Compare GreedFall: The Dying World Review vs Onimusha: Way of the Sword

Bugs are one of the clearest problems at launch, ranging from missing prompts and broken quests to combat glitches, visual errors, and characters behaving incorrectly.

The reviewers who discussed technical reliability reported playthroughs without notable bugs, glitches, or crashes.

Tutorials are a major weak point for a system-heavy RPG, often explaining only the basics while leaving players to untangle complex combat, UI, talents, and party mechanics themselves.

Story mode’s prompts and the practice systems make the timing-heavy mechanics easier to understand, with reviewers praising their usefulness for newcomers and mastery alike.

Faces often struggle to sell emotion, with rigid expressions and weak lip-sync making dramatic scenes look oddly lifeless.

Facial animation is repeatedly described as among the game’s best visual work, especially Musashi’s expressive mannerisms and subtle reactions during both cutscenes and gameplay.

Crashes appear across PC and console experiences, sometimes only occasionally and sometimes often enough to interrupt progress. A few players had relatively stable runs, but launch stability is clearly uneven.

The reviewers who addressed crashes reported stable playthroughs without crashes, reinforcing the broader impression of strong technical reliability.

Animations are a recurring weak point. Movement and combat often look stiff or dated, undercutting otherwise stronger environments and character models.

Animation is one of the game’s clearest showpieces, with bespoke parries, blocks, executions, facial reactions, and combat transitions repeatedly singled out as exceptional. A few reviewers noticed a gap between cinematic and gameplay presentation.

Performance varies sharply by platform and mode. Some runs stay mostly steady, while others report visible slowdowns, frame drops, or major compromises between resolution and smoothness.

Performance is strong across PS5, Xbox, Switch 2, PC, and handheld testing, with many reports of stable targets and smooth combat. Steam Deck’s Eastern Kyoto hub is the main recurring performance caveat.

There is plenty to do across exploration, side quests, faction work, party management, and combat, although some areas and activity types feel more repetitive than the overall scope suggests.

One recurring complaint is that the overworld leans on repetitive objectives and familiar enemy groups, reducing variety outside the bespoke story stages and bosses.

Looted materials feed directly into crafting and upgrades, giving resource gathering a useful purpose rather than making it feel purely collectible.

The material economy is a weak point for some reviewers: common upgrade resources can be oddly expensive or grindy, and their relationship to the broader progression loop feels less refined than the combat.

The world can look busy without behaving convincingly. Looting in plain sight, passive NPCs, and scripted interactions often make inhabitants feel more like scenery than participants.

Combat benefits from environmental tools such as carts, planks, flames, and destructibles, but one reviewer disliked how many seemingly fragile objects cannot be touched.

Combat is the game’s biggest dividing line. Some enjoy the deeper real-time-with-pause tactics and party control, while many others find fights slow, clunky, repetitive, or less satisfying than the first game’s action combat.

The sword combat is the overwhelming consensus highlight: precise, weighty, reactive, and deeply satisfying, with parries, deflects, dodges, Issens, clashes, and Oni Armaments giving players meaningful options. Even critical reviews tend to praise the core fighting.

Loading is excellent in some runs and painfully slow in others. Fast travel can be nearly instant, yet late-game or console transitions can stretch long enough to disrupt the experience.

Transitions between cutscenes and gameplay are described as seamless, and retries after defeat are quick enough to keep difficult fights moving.

Enemy groups can create useful tactical pressure by having melee units rush the party while ranged foes take positions behind them.

Regular Genma can be overly passive and easy to dispatch without using the full defensive toolkit, making ordinary encounters feel weaker than the bosses.

Character movement can look and feel awkward, with running animations described as stiff and unnatural.

Movement is mixed: modern 3D navigation and wall-running can feel good, while the dodge roll, lack of a normal jump, and some traversal friction draw criticism.

There are many overlapping systems to absorb, and the opening can feel overwhelming or clunky. Once the mechanics click, the flexibility becomes easier to appreciate.

The combat is easy to understand but demanding to master, and many reviewers enjoy the process of learning timing and boss patterns. Some training and system explanations could be clearer.

Targeting can be frustratingly unreliable, with attacks or selected targets sometimes shifting in ways that make combat feel imprecise.

The bow’s generous auto-aim makes headshots easy, but lock-on and targeting can occasionally keep attacks moving in an unwanted direction.

The launch feels under-polished to many reviewers, with bugs, crashes, typos, awkward UI, animation problems, and unfinished-feeling content recurring throughout otherwise ambitious work.

The combat, animation, and major presentation beats feel highly polished, but reviewers also point to camera issues, repetitive content, minor technical roughness, and uneven secondary systems.

Generous autosaves soften the impact of technical problems by keeping forced reloads from costing much progress.

Checkpointing is usually generous, especially around difficult fights, though one reviewer disliked having to restart multi-phase boss encounters from the beginning.

There is substantial build freedom across weapons, roles, attributes, talents, and companion trees. That depth is rewarding for tinkerers but can become confusing or overly specialized for others.

One critical review argues that some late skill upgrades feel more like delayed quality-of-life fixes than genuinely meaningful progression choices.

Difficulty is highly uneven. Flexible settings help, but reviewers repeatedly describe punishing spikes, spongey enemies, and encounters that can feel mismatched with nearby fights.

Difficulty is demanding but generally regarded as rewarding, with Story mode offering a gentler route and Action mode asking for precise play. Opinions split where normal enemies feel too easy or late bosses become punishing and unforgiving.

The final act responds to faction and companion choices, but its momentum can sag just before the credits, leaving the ending more mixed than the build-up suggests.

Post-game play includes harder Carnage difficulty and New Game Plus-style replay, giving mastery-focused players a reason to continue after the credits.

The broad weapon roster encourages experimentation, though certain weapon types or builds feel more useful and smoother than others.

Oni Armaments fill distinct roles such as healing, stamina damage, and crowd control, and at least one reviewer found each option useful rather than redundant.

Fast travel can be quick and useful once points are unlocked, but late-game backtracking, ship transitions, and long loads on some platforms can turn routine travel into a chore.

Spirit Mirrors make revisiting areas straightforward, although travel is tied to those points rather than available from anywhere. One reviewer specifically liked that restraint.

The setting, language, atmosphere, and world detail can be absorbing, but bugs, passive NPCs, companion oddities, and technical hiccups repeatedly break the illusion.

Detailed environments, expressive characters, fluid presentation, and the historical-fantasy setting create strong immersion for many reviewers. Repetitive Kyoto layouts and repeated activities can break that spell for some.

Gear upgrades are satisfying because they visibly and statistically strengthen the party, adding another useful layer to equipment customization.

Upgrades are mixed: combat skills and some equipment boosts feel meaningful, while incremental stat gains and material requirements can feel dull, imperceptible, or grindy.

Dialogue ranges from strong character moments to exposition-heavy or overly simple exchanges. The best conversations deepen companions and politics, while weaker scenes can feel blunt or underwritten.

Character banter and comic exchanges give the cast personality, while quieter conversations help sell relationships and the reluctant-hero tone.

Writing swings from thoughtful, mature political and companion material to blunt exposition, simplistic villains, and awkward thematic handling. Its ambitions are strong, but execution is uneven.

The writing is strongest in character banter, relationships, and emotional moments, though a few reviews describe the larger script as more serviceable than exceptional.

Camera problems frequently get in the way, including lockups, awkward tactical framing, motion blur, and moments where positioning becomes hard to read.

Cinematic camera work can make attacks look spectacular, but combat framing is inconsistent. A few reviewers found the camera could get trapped or become frustrating near walls and bosses.

The world, lore, companions, and role-playing DNA still feel recognizably GreedFall, but the combat overhaul is a major break from the first game and remains a point of contention for returning fans.

The revival modernizes movement, camera, scale, and combat without losing the Oni Gauntlet, soul absorption, Issen timing, horror flavor, or eccentric Onimusha identity. Longtime fans largely see it as a successful return.

Progression can force extra fighting or leveling before difficult encounters, and that grind becomes especially frustrating when combat itself is not clicking.

Several reviewers criticize material gathering and repeated combat as unnecessary grind, especially around upgrades. Others found resources plentiful enough that deliberate grinding was rarely required.

The environments, lighting, costumes, and overall visual upgrade can look impressive, but texture issues, dated character work, and uneven performance keep the presentation from feeling consistently modern.

The game is widely regarded as gorgeous, with strong character models, lighting, environments, and RE Engine presentation across platforms. Performance modes and the gap between cinematic and gameplay rendering introduce only minor visual compromises for most reviewers.

Companion questlines can give party members full character arcs, making relationship-building one of the more rewarding parts of the adventure.

Musashi’s reluctant-hero arc and growing acceptance of the Oni gauntlet are widely appreciated, as are several supporting arcs. Some reviewers wanted the Ganryu rivalry and parts of the cast developed further.

Pacing is one of the most common complaints. Long prologues, slow tactical fights, exposition, and stop-start quest progression can make the game feel far more sluggish than its best moments deserve.

Pacing is the most repeated non-combat concern: early hub stretches, side activities, backtracking, and recycled fights can drag. The linear story missions and final run of set pieces are much more frequently praised for momentum.

Enjoyment depends heavily on tolerance for the new combat and technical roughness. Players who click with the world and RPG systems can have a great time, while others find the friction exhausting.

Most reviewers found the swordplay and boss mastery intensely fun and addictive, often seeking extra fights simply to keep playing. Repetition and padding are the main factors that wear down that enthusiasm.

Enemy variety is thin for a long RPG. Human factions dominate many encounters, and repeated animals or similar combat roles make battles feel familiar well before the campaign ends.

Common-enemy variety is a recurring weakness, with several reviews noting repeated basic foes and armored variants across a long campaign. Boss variety is much stronger.

The 17th-century-inspired look, architecture, lighting, and regional styling give the game a distinctive visual identity, even when its brown-heavy palette wears thin.

Reviewers consistently praise the grotesque Genma, corrupted Kyoto, historical architecture, and supernatural imagery. The aesthetic feels recognizably Onimusha while benefiting from much richer modern detail.

Cities, forests, tribal spaces, ambient audio, and dense environmental detail create a strong sense of place. The setting is often more compelling than the systems layered on top of it.

The blend of samurai action, body horror, mythology, and distinct locations creates a strong dark-fantasy atmosphere. The best areas feel eerie and characterful rather than like generic combat spaces.

The perspective shift and willingness to build an entire RPG around colonialism, displacement, and tactical party play make the game feel unusually ambitious and distinctive.

Reviewers praise the way the game modernizes Onimusha and combines familiar action ideas into a distinctive parry-centered system rather than simply becoming another Soulslike.

Lore remains a major strength, with factions, cultures, history, languages, and political tensions giving the world a depth that keeps players invested even when other systems falter.

Japanese myths, legends, readables, collectibles, and side stories give the world substantial optional lore without requiring prior knowledge of the series.

Exploration is generally rewarding, with larger regions, distinctive cities, side paths, loot, and multiple quest routes. Backtracking, sparse stretches, or scripted paths can make traversal drag in weaker sections.

Exploration can be rewarding when it leads to charms, upgrade materials, myths, portals, or secrets. The strongest praise comes from reviewers who enjoyed searching every corner despite reservations about the hub structure.

Stealth can open alternate quest routes, but it is underdeveloped and inconsistent. Limited tools, weak feedback, and odd companion behavior make sneaking less satisfying than diplomacy or direct combat.

Stealth exists, but the reviewer who evaluated it found direct sword combat far more rewarding.

Outside combat, the semi-open loop of exploration, investigation, conversations, and quest-solving is solid and gives the RPG a stronger rhythm.

At its best, the loop of dueling, mastering defensive timing, absorbing souls, and upgrading Musashi is highly compelling. Some reviewers felt the opening and repeated hub chores obscure that excellent core.

The deeper mix of talents, attributes, tactical profiles, party roles, and build options gives mechanically minded players a lot to experiment with.

The layered defensive options, soul management, armaments, environmental tools, and resource systems create unusually rich moment-to-moment play. A few explanations and secondary systems can feel confusing or less polished.

The large, varied companion roster stands out for its different personalities, faction ties, and roles, even if individual characters are not equally developed.

The supporting cast is a major strength, with Shizuka, Okuni, Takamura, Ganryu, and the villains repeatedly praised for personality and memorable interactions.

The story has strong ideas, a compelling perspective shift, and memorable companion material, but opinions split on execution. Slow pacing, simplistic villains, constrained agency, and uneven follow-through keep the narrative from matching its ambition for everyone.

Story reception is divided. Many reviewers love the character-driven tale, humor, relationships, and emotional beats, while others call the plot thin, convoluted, or less memorable than the combat.

Lighting and effects can be striking, adding polish to environments and combat even when the broader presentation has rough edges.

Sparks, slow-motion reactions, attack effects, and cinematic finishing flourishes make clashes look dramatic without obscuring the swordplay.

Companions are often one of the game’s best features, with faction-specific perspectives and personal quests that add texture to the world. The roster is uneven, however, and a few characters feel rushed or unfinished.

Shizuka, Okuni, Takamura, and Ganryu often earn praise for personality and chemistry with Musashi, though some reviewers wanted the rival storyline to go deeper.

The strongest companion stories and late-game narrative beats can land with real emotion, especially when the game focuses on displacement, loyalty, and personal consequences.

Despite the action-heavy premise, reviewers frequently found the character relationships, personal arcs, and later story beats funny, heartfelt, or unexpectedly moving.

Difficulty sliders, combat profiles, and even invincibility earn broad praise for letting players reshape the experience. A few limitations remain, but this is one of the game’s most consistently liked systems.

Story mode earns strong praise for wider timing windows and real-time action prompts that teach parries, dodges, deflects, and Issens. One review still wanted broader visual accessibility options.

Several players find the opening effective at establishing culture, mechanics, and stakes, while others think it runs far too long. As an introduction to the world it is rich, but patience is required.

The easiest Story setting is praised as an effective introduction to modern timing-based action, especially because it teaches defensive responses without turning the game into a passive tutorial.

Towns, forests, architecture, lighting, and distant vistas are frequently praised for density and detail. Environments are often the strongest part of the presentation.

Kyoto, temples, forests, palaces, and supernatural spaces are praised for dense detail, historical texture, lighting, and small visual touches that reward close attention.

The scope is large, but side missions can become scarce or formulaic after the opening, leaving parts of the world feeling less populated with meaningful diversions.

Fetch quests, repeated demon-clearing jobs, and reused overworld activities create a clear sense of repetition between the stronger set-piece missions.

Its character-focused political RPG structure occupies an uncommon niche, pairing old-school role-playing with a setting and thematic focus that feel different from most fantasy games.

The best reviews argue that the swordplay has a rhythm and identity of its own despite borrowing from modern action games. More critical voices feel the broader structure follows too many familiar contemporary conventions.

Build progression offers meaningful stat, talent, skill, and gear choices, but uneven XP rewards and lots of manual party management can make leveling feel inconsistent or tedious.

Progression is split between useful skill growth and incremental stat upgrades. Some reviewers enjoy how new abilities change combat, while others barely feel the numerical gains.

On PS5, the absence of DualSense-specific features makes the console implementation feel less complete than expected.

Console and Switch 2 versions are generally well supported with useful performance options and stable play; Switch 2-specific control features are seen as fun if somewhat gimmicky.

Several reviewers think the full launch price is hard to justify in such a buggy, unfinished state and recommend waiting for a sale. More positive takes point to the large RPG scope and long playtime.

Reviewers who directly discussed price generally felt the campaign quality, replay options, and production values justify the cost for action fans.

Branching approaches, faction outcomes, relationships, and build choices create reasons to replay, although technical friction may make some players reluctant to start over.

Boss rematches, harder difficulty, challenge rewards, and New Game Plus give combat-focused players meaningful reasons to return. Replaying padded missions is less appealing to some critics.

Menus are a consistent source of frustration. Inventory comparison, sorting, skill management, and party upgrades can be clunky enough to make routine maintenance tedious.

The interface and menus are praised for staying unobtrusive and avoiding unnecessary tab complexity.

Character creation and build freedom are much improved and can support very different play styles. Cosmetic options are less consistent, with some reviewers finding faces, hair, or beard choices too limited.

Cosmetic options exist, with additional looks unlocking through play and harder modes, but the selection initially feels limited.

Controller mapping can make a complex tactical system surprisingly manageable, but unresponsive skills and awkward inputs show up often enough to keep controls from feeling uniformly polished.

Reviewers who directly addressed the controls describe them as tight and responsive, which helps the demanding timing-based combat feel fair.

The core cast is generally strong and helps sell the setting’s languages and political drama. Secondary performances and accent consistency are more uneven.

Japanese performances receive near-universal praise, while English-language reactions are more mixed because of accent choices and occasional odd delivery. Several English cast members are still singled out for excellent work.

Playing a Teer Fradeean native gives the story a fresh point of view, and the protagonist can be a compelling vehicle for the game’s themes and role-playing choices.

Musashi is one of the strongest points of agreement: reviewers repeatedly call him charismatic, funny, cool, expressive, and easy to root for, with only a small minority finding his arc less compelling.

The interface struggles under the weight of the game’s systems. Cluttered combat screens, weak comparison tools, and awkward skill or inventory layouts make information harder to manage than it should be.

The UI is praised for being restrained, clear, and largely out of the player’s way.

Talents and role-playing skills can open genuinely different ways through missions, rewarding diplomacy, stealth, mechanics, or direct confrontation.

The bespoke story missions work well, but generic Encounter-style objectives and busywork are repeatedly called filler.

Quests are frequently at their best when multiple talents, companions, or approaches can solve the same problem. Some companion and side quests are excellent, though repetitive errands and obvious solutions weaken the overall consistency.

The side content is uneven: Lady Murasaki’s Mysteries and character-focused quests receive real praise, while generic fetch, kill, and resource jobs are frequently dismissed as filler.

Guardian encounters can be striking and tactically demanding, but human bosses are often much less memorable and can feel easier than ordinary mobs.

Boss fights are the standout attraction: dramatic, mechanically distinct, visually memorable, and built to reward mastery of parries, dodges, deflects, and Issens. The main caveat is repeated use of some minibosses and recurring foes.

A few environmental riddles and dungeons provide welcome variety, but some puzzles are so heavily signposted that they barely require deduction.

Puzzles are a light part of the experience, but the secrets and environmental challenges that do appear can be enjoyable diversions from combat.

The semi-open structure has appealing regions and freedom once it opens up, but some reviewers find the world too scripted, sparse, or restrictive to fully deliver on its open-ended promise.

The central Kyoto hub is the most consistent structural complaint. Reviewers often see its fetch quests, repeated streets, and resource chores as padding between much stronger linear levels and boss encounters.

Ambient effects and general audio work help sell the world, though the soundscape is praised less consistently than the music or voice cast.

Sharp sword clashes, parry impacts, executions, and other combat sounds give the fighting strong physical feedback and make successful timing feel satisfying.

Navigation tools are undercooked, with limited markers and quest-location issues making it harder than necessary to manage a large world.

Eastern Kyoto can feel maze-like, and map controls or blocked routes sometimes make simple travel more awkward than it should be.

World-building is the clearest consensus strength. Distinct factions, cities, cultures, political tensions, languages, and historical parallels give Gacane and Teer Fradee a rich identity.

Real mythology, Edo-period details, optional legends, and character stories give Kyoto a rich backdrop that many reviewers found unusually rewarding to dig into.

Cities and regions are larger and more distinctive than before, and some quest spaces reward alternate routes. Other areas feel linear, repetitive, or visually under-varied.

The handcrafted linear stages are generally the strongest spaces, with memorable temples, castles, laboratories, and supernatural areas. The hub and a few repetitive routes are less consistently praised.

Technical performance is inconsistent across platforms and modes. Some systems run the game cleanly, while others suffer blur, stutter, frame drops, texture problems, or poor resolution tradeoffs.

Technical optimization is a strong point, with reviewers highlighting smooth frame rates and good visual quality even on less powerful or handheld hardware.

The orchestral score is a standout, repeatedly praised for atmosphere, emotional weight, and its fit with the 17th-century-inspired setting.

The score is praised for mixing traditional Japanese instrumentation with cinematic fantasy and horror tones without overpowering the action.

The different combat profiles make tactical complexity adjustable, letting players decide how much direct party management they want.

The use of Toshiro Mifune’s likeness and the game’s performance casting are generally viewed as fitting and distinctive, even though a minority questioned the ethics or necessity of recreating a deceased actor.

Faction standing, companion loyalty, quest resolutions, and the ending can respond meaningfully to decisions. The freedom is not absolute, though, and some major narrative situations feel more constrained than the game initially suggests.

The class framework supports tanks, damage dealers, healers, ranged builds, magic, and hybrids with useful flexibility. Some builds are more awkward or less rewarding than others.

Collectibles often reward exploration with mythology, story details, cosmetics, or progression, and the Lion Dogs and Oni Portals are particular favorites. Some completion-oriented tasks still feel repetitive or low-value.

Party automation is inconsistent: some players found allies sensible about healing and skill use, while others saw companions lag behind, pick bad targets, or fail to attack.

Crafting can meaningfully improve armor, gear, potions, and builds, and several players enjoyed its depth. Others found it overly complicated, mandatory, or burdensome when paired with weak inventory tools.

Opinions on length are mixed, but the strongest criticism says a superb shorter action game has been stretched into a 25–30 hour experience. A smaller group felt the adventure did not overstay its welcome.

Steam Deck and Switch 2 coverage is notably positive, with playable performance and strong visuals on the go despite heavier battery or CPU load in Eastern Kyoto.

The PS5 release does not use DualSense haptics or adaptive triggers, a conspicuous omission for a full-price console game.

The body horror, grotesque Genma, corrupted environments, and occasional Resident Evil-like sequences add genuine unease without overwhelming the action-adventure focus.

Gear drops are satisfying when they feed customization and visible outfit changes, but poor level matching and inventory friction can make much of the loot feel useless.

Wall-running is a small but well-liked traversal addition that expands movement without turning the game into a platformer.

Romance is one of the more uneven relationship systems: one take praises fully fleshed-out paths, while several others call the arcs thin, formulaic, or lacking meaningful follow-up.

The strongest role-playing moments let players combine talents, companions, dialogue, stealth, and combat to forge their own route through a problem.

Autosaves can be generous and protective, but some players still encountered save-related or progression problems that make manual saving feel important.