If Mega Man were to die tomorrow, Capcom would figure out a way to revive him. If the Street Fighters all succumbed to some obscure international plague, Capcom would find a way to make sure the tournament continued. And if Capcom decided to end a series themselves, we're guaranteed a sequel. That's what happened with Onimusha, and Dawn of Dreams proves why the promised ending after Onimusha 3 was the right way to go.
To their credit, Dawn of Dreams does try to separate itself. There is little mention of the previous games, and if they didn't exist, there would be no problem following the plotline here. The mission structure has changed; putting the gameplay inside strict levels instead of the open world we're used to. They've also implemented a hit or miss squad control that mostly ends up being a miss.
The key issue here is that these new additions defeat the point of calling this Onimusha. The linear levels are the largest complaint, restricting the player significantly, and causing a failure when attempting to refer to the gameplay as a "quest." It's hard to miss anything here.
Stages generally revolve around a puzzle, sometimes large in scope. With such a strict restraint on the player (levels rarely open up or branch out), the solution is generally easy, making these feel like work rather than entertainment. Given the game's epic and completely unforgettable opening, figuring out which switches to flip is a definite step down.
Re-spawning enemies curse what action is here. While a usual staple of the franchise, the puzzles here require the player to enter and exit countless doors, and bring with it more foes. This cheaply pushes the difficulty higher, and as one of the first in the franchise not to offer an easy mode, you'll be crushed.
It's even worse when dealing with multiple boss fights back-to-back. Without the ability to regain some health in between, rare yellow souls (which restore health as in previous Onimusha's) and cheap shots, winning is secondary to losing. Epic boss fights are here only because the developers made sure anything less than an hour spent slashing is a glitch. Many require the slaughtering of hundreds of Genma before the boss falls, simply because one or two attacks from the level guardian will drain an entire life bar.
Article comments
1 - Tom
Great review! I too share your opinion. I feel this game is a cheap shot at getting more money out of Onimusha fans. It didn't give me a sense that I was on a quest. The story was weak so I felt like it was mindless hack/slash. Especially when considering the repetitive reincarnation of level bosses. This got excrutiatingly painful in the Dark Realm where on every level the enemies of each level kept reappearing after you kill them. I gave up and never got to the 100th level because it just took too long, got too monotonous, and simply got too boring. Consequently, I never got to use the items that can only be found along the way as you reach the 100th level. Additionally, the cool weapons/accessories aren't available until towards the end of the game. I can go on and on, but I'll wrap it up with this: The closer I got towards the end of the game, the more frustrated/bored (rather than entertained) I became; I was only interested in finishing it so I can sell it before it drops in value further.