Demon Siege; the end of an era. It's weird that Onimusha 3 improves on both previous games, yet somehow it's lackluster?
And yet; somehow Oni3 just isn't as good a game as Oni2 was. Demon Siege easily has the best controls, the most intuitive combat elements, and who can't love the return of Samanosuke Akechi?! Yet something about bouncing back and forth in time between fuedal japan and modern day paris, leaves you with a disjointed, almost lost feeling within the game engine.
If you can get past the hiccup in the storyline, everything else comes together. The fmv cutscenes are better than most that were shown for ps3 this year, but that's always been a strength for the series and has little if any connection to the gameplay.
The combat mechanic is very good, but lacks any real sense of innovation. Thank the fates we were finally able to control our warriors with the analog stick. I was convinced we'd be stuck in the land of the d-pad forever!
Possibly the most dissapointing aspect of the game was the ending. Thruout the series we've been waiting for Nobunaga Oda to finally get his real come-uppance. We all knew it would be at Honnoji temple (history tells us that), but it was severely anti-climactic. That was a dissapointment for me.
But is it worth picking up? Yes. Is it a must have? Well, if you want the whole trilogy in your library, then yes. Otherwise, you should use your best judgement on Demon Siege.