Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams (Sony PlayStation 2, 2006)

This game is a slap in the face to a great series. Completely abandoning the darker tone of the first three, it introduces cartoony characters in an anime like story. Gone, too, is the realism set within a fantastic plot, the main character jump distances to take out giants, and wields two gigantic swords at once, just like everything else. Upgrading has been made needlessly complex, unlike the simple system in the previous games.

Many people lauded the fact that this game has finally included a player controlled camera into the series, but it does not react to your movements in any way, staying static in the last position you left it, and when you move it, it is very sluggish. If you've lost track of an enemy and need to find him, by the time you get them on screen they probably got a free hit.

While character models look good, the game has a hazy dull look, likely due to filters. The realistic color palette from the past is also gone, in favor of your standard cartoon bright colors.

Probably my biggest gripe with this game are the controls. The series was fine, especially after Demon Siege allowed you to move freely with the left joy stick. Instead of leaving a good thing as it was, they decided to fix what wasn't broken by changing the X and O buttons around. It can't be the simple, standard "press X to look at things or pick things up" like in every single other game in existence, you must now get used to picking things up with O, and absorbing souls with X. It would have been nice if they had done something that made sense with a control change, like X absorbs souls, looks at stuff, and picks things up (you know, like an Action button?,) and made O something useful, like a jump button to hit flying enemies. But, alas it is not so, you have a button transposition for no reason that goes against the norm and can't be customized back to the way it should be.

If you've played the past games in this series, and don't like bland anime cliches, don't buy this one. Don't even rent it, because you'll likely be disappointed. If you haven't played the others and like anime, you should probably pick this up. The action gameplay hasn't changed much from what made the others fun, so this will be a great action/adventure game, and won't tarnish your memory of a formerly great story.

I've played (and own) all the earlier installments of Onimusha, so I just had to get this one.

In Japan, this is called "Shin", or "New", Onimusha which I don't understand why they took that off the title on the English version. A lot of fans were caught off-guard, expecting old Onimusha style, and was disappointed with the changes in this game, but I felt refreshed.

They've introduced a lot of neat new features in the game, like switching in characters during the game and taking control of them at any time. With this, they also added team attacks and even two-player (although that takes a lot of getting used to). The story starts several years after the end of Onimusha 3 and my, is it a long story. I was very pleased at the length of this game; I thought it would never end, and I didn't want it to. The gameplay was sped up quite a bit, focusing more on action the previous installments. It doesn't reach its fastpace potential, though, as the enemies can be slow to attack sometimes.
I think the graphics are great (I know what the PS2 can do and this pushes its limits, kinda) and the presentation is very well-done. All the characters are well-designed and memorable, and the music is astounding! I really think Capcom did a magnificent job with this game and I enjoyed every moment of it.

Like I said in the title, new is good. I'm glad they changed things up and kept the series fresh. I'm hoping for a sequel!

Okay..I don't want go into a lot of detail so here gose. This game is one of the best rpg's for ps2. I was not boared even after playing it five times over. The charecters were very enjoyable and the plot was very good plus miny diferent upgradable weapons. the boss fights are okay and you can go to the underworld stages 1-100 for battles and finding items along the way. I got this game for one reason to have some fun on my ps2 before I upgade to ps3. What I dislike about this game was the twe disc switching and the game play and story is a bit too long. And so this concludes my review of Onimusha 4.

This is a very good installment of Onimusha but the graphics on the PS2 system show their age. Onimusha 3 was excellent for its time, but in DoD, it seems that much of 3 was re-hashed as a modified experience. However, this game will take you at least 30 hours to complete, with plenty of opportunities to level up, which will keep you very busy. There is also a code that will allow 2 players to fight side by side. Some fans of the Onimusha series have not been completely content with the story and character directions, but this game is not an extension of Oni 3. This is a brand new story. If you've played the Oni games before, you will feel at home. If not, it is easy to pick up, and with a whole new storyline, you really don't need to play the previous games for the story.

This one is better than the previous three. Much more action and multiple characters to play as. I got the game last week and have beat it already. I'd highly recommend this game. It's also really cool how they incorporated characters from the other three into the game, although this game takes place many years later. You will see how the characters from this game, are related to characters from the other Onimusha's!! Get it, it will keep you entertained for hours.