Just when you thought that the soul collecting was over, Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams was born.
You start out as a warrior from Edo-style Japan, nicknamed the Blue Demon. As usual, your goal is to collect souls in order to increase the stats of your weapons and armor. As you work through the storyline, the plot deepens, and things become more apparent about your past (Don't worry, I won't give it away this time). Of course, there is someone that you must defeat in order to restore order to your time period and save your new friends. This is the theme of Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams.
The overall gameplay is a bit hack-and-slash style, with very little filler space. Here's your average day in the life of the Blue Demon: walking the streets of major Japanese cities, and cutting down fierce enemies while accomplishing goals that help further the progress of the plot. You can swap in and out with your ally, who usually follows you (but not always, sometimes you have to play as your ally or alone). Of course, there are more than one ally for you to meet, but you can only play in the game with one at a time. Battling is pretty much a button mashing system, with some Musuo techniques thrown in there (each weapon has it's own technique), to lighten the atmosphere. While playing as the main character, you can control your ally remotely without swaping out with them by using the directional pad. Each arrow has a different command for your ally, such as stand still, attack with all your might, or some special techniques such as healing. It's not that hard to adapt to, and if you really dislike this system, just swap out with your ally when necessary and set your character to stand by.
Collecting souls. You do this by holding the circle and this creates a vortex of sorts thats sucks in all the soul particles that are released when you defeat an enemy. Collection of these soul particles can benefit you as far as customizing your weaponry and armory for allies or yourself at the designated save panels. You can also swap out allies at these save panels, and return to your safe house at times using this save panel.
As the story progresses and you collect more gold, you will be able to purchase newer, more advanced weapons and armor for different allies or yourself at your safehouse. Of course, it won't be free, so don't expect it to be easy. Also, you can discuss and catch up on things that you may have missed or not understood by talking with allies and your assistant here. Your assistant is this monkey-looking boy who allows for you to return to places you have already been to by talking to him, as well as progress forward in the game. To put it simply, your safe house is pretty much just that. A place to rest and catch up on what's going on before proceeding with the hacking and the slashing.
Of course, the whole game isn't just about killing zombies and enemies nonestop. Okay, it's a big part of the game, but it's not just about that. There are some puzzles and traps for you to solve and get around while you are playing as well.
Collecting souls also allows for you to level up your armor and weapons. This is similar but not the same as the system used in Dark Cloud, except that you can't break your weapons or armor. With your main character, you have two different types of weapons you can equip: a thin, katana-like sword, and a massive, broad sword that resembles the Tetsusaiga from the anime InuYasha. As you may have guessed, the bigger sword slows you down, while the thinner one speeds you up. But the bigger has more attack power, while the smaller generally has less unless you level it up significantly. These are just the types of sword that you can equip to your character. There are many different models and styles of these swords, but each of them follow the same general design. For your allies, there are weapons such as the staff, dagger, and many others depending on who your ally is at that time.
If you don't enjoy Edo-style sword fighting games, this game probably isn't for you. There is a bit of a magical theme behind the game that adds to the appeal, but it's pretty rigorious as far as the sword fighting samurai theme goes.
Graphically, this game is quite appealing because the graphics are smooth and vivid. Character detail is quite pleasant, and detail isn't spared on your enemies. Some enemies may resemble others, but overall they are generally quite well done. The landscape and environment is superbly done, and some of the scenes really do resemble a classic Japanese setting. I was surprised to find that a game of this degree on the Playstation 2 didn't repeat it's landscape often by placing the same building over and over again along the side of the street. And yes, you can explore many of the surrounding buildings at your whim. Of course the game is a bit linear as far as the storyling, so it isn't all a pleasure tour.
The audio quality of the game is quite good, with some classic oriental tracks and audios in the background to please the classic Japanese fanatics. I was surprised to find that you could turn the blood and gore off on this game (I never have though, so I don't know what it may look like without it).
Here's the breakdown:
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Storyline: 8 out of 10
Battling: 9 out of 10
Gameplay: 8.5 out of 10
Graphics: 9.5 out of 10
Cutscene Graphics: 10 out of 10
Audio: 9 out of 10
Sidequests and mini-games: 7.5 out of 10
Replay Value: 8 out of 10
Overall Score: 8.5 out of 10
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As far as hack-and-slash action-adventure games go, Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams is a pretty good fix. I strongly recommend this game to fans of the Onimusha franchise or series, action games, action-adventure games, classic Japanese style games, and hack-and-slash games.