Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams

Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams is the fourth major entry in the series that combines historical Japan's Sengoku period with hordes of demons called Genma. This time the player doesn't focus on a single character – over the course of the story they take control of no fewer than three fighters with different combat styles, with the central pair being samurai Soki and his sister Michi, who together face an invasion that devastated their homeland after the Genma rose from the grave of one of the fallen heroes of previous entries. The series is known for weaving real historical figures and events into its action hack-and-slash framework, which gives this entry too the flavor of alternate history full of intrigue between samurai clans and tangled family ties.

Compared to previous entries, Dawn of Dreams significantly expands the system for upgrading weapons and demonic abilities, which characters gain by absorbing the souls of defeated enemies. Combat is faster and flashier, with an emphasis on attack combinations and a parry system that rewards precise timing with a button press just before an enemy strike lands. The game also adds a larger map and a looser progression structure, letting the player choose the order in which they develop their three characters and thereby tailor the difficulty of individual sections to their own playstyle. Visually, it's one of the most technically ambitious titles Capcom released on the PlayStation 2, with expansive environments and cinematic cutscenes that move the story forward between chapters.

Why play it: Dawn of Dreams is a good fit for fans of action-adventures who already know the series' early entries and want to see how far the combat system and storytelling had come by the end of the PlayStation 2 generation. Alternating between three differently played characters gives the game more variety than earlier entries, and it's also the last major Onimusha title before the series' long hiatus, making it a logical and fitting conclusion to the original saga before its later reboot.