Jean Reno fighting demons in the 16th century Japan. Need I say more?
First off, this game has one of the best opening movies I've ever seen. You can download it in its entirety from FilePlanet.
This is a fun game with a completely absurd story. Samanosuke Akechi is transported from feudal Japan to present day Paris. A man named Jacques (modeled with permission after Jean Reno) is transported back in time to Japan. As the game progresses you switch back and forth with so much paradoxical time travel silliness it makes the Terminator movies seem feasible.
The gameplay is basically identical to Demon Siege's two predecessors. Think Resident Evil with a samurai and controls that aren’t stupid. You chop down demons and try to suck their souls into your gauntlet while avoiding other demons.
For the first time in the series the environments are fully rendered in 3D, not 3D characters on pre-rendered backgrounds. I am very impressed with some of the graphical feats they managed to pull off (this game has by far the best fire and snow effects I've ever seen).
The Japanese really love Jean Reno. I like him myself, but whoever they got to perform his English voice is bad. Not that it really matters, though, as the dialogue is horrid to begin with.
Nobunaga – the main bad-guy in all three games – once again has no real involvement in the game except to be the last villain (with the requisite 3 “final boss” forms). There’s no depth to his character, but I’ve always found it odd that they made him the villain anyway. Nobunaga is an actual historical Japanese leader. It’d be like making a game in which John F. Kennedy was revived by demons after his assassination and started trying to take over the world. Kinda weird.
Still, the gameplay is well executed, and I parts of the ridiculous story are still enjoyable. All three of the Onimusha games are terrific, and the first two can be bought for less than $20 each at this point. If you haven’t tried this series and like action adventure games, give it a shot. If you've already played the first two, then I'm preaching to the choir and you're probably way ahead of me.
I take offense to your insinuation that anything related to Resident Evil (peace be upon him) could be stupid.
Posted by: mwest | July 31, 2004 at 12:24 AM
I had checked this post last night and had full intent to reply once I went to FilePlanet and viewed the movie. However, Mr. Rutledge didn't link to the page that had the movie, just to FilePlanet's home page, leaving me to my own devices. And as per usual when I try to do some exploring, I got lost and went on some tangent of some other file I found, never finding the Jean Reno movie thingy.
So, I'm sure the movie looks cool, but since I seem incapable of finding something on my own without getting wanderlust, I'll just take your word for it.
On a side not, in the Reno flick "Wasabi", his sidekick is named, of all things, "Momo". How cool is that?
Posted by: Momotaro | August 01, 2004 at 07:34 PM