. This isn't a low-stakes spin-off; this is a full-scale entry with real bite, and a very clear creative vision behind it. It wears its influences proudly, particularly from samurai cinema and modern action design, but it never feels derivative. Set in a stylized version of feudal Kyoto, the game follows Miyamoto Musashi, not the philosophical swordsman of legend, but a younger warrior modeled visually and vocally after Toshiro Mifune, a legendary Japanese actor and producere known for his work in the samurai film genre. That casting choice does a lot of lifting. It grounds the game in a very specific cinematic era. The kind built on black-and-white duels and sharp of course, isn't just slicing up bandits. The supernatural elements are baked in early. He wears the Oni gauntlet on his arm, a cursed artifact that lets him absorb the souls of his enemies. Where most modern action games would streamline this into an auto-pickup system, Way of the Sword makes it an active mechanic. Enemies spill red, blue, and yellow orbs on death. Experience, skills, and health respectively. and Musashi has to manually draw them in. If he doesn't, they fade, or worse, get stolen by other enemies that'll power them up. That twist adds a real-time tension to every skirmish. It's good to see that this mechanic hasn't been lost to the modernization of the series. Combat reaches a new level with the return of the Issen. Veterans of the series know the name well. These are instant-kill counters that trigger on perfect timing and look really cool. Capcom has taken them from a subtle flourish to a centerpiece. Time slows, the camera tightens, and Musashi chains together one-hit kills that feel straight out of a Kurosawa dream sequence. And the best part is how expressive it all feels. We only got a glimpse, but another teased boss, Byakue, looked like a full-on nightmare—a towering, skinless beast covered in talismans and dripping with corruption. The fight was cut short, but the visual alone said enough. This game isn't afraid to get weird, and it knows how to build dread without over-explaining it. The supernatural elements in Way of the Sword extend beyond combat. Musashi can use Oni Visions to reveal hidden paths, phantoms, and clues. In one sequence, he watched a funeral procession turn to ash mid-step, revealing his path. In another vision, he uncovered the moments of a warrior whose soul had been twisted by regret after dispatching members of his village. These Dark Mass fragments add layers of context and melancholy, fleshing out a world that already feels haunted. The structure seems semi-linear from the look of things. You're following a main path, but it looks like there will be optional routes, side objectives, and if its like the previous entries, there should be alternate dialogue options that will offer room to explore. This isn't an open world, and it doesn't want to be. But it's also not a corridor. Instead, it feels like a tightly wound experience with thoughtful room to Way of the Sword is stunning. The art direction is doing the heavy lifting, but the animation work sells the rest. Musashi's stance looks like it shifts subtly depending on the enemy he faces. Even his idle moments feel charged with intent. Enemy design is equally sharp. What's maybe most exciting is how confident this all feels. Capcom isn't second-guessing what Onimusha should be. They've found it again. Not by recreating the past, but by distilling what made it work and making it sing in a new key. It's brutal, beautiful, and unafraid to let silence speak when it matters. There's still plenty we haven't seen. The full scope of the story, the size of the map, how far the mechanics evolve. But if the rest of Way of the Sword keeps this pace, Capcom isn't just reviving a franchise, they're reminding everyone why it mattered in the first place.
Forbes
11-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
‘Onimusha: Way Of The Sword' Brings Toshiro Mifune Back To Life
A youthful likeness of famous actor Toshiro Mifune will be used in 'Onimusha: Way of the Sword'. The latest entry in the long-running Onimusha series takes us to a corrupted Kyoto with youthful Toshiro Mifune as our guide. Specifically, Toshiro Mifune's likeness has been used for the main character of the game, Miyamoto Musashi, who in turn is a famous Japanese historical figure. This is very much in line with prior Onimusha games, as Takeshi Kaneshiro's likeness was used in the first game and Yusaku Matsuda's likeness in the second. The Onimusha games also use notable figures from Japanese history, and Miyamoto Musashi is arguably one of its most famous. Musashi was a legendary swordsman and undefeated in combat, so much so that his duels with other samurai are the stuff of legend. The latter is also noteworthy here, as Sasaki Ganryu is also present in this new Onimusha game as a rival antagonist who also wields an Oni Gauntlet. FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™ Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase Pinpoint By Linkedin Guess The Category Queens By Linkedin Crown Each Region Crossclimb By Linkedin Unlock A Trivia Ladder Whether Musashi will defeat Kojiro in the same way he did historically remains to be seen, but I always find this repurposing of history both fun and interesting in the Onimusha games. This new entry also looks very impressive, not only graphically but also functionally. While the older Onimusha games took their functional guidance from the fixed camera setup in the Resident Evil games, this looks more like Nioh or Sekiro in terms of combat, and that's a definite improvement. It also seems that Onimusha: Way of the Sword will be playable at this year's Gamescom in August, so it will be interesting to see what people think of the game after getting to play it properly. Onimusha: Way of the Sword will be released in 2026 for the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC, via Steam. Follow me on X, Facebook and YouTube. I also manage Mecha Damashii and am currently featured in the Giant Robots exhibition currently touring Japan.
