Onimusha 2: Samurai's Destiny Remastered Hands-On Preview
You wouldn’t be alone if you were an Onimusha fan who felt quite let down by the release of Onimusha: Warlords in 2018. The remaster that Capcom launched was a product of seemingly little effort, and consequently, it went overlooked by the audience as well. Warlords’ 2018 remaster suffered from essentially featuring nothing more than sharpened edges and widescreen support. There were other tweaks like the ability to abandon tank controls in favour of full 3D movement, and a re-recorded soundtrack, but these were hardly enough to inspire the audience, and yet, with the 2025 remaster of Onimusha 2: Samurai’s Destiny, it seems that Capcom is returning to the same old well, opting not to give its cherished franchise anything more than the bare minimum with this remaster.
With players following on from the events of Onimusha: Warlords, they’ll assume the role of Jubei Yagyu, and will soon find themselves on an epic quest to take down the iconic Nobunaga Oda. For fans of the original game, you know where this plotline is headed, and up to this point, it doesn’t seem like Capcom plans to inject anything additional into the game narratively to change things up, expand the plotline further, or even connect these events more clearly to the upcoming reboot of the Onimusha franchise. Perhaps there are some kinks in the tail to be found, but as of this early stage, it’s (for good reasons and bad) exactly as you will remember it.
Capcom has also seemingly copy/pasted the rule book for the Warlord remaster and applied it to Samurai’s Destiny. Movement and handling is certainly cleaner than before, while visuals and framerate have improved. On the plus side, there are some handy additions to Samura’s Destiny remastered that give players more to do. You can check out the gallery mode, soaking up the gorgeous character art of Keita Amemiya in the process, tackle the challenge of the Hell Mode difficulty level, or even immerse yourself in a few cheeky mini-games. The serving of items is more significant than the last game, but very little to this point seems to justify the purchases, perhaps outside of the want to have the game on newer platforms.
For some genuinely fantastic reasons, Onimusha 2 is exactly how you remember it, but when you peak over the rose-tinted lenses (should you have them for the IP) you’ll quickly identify a really underwhelming remaster. Perhaps there is more to be found as I stride further into the game, and this is something I’m eager to do, because what cannot be lost in these other layers of disappointment is the fact that the core game is once again great, dated, but nonetheless good, and there’s a swelling number of gamers interested in the new game who should absolutely be checking the remasters out. I look forward to reporting back in once I’ve completed the game in its entirety.
