Onimusha Tactics

Seriously, OT doesn't do anything that FFT, TO, or RE hasn't done already and 100 times betters. BUT, OT is a necessary reminder that games don't have to get 'crazy' with interfaces and complex storylines. In fact, that's its strength!

Cons:
Game play is a watered down version of FFT and TO. The storyline is straight forward and LINEAR, and the introduction of "out-of-left-field-characters-that-you-didn't-know-existed-whom-come-into-the-picture-arbitrarily" takes away depth. Music is mediocre, and the graphics are sprite like - can't really mess THAT up. :) And, it has poor player development. You can't backtrack, and you can't explore the world.

Pros:
So, what's so good about OT? Visually beautiful (especially the handpainted character shots), tricky/cunning AI (at times), simple interface (this means a lot ppl, trust me), culturally DIFFERENT setting (i.e. story takes place IN Japan - how many games do you see that???), interesting story telling style (not to be confused with the actual storyline - OT uses a non-conviential way of telling a story and putting you in the action. It's like a cartoon.), and an overslimplified way of obtaining and upgrading weapons, armors, and items!

IMHO, you have to look at OT like this: You're in, you're out, and you're done! That's it. Don't look to this game for intricate battle systems and complex boards, bosses or whatever. Look to this game as an oasis, a vacation spot, away from the hectic and detailed nature of other games like its kind.


A complete waste of potentional: easy, simple, and formulaic   May 31, 2005
mdizzog (USA)
10 out of 14 found this review helpful

I've come to expect many strategy games to be hard at first. I had to start Final Fantasy Tactics over a few times just because I couldn't make the right armies. Certain battles, like the one with that Wiegraf guy, were downright frustrating. But I think they were necessary, because they made the game feel that much more epic.

About the bad parts of the game... This game doesn't seem to challenge me in the least. As the game progresses you get more and more genma stones. This is fine, just you don't get enough souls to upgrade the equipment you make. The whole thing about the game is you are suppose to pick what kind of characters you like and give them cool looking armor. There are not enough varities of armor and weaponry to make the genma stone thing seem rewarding.

What's good? Well, the game is simple enough that small decisions will not ruin you. In Final Fantasy Tactics, attacking someone's side rather than their back can cost you the game. In Onimusha Tactics, attacking a monster's side is like attacking his front or back. It's the same thing. The characters are diverse, yet there is little to no character developement. Honestly? I don't think I care anymore as I've seen practically every character possible known to man. I've seen the strong silent type, the lone vagrant, and the cautious samurai. At times I get annoyed with the game because it seems like every other battle, a new character is thrown into my party and I don't even want to know the person. Sometime, certain characters who you forgot were in your party will say a line like, "This land is fertile, it will be the perfect battleground." And you will have to remember how that guy got in your party. The thing is though, I've come to expect cliches, and I'm glad that I don't need to play with characters I don't care about.

And now for the ugly... You can't backtrack. Once you visit a location you are not going to go there again. There are no towns. If you want to earn some extra souls, forget it. You can't even customize equipment outside of battle. If you want to customize your characters, you have to do it when you are picking them for the next battle. Even worst, some of the characters in your party look cool, but have terrible movement rates. I'd love to play with Ekei, but he barely moves across the map compared to my other characters. I'd also love to play with that ninja girl, but she does so little damage and has so little health that she wastes space. The one thing that annoys me more than anything is the issen command. Occasionaly your character will get issen. This this basically takes the place of the "done" command. You can move around but you can't do any commands other than that. The whole premise of issen is that you set it up, and, during the enemy's turn, if a monster attacks you, you will counter it. This doesn't work if the monster uses a special move. The problem is, THE MONSTERS ALWAYS USE THEIR SPECIAL MOVES! Bosses have like 200 special points, and their special moves consume 5 points. Throughout the entire game, I can only remember having a successful issen 2 times. TWO TIMES! One was during the training, and the second was when I was messing around in the Phantom Realm against level 5 monsters. The Phantom Realm is a place where you can try to progress through various floors(like the Onimusha games on playstation) without healing. It would be great, but you have to fight through the crappy levels each time you play it, and those take a while, even though they are easy.

I had fun playing this game, but with contenders like Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, Tactics Ogre, Fire Emblem, and Advance Wars, this game just doesn't present anything new in the genre. If anything, it is much more simpler than it should be.


Simple, yet fun.   January 3, 2004
7 out of 7 found this review helpful

Though it is not near as complex as Final Fantasy Tactics or Tactics Ogre, Onimusha Tactics hits home for those who like tactics based games. Unlike the other two titles mentioned, Onimusha Tactics does not penalize/reward side or back attacks, which makes fighting a little bland. Another flaw it has is that you're stuck on a storyline, there is no backtracking or random battles at all, its purely level based. Even though, it still is a good game, and deserves a playthrough. Just don't expect a complex system of levels and classes.


Perfect   April 13, 2004
2 out of 10 found this review helpful

This was the absolute best game ever! It had everything I wanted! RPG with a ton of characters to manage some comedy some drama and a lot of action! You get to build and upgrade weapons by collectng Genma stones and Genma souls! I would recommend this game to anyone. It's a must by for Samurai fans and sword hack n' slash fans and magic using fans and throwing those ninja thingies with points fans and comedy fans and . . . okay this is getting long that's it


Overly Simplistic, and Terrible Gameplay   August 3, 2006
Gitti Janwatanagool (Saint Louis, MO USA)
2 out of 4 found this review helpful

I will admit this: I only played the game for a total amount of one hour. Why? That was about as long as I could stand playing Onimusha Tactics.

Perhaps I was suckered in by the name "Tactics" in the game title, but I bought the game expecting to play something along the lines of Advance Wars or Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, but when I first started up the game and went through the training mode at the beginning and the first level and second level, I became more and more disgusted with the game.

The main reason I did not like Onimusha Tactics is the dialogue. Since the game story was place in ancient times (from what I could tell from the surroundings and the buildings), I was expecting the main character and others to say more intelligent words than "Awesome!" and "Cool!" when speaking; however, I saw such words interjected time and time again: for example, when Onimaru speaks with his master during the training level. For me, at least, these kinds of inappropriate conversations distract me from being able to immerse myself in the game.

Another thing that bother me was the gameplay. Too Simple and Annoying? Yes, especially right after playing games like FF:T Advance. I was frustrated with having to deal with not being able to play around with my characters, like with their equipment. There is no way to determine who wears what clothing and wields which weapon between battles, and even then, the best I can do is remove the clothing. I was also disappointed with the way the commands worked. They are the simple, generic "Move your character next to an enemy and attack them" kind of spiel, so generally, they were easy to learn. However, it is some of the smaller details that I did not like, like having no confirmation pop up before the end of a character's move (Are you sure? type) and the lack of hit/miss percentages. Not having these basic elements in combat detracts from the gameplay; leaving, what seems to me, an empty shell of what a good turn-based strategy game should be like.

Overall, I bought the game expecting good things, and turned off the game having only bad memmories of what the game lacks, in both the story and the gameplay. The money I spent on this game would have bought me a used copy of the original Advance Wars or a decent RPG: both of these choices would have been a better decision than buying Onimusha Tactics, used or *shudder* brand-new.