Samanosuke is modelled after and voiced by Taiwanese-Japanese actor Takeshi Kaneshiro, whose popularity was at its height in the mid-2000s. More importantly, Onimusha gave me Samanosuke Akechi. It looked similar to Resident Evil 2, another Capcom game I definitely wasn't supposed to play at my age, with its pre-rendered backgrounds and a fixed camera that only shifts angles whenever you turn a corner. This is why Onimusha grew on me immediately. It was always slightly more interesting to me to make pretend in video games with realistic surroundings, rather than journeying through bubblegum-coloured landscapes as a dragon or bear or what-have-you. 2001 was the year that the people in games started to look like people, long before SEGA and Quantic Dream made it a substantial part of their business to have well-known actors fight against the uncanny valley.
Maybe it simply was magical, crammed with releases that people talk about to this day, even if it's not always with love. For me personally, 2001 was a magical year in gaming.
Simultaneously I want to acknowledge that some may not have these memories. This feels necessary to point out, not to sound uppity, but because any look at a remaster is inevitably going to be coloured by the memories you have of the original.
Availability: Out now on PS4, Switch, Xbox One and PC.Or have they already been driving for a year now? See, I don't even know anymore. People who were born when I played Onimusha Warlords for the first time are now old enough to drive. I'm only going to say this once, just to experience what typing these words feels like: A slightly dated reintroduction to one of Capcom's hack-and-slash greats.