Review Deep Dives

Is Onimusha: Way of the Sword Worth It? Great Combat, Recycled Enemies

BC2S · 2026-10-04 · updated 2026-10-11

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Short version: Onimusha: Way of the Sword is one of the best-feeling games we have scored. Controls and feel (+3.8) rank 9th of the 443 analyzed games, and its most common praise, "combat system is top notch and fun to play," comes up in 169 of 433 reviews. The most common complaint is almost as loud: you fight the same monsters again and again (134 reviews).

What we read

433 Steam user reviews of Onimusha: Way of the Sword, in all languages, analyzed on September 15, 2026, in the game's first two weeks after its September 3 release. Steam now lists more than 20,000 reviews. Each review is scored on 25 indicators in 8 categories, from −5 to +5. How we score games.

The breakdown

Overall: 82.8 / 100.

Multiplayer is left out: fewer than 1% of reviews mention it.

What players praise: the sword

Summarized from what reviewers wrote (the number is how many reviews made the point):

• "Combat system is top notch and fun to play" (169 reviews)
• "Feels like a perfect blend of Ghost of Tsushima and Sekiro with its own identity" (63 reviews)
• "Bosses make you learn, good fight without suffering" (49 reviews)
• "Excellent graphics and optimization" (44 reviews)
• "Excellent optimization with stable 120 fps and no crashes" (13 reviews)

Difficulty scores +2.5, 13th of 416 games: hard enough to respect, as players describe it, without being punishing. A smaller group, 21 reviews, wants more challenge: "too easy even on Action difficulty."

Performance is a rare strength. Tech & Support counts complaints across all reviews, and Onimusha has fewer than almost any other game we have analyzed. Its performance indicator (+0.7) ranks 3rd of 498.

What holds it back: the enemies

• "Excessive monster reuse, repetitive enemy design throughout" (134 reviews)
• "Second playthrough cannot inherit equipment" (17 reviews)
• "DualSense controller not recognized" (15 reviews)
• "Trapped in same town instead of different environments" (10 reviews)
• "English localization is really bad" (8 reviews)

Variety scores −3.0, 471st of 486 games. It is the reason Content Volume, at −1.9, ranks 448th of 472. The town complaint shows up in Freedom too (−1.6).

What would move the score

Little here is a bug. The enemy roster and the single main town are design choices, so a patch is unlikely to change them, though new enemy types in an update or DLC would. New Game+ carryover and DualSense support are the kind of fixes that patches often bring.

Limits

1) These reviews come from the first two weeks after launch, when early buyers (often fans of the series) write most of the reviews.

2) This measures what reviewers wrote, not the game itself.

3) Numbers are as of September 15, 2026.

BC2S. Better Creative, Better Society. We read hundreds of thousands of reviews so you can see what people really think.

Game pages: Onimusha: Way of the Sword · How we score games