adventure

I guess I'm disappointed, since getting through Ninja Gaiden for Xbox, that not another beat'em up will give me gaming satisfaction. But then I saw Oninmusha 3 and decided to give it a go.

Okay, I went out and bought this game because I heard it was better than the other onimushas, and that the intro movie is awesome. Well, I'll say that the intro CG done by ROBOT is too dam cool for words. It features the hero Samanouske as a ninja doing some pretty spiffy moves. Wait, wasn't he supposed to be a samurai??

That said, the rest of the game is the complete opposite of the intro. The gameplay is typical Onimusha- you can do almost none of the things that Samanouske displayed in the CG. No running on walls, no jump-kicking, no deflecting enemy attacks, no jumping whatsoever and performing nothing else a ninja can do. It's not bad, just relaxing or subdued compared to Ninja Gaiden.

But Onimusha has always had a thing for good story telling right? Unfortunately O3 fails in this too. Characters are either too serious like the statuesque Samanouske, or too corny like the time-hopping fairy. Some just aren't cool, like the overly hyped Jean Reno as Jauques Blanc (we wanted Jubei Yagiu!).

The game itself proves that it isn't good. The super-cool opening CG (which should go into gaming history) along with a game that makes you wish you were playing the cool ninjastic CG, prove that ninjas are indeed cooler than samurai. If you dig Onimusha you'll be wanting a better end for the trilogy, for those poor souls looking for a Ninja Gaiden, keep looking or play that game again. Onimusha 3 is a kick-ass 6 min CG with a10-hour mediocre game included.

This game truly lives up to its hype. The opening cinematics and the cutscenes are great, one of the best I've seen in PS2. I really liked the game play and as in previous Onimusha games, bosses are challenging, and if you die a certain amount of times it gives you the choice of continue play in easy mode. They took away the friends side quest of Onimusha 2 that was boring. Although Jaques has diferent weapons and moves it's easy to pick up. ANOTHER GREAT IMPROVEMENT ARE CONTROL SCHEME, not like Resident Evil or Atari 2600's Combat. You might question the fixed camera, but you can ignore that with such artistic environments, specially the Arc De Triumph, and cutscenes. This is at least a MUST PLAY game. Even if you are not familiar with Onimusha, you will really enjoy this game.

I played through both Onimusha games and loved both of them. This one is the best by far!! The opening cinema scene could be put up against anything Square Soft has ever done. I played for 7 hours straight and I still want more. Just a great game!