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Onimusha: Way of the Sword is the latest victim of the dreaded AAA videogame disease: Padded Runtime Via Unsatisfying Upgrade Materials. It could be a lot worse: thankfully there’s no level gating in Onimusha that requires you to accrue an arbitrary set of stats before you can tackle a particular quest. It’s not an RPG, and I’m sure as soon as Twitch streamers get their hands on it they’ll be flexing on the hardest bosses without ever upgrading their gear by a single percentage point.
But for us mortals, Onimusha’s runtime is padded out by a pretty boring hub world full of pretty boring upgrade materials like cotton and iron that you use to very, very slowly increase your damage, health, stamina, and Oni power gauge. It’s a dull system that doesn’t evolve a single bit over the entire game. There are also rarer upgrade materials that you use to unlock abilities and enhancements on the skill tree.
This structure encourages you to spend quite a few hours playing the least fun bits of Onimusha, but I do have some good news: there’s a way to bypass some of the tedium that you can easily overlook.
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Buy key upgrade materials from Yorimasa’s shrine
A few hours into Onimusha: Way of the Sword, you’ll complete a quest to purify Yasui Konpiragu shrine, saving its guardian Oni spirit from an evil Genma infestation. Once done, Yorimasa will begin selling you items for red souls, the standard “currency” you accrue from killing enemies. If you’re anything like me, you’ll take a cursory look at what’s for sale, go “I don’t need any of this stuff right now” and then go play about 10 more hours of Onimusha without bothering to revisit the shrine.
Don’t do that! Check back in after you complete every major story mission, because Yorimasa’s Monument expands the shop inventory several times throughout the game. And after awhile he’ll begin stocking some of the key crafting items, including:
- Leather
- Fine Silk
- Tempered Iron
- Tamahagane
- Malacite Mass
- Byakue’s Talisman
- Dohatsu-ten’s Horn
Yorimasa doesn’t sell all these right at the start, but early on you’ll probably be getting the basics like cotton cloth and regular iron at a pretty steady clip, and won’t need as many of these rarer materials. There are five upgrade tiers for your clothing, sword, and gauntlet, though, each of which require a substantial number of materials to work your way through. Unless you spend hours and hours doing sidequests in Kyoto and chasing down every shiny chest your Oni vision highlights for you, you’re going to need more of these items than you accrue naturally throughout the game. (Even putting around 35 hours into Onimusha I didn’t quite max out any of my gear.)
By the mid- and late-game, at least, you can supplement your findings with some stock bought from Yorimasa’s finite supply. If you have the red souls, I recommend buying as many as you can; hunting for them really drags down Onimusha’s pacing.
Unfortunately, this is also a very quick way to go broke.
Okay, so how do I get more red souls?
The higher tier upgrade items can cost upwards of 8,000 souls, so even after spending a few hours on a big story quest killing enemies you’ll blow through your soul wallet by upgrading a couple skill tree nodes and buying some materials. If you don’t want to run into a late game cash crunch, here are a few tips:
- Spec into the skill tree node that increases red soul rewards: It’s not the sexiest option up front, but prioritize this early on so that you start earning more souls sooner so you can buy your way through the skill tree later
- Use Soul Suckers before big fights: These are the sorts of inventory items I have a bad habit of ignoring. Don’t be like me: stick the red Soul Sucker in your Hozuki pouch and use it right before you carve through a big pile of scrub Genma to up your payout. If you’re confident, it’s also worth using one when you’ve got a Byakue or Dohatsu-ten close to death, then follow-up with the next tip for an even better reward.
- Finish off enemies with the Flashing Void: While you won’t get this Oni armament until later in the game, using it as a finisher nets you more red souls. Do that! Otherwise I know you’re just going to be sitting on that Oni meter saving it for the “right” moment.
- Upgrade the Reaper’s Charm if you really plan to grind: I’ll be up front and say that I didn’t do this myself, because I didn’t get my hands on the Reaper’s Charm until I was far enough into Onimusha to be pretty over fighting the basic baddies, and reckoned the investment wouldn’t pay out. But if you keep this charm equipped to a slot from the moment you get it, you can maximize your red souls earned with a baseline 15% buff even before taking advantage of the tips above. Just keep in mind there are only so many upgrade materials Yorimasa will sell you before you go all-in grinding for souls.
