Onimusha has been one of the most popular PS2 game series from Capcom this generation. Up until Onimusha 3 it used the Resident Evil camera style, and moved pretty much like Resident Evil, only more fast-paced. Now comes the fourth game of the series, dubbed Shin Onimusha : Dawn of Dreams in Japan.

When you boot up the first disc of the game, you are treated to an awesome looking cinematic featuring a few moments and characters from the game itself. Now you can enjoy the video and music or go do what you wanted to do which is play the game after waiting a week to receive it. So you start a new game, and once again a nice cinematic sequence starts, featuring some nice fights and such, and also revealing the main character of the game Soki. Afterwards you’ll watch many other great looking cinematic sequences. They are plentiful in the game, but don’t hinder the gameplay to the least. They are actually quite enjoyable, and the game is not as cinematic heavy as games such as Xenosaga and the recently reviewed Code Age Commanders.

Graphically the game is pretty good, much like the other Onimusha games, although it seems like the characters look and move a bit better than in the other games. The enemies look kinda creepy like they are supposed to look, and the big boss enemies are huge and really well detailed, although they could look much better. As said before, the cinematics in the game are simply beautiful, much like other PS2 games like FFX and Xenosaga. So during gameplay the game doesn’t look awefully impressive, but it’s still pretty decent.

The gameplay in this game is pretty much like the other Onimusha games, obviously. There is one main difference now though as the camera is now controlled by the player, so for people who didn’t like the original Resident Evil camera it’s great. Otherwise the gameplay is quite similar. You run around stages, occasinally having to solve puzzles and kick Genma and other human characters butts', which are really easy using Soki’s level 1 oni magic. The controls are quite simple too, so it’s easy to pick up and play.