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When Capcom released a demo for Onimusha: Way of the Sword a few months ago, a vocal portion of action game fans landed somewhere between concerned and crestfallen—enemies just weren’t aggressive enough, leaving them worried the final game would be unchallenging to the point of boredom. There was enough heat that Capcom producer Akihito Kadowaki decided to respond in a video, not to say that they’d be making the game harder, but that the demo was “just a slice of the early part of the story” and that “in the final game, the bosses and the regular Genma will put up a tougher fight.”
Now that I’ve played the full game, I can back that statement up. Onimusha kicked my ass plenty.
As the demo hinted at, though, the first few hours of Onimusha are quite easy if you have any experience with action games, particularly if you’re used to managing stamina meters in soulslikes or dying from just a couple hits. And on the whole, the game isn’t as punishing or demanding as FromSoftware‘s Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice or the Nioh games. But across nearly 40 hours of playtime I died plenty, particularly to bosses that ruthlessly punished my poor parry timing or overeager button mashing. Even the basic mobs took me down more than a few times when I leapt into the fray just a bit too cocky or impatient.
That said, let me try to address the specific complaints I saw from players when Onimusha’s demo set off this wave of concerns.
Concern: Way of the Sword needs a harder difficulty option
It has one! Unfortunately, though, you have to beat the game to unlock it, and Way of the Sword is not short. I think Capcom would’ve been wise to make this option available from the start.
Concern: Enemies are too passive
it is 2026. if you dare imagine a game with group combat, don’t worry: enemies will politely take their turn one by one and die with a single parry. pic.twitter.com/wUG1nrUhAOJune 3, 2026
I saw the video above spread around as evidence that Onimusha’s enemies are far too passive, attacking one at a time instead of as a group. This fear should mostly be put to rest by full game. It holds true that when a group surrounds you, they won’t all attack simultaneously, but after the opening couple hours, which essentially serve as an introduction to Onimusha’s key combat mechanics one at a time, you’ll usually be fighting mixed groups of enemies that keep you on your toes.
The basic, weak Genma will begin an encounter by dashing behind you, encircling you and then menacing their blades in what I think is a fun nod to how these battles are often depicted in samurai films. They’re no threat by themselves and are clearly fodder for you to enjoy slicing to pieces. That said, they do offer some resistance: if you open with a heavy attack, which is vertical, they’ll usually sidestep it. Sometimes they’ll block multiple attacks in a row, pushing you to either wear through their stamina meter with repeated blows, back off and parry them, or break through their guard with a shoulder check you’ll unlock a few hours in.
Most of the challenge will come from the enemies the weak Genma are paired with. Each group usually has at least one “heavy” who you can’t just take down by button mashing: they’ll parry, hit you with attacks that you can’t block, or use grab moves that deal big damage.
Often you’ve got archers or flying Genma in the background throwing projectiles at you. And when you’re focused on the big guys, that’s when the basic Genma will work up the courage to try to stab you in the back, leading to many opportunities for Onimusha’s exquisite animations to shine: Musashi will stick his sword behind his back to parry an attack coming from behind him in a thrilling bit of “hell yeah I’m a samurai” defense.
As the game goes on, basic enemies will steadily begin to use unblockable attacks, show up wearing armor or toting shields, and even absorb the souls you’ve just loosed from the guts of their allies.
I can see some players still being unsatisfied that the groups don’t attack en masse—compared to a Dark Souls mob, it doesn’t feel like the bad guys here are out to kick your fucking teeth in. But their actions feel fitting for a game where you’re playing Japan’s most famous swordsman empowered by a magic demon gauntlet: you’re the apex predator and they’re the prey. Later in the game you’ll even get an ability that makes weaker enemies fall over in fear when you slaughter one of their friends.
The real challenge is in the boss fights, and Onimusha has a lot of those.
Concern: You can just button mash
This might get you through the first couple hours, but it’s certainly not going to work against bosses, and even regular mobs will begin to punish you for too much sloppy mashing.
There are plenty of weak enemies you can dispatch with a basic three hit combo, but while you’re smashing that button another enemy will probably come in swinging with an attack you need to dodge or parry. At first it’s quite safe to block most attacks, but you’ll eventually have to deal with attacks that deplete your entire stamina meter if you block them—they have to be parried or deflected.
And again, at first you can parry all day, but deflecting becomes more important as you face enemies that need their guard broken before you can meaningfully hurt them. The timing on deflection is actually easier to pull off, but it introduces another in-the-moment consideration of which skill to deploy.
The flow of most boss fights is very Sekiro-esque: You need to learn their attacks and repeatedly parry and deflect to drain their stamina bar, opening them up to a big hit. Mashing or constantly blocking will get you killed real quick in these fights, particularly because when bosses smash your stamina gauge they’ll steal a chunk of souls and power up, swinging the fight in their favor.
Concern: Combat feels too slow
Onimusha: Way of the Sword is definitely a slower-paced swordfighting game than Team Ninja’s soulslikes, and it’s practically glacial compared to Devil May Cry or Ninja Gaiden. I love this about it: the game feels like a heightened representation of the samurai film duels that inspired it, emphasizing the weight behind each strike and physical bodies holding each blade. No action game has had animations like these, or the physics to really sell them.
Slower doesn’t mean slow, at least in my mind—there are bosses that demand extremely quick reactions if you don’t want to end up dead, and ‘issen,’ the game’s most advanced and riskiest technique, requires you to push the attack button just before an enemy hits you to perform an instant riposte.
If the general feel of movement and combat in the demo weren’t for you, I’m not sure the full game would change your mind. If Onimusha’s demo left you cold because you thought it was too easy, though, I think you’ll still find plenty of challenge, at least from the boss fights—unless you can beat Sekiro’s bosses without taking a single hit, in which case you’ll probably sleepwalk through Way of the Sword.
