With Capcom celebrating an impressive new milestone for the Onimusha franchise with the recent release of Onimusha: Way of the Sword, director Satoru Nihei and producer Akihito Kadowaki have revealed more details. In an interview with FZ, the two were asked for one game that inspired elements of Onimusha: Way of the Sword, and while the Swedish publication expected other samurai games like Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice or Ghost of Tsushima to be mentioned, Nihei instead responded with Super Mario Odyssey.
“Super Mario Odyssey. It’s an action game that is basically very easy to get into, but at the same time contains lots of more dynamic and challenging parts, something that Nintendo is very good at,” said Nihei (via machine translation). “To give an example – when conducting an action (for example, a jump) in Odyssey, there is usually a reaction to that act (for example, gravity and landing). The specific feeling this brings to the controls in Odyssey is absolutely something that inspired me when I thought about how to get the same tactile feeling with our control in Onimusha.”
Kadowaki, on the other hand, responded with other games. While he brings up Silent Hill f in passing, he credits the Gundam series, and specifically the PS4 title Gundam Versus, with being a major inspiration for Onimusha: Way of the Sword.
“I have spent a lot of money and time on it. Something I think has influenced me from there in my work with Onimusha is probably the character design. The Gundam universe usually has very charismatic and deep characters that drive the story forward, and this is what I also wanted to bring into our work with Onimusha. So, I would probably say that my love for Gundam‘s character design was a source of inspiration there, absolutely.”
These influences have clearly paid off for Capcom, since the company announced that Onimusha: Way of the Sword sold more than a million copies on its launch day alone. This milestone contributed to the overall Onimusha franchise crossing the 10 million sales mark. This success has inspired Capcom to focus on “re-activating IPs that haven’t had a new title launch recently.” While no official announcements have been made, we might see the company bring back older games like its Breath of Fire RPG franchise or the gladiator combat-centric Shadow of Rome.
Onimusha: Way of the Sword is available on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch 2. The title was released alongside a launch trailer that provided some more hints about the core narrative, which involves wandering samurai Miyamoto Musashi on a quest to become the best swordsman in the world and running afoul of Genma.
For more details, take a look at our review, where we gave it an 8 out of 10 thanks to Musashi being an engaging protagonist, great enemy design, and spectacular sword-fighting combat.
