Onimusha: Warlords

Steam Deck performance review of Onimusha.
This game is listed as 'unsupported' but here is my steam deck performance feedback after spending +19 hours and getting 100% of the achievements. If you want a full review of the game itself, there are plenty of reviews online for this +20 year old game.
Full disclosure: I played this game to death on the PS2 back in the day. I knew everything about the game inside and out so this was like a re-visit about 20 years later on a new platform.
Long story short: It runs but with one minor problem.
Problems I encountered with Onimusha:
1. The main issue has to do with the FMVs. The game would show a multi-coloured screen/coloured bars when some of the FMV played in place of the FMV. When an FMV did play, their would be audio glitches, static and it would be out of sync. Cut scenes were fine though.
2. Minor graphical glitches and texture clippings (but this was also present in the original game).
The analogue control setting was a major and welcomed change to the game and vastly improved how the game played when compared to the original 'tank' controls.
I encountered no gameplay or audio glitches (only in the FMVs). No forced restarts/resets. No frame rate drops. No crashes. No game breaking bugs.
Using the original LED steam deck with 50% brightness, I was getting about 3.5 hours of battery life in a single charge. You can technically play the game from start to finish on a single charge with juice to spare.
The game is fully playable on the steam deck but keep in mind the FMV issue.

No Nostalgia Needed...

First, I think it’s worth mentioning that I wasn’t familiar with the Onimusha series until 2025, so this review comes from someone without any nostalgia for it.

What can I say... Despite the game’s age, it feels and plays ahead of its time. I thoroughly enjoyed playing it. The setting, the graphics, the characters, the soundtrack — everything’s great.

That said, I’d like to share a few words about the game’s difficulty. Surprisingly, it feels a bit too easy. For your first playthrough, the highest difficulty available is "normal." While the game can feel challenging at the beginning, the more you enhance your equipment, the easier it becomes.

One thing I didn’t enjoy was the controls. They felt a bit too slow for an action game like this, and occasionally, they caused me to take some unexpected and unwelcome hits (or maybe I’m just a slowpoke, lol ┐(￣ヮ￣)┌ ).

Still, for me, Onimusha: Warlords has become another favorite Capcom game, and I’ll definitely play it again — at least to unlock Ultimate Mode and complete it.

P.S.: My personal recommendation—play the game with Japanese voice-overs.

Great game, LOL port.
Capcom should have just remastered the entire series in a collection similar to the classic Tomb Raider titles.

Got this because the new game was announced. Didn't know what to expect. Got hooked and beat it in one sitting. It's really good.

It's weird a game that is so short, was worth every penny. Played the ps2 version a few times, but still enjoy it 25 years later.

The Onimusha series were my absolute favorite games on the PS2. Onimusha 2 Samurai's Destiny was the first one I played. I very much enjoy the free range of motion with an analog stick as opposed to the old Resident Evil style of controlling your character. I hope they port the other games in the series and remaster them.

Oh man, this is fun.
This is FUN!
A light melee action adventure with top-of-the-line fixed multicam treatment. There's very little here that'll truly challenge you (unless you skip the upgrades), but that makes it very snackable.
It's a delight! I am no student of Japanese history, but the game does not require such knowledge - there's a little historical table setting in the first 10 minutes or so and then DEMONS ATTACK and we're off to the races. I have enjoyed samurai comics / movies in the past (Lone Wolf and Cub / Babycart Assassin etc) and if you have that same light familiarity with the tropes you'll be very comfortable here. SHWINNG! KA-TINGG! Sound and voices are excellent and the music (though not to my taste) is very well made.
The story is very straightforward, but a supporting cast brings some variety and intrigue to the proceedings. I played with Japanese audio and english subtitles and had no trouble following the events, though one character's continual breathless utterance of the main character's name had me giggling at points. "Samanosuke! The castle is on fire - we must go! Samonuske! I put my hand on a wooden railing and now I have a splinter! Samonuske! How do I install Microsoft Word on a Linux laptop?!" That sort of thing. It's never intrusive or repetitive enough to be annoying, but it did amuse.
Combat is mostly melee and relatively simple compared to it's younger-by-a-hair brother, Devil May Cry. Swing your sword, parry, dodges and the odd combo, with critical attacks as a reward for perfectly timed strikes. Throughout the game you'll have the opportunity to acquire and power up new weapons, which will slowly ease (to the point of potentially erasing) the gameplay challenge. If you find the game getting too easy, just hold off on applying upgrades.
But the special treat for me has to be the luxurious Capcom fixed multicam. Oh man, it's done RIGHT. It's not as good as in Resi 1 Remake (which it preceded by one year), but the game delivers beautifully composed, locked-off camera angles that guides the player through Inabayama Castle showing off the period environments and character models with cinematic confidence and style. You're in really good hands - Jun Takeuchi and his team can choose a camera angle.
The only really downside to this game is the fact that the cutscenes seem to be unskippable - which can be a little troublesome if you're having issues with a boss. ...But I don't think you'll have issues with any bosses for long. If you're encountering an impassible roadblock, take a walk around the castle for a bit, upgrade and return - you will flatten your foe.
I don't know why it's taken me this long to play this (I mean, when it came out originally I was NOT a fan of fixed camera, so that probably covers it...!) but if you enjoy the fixed multicam approach, I can highly recommend this to you. The puzzles, scenarios and mechanics aren't elaborate enough to make this a true classic, but you WILL have a good time.
"Samanosuke! Remember, hit the enemies with the sharp end of your sword! Samonosuke--!"