Genma Onimusha

Onimusha: Warlords features pre-rendered backgrounds. The player primarily controls swordsman Samanosuke Akechi in his fight against demons. The game balances its action elements with puzzles that involve interacting with the environments and obtaining items to make progress.

The player begins the game with a standard katana sword, and can obtain long-range weapons with limited supply. As the player progresses, the protagonist Samanosuke can gain three elemental weapons: Raizan, Enryuu and Shippuu, each with an elemental magic attack. As enemies are defeated, they release different colored souls that are absorbed by using the demon gauntlet on Samanosuke's wrist: red souls act as "currency" which can be used to upgrade weaponry, yellow souls recover health, while blue souls recover magic power which is used to perform each weapon's elemental abilities.

During the Battle of Okehazama, Samanosuke of the Akechi clan watches but is attacked by Imagawa Yoshimoto's men. Though Nobunaga Oda was victorious against Yoshimoto, he is fatally wounded and assumed dead. A year later, Samanosuke receives a letter from his cousin Princess Yuki of the Saitō clan for his assistance as she fears monsters are behind the disappearances of her servants. Joined by Kaede, Samanosuke arrives too late to Inabayama Castle as Yuki is abducted as he and Kaede split up to cover ground.

After being defeated by a monster while trying to rescue Yuki, Samanosuke is visited by the twelve oni who give Samanosuke the power to vanquish the monsters that abducted Yuki, the Genma, and seal their souls in a mystical gauntlet. While searching for Yuki, Samanosuke finds a laboratory and encounters the Genma scientist Guildenstern, learning that the Genma have resurrected Nobunaga to serve them before slaying Guildenstern's creation Reynaldo. Samanosuke later encounters Nobunaga's servant Tokichiro as he attempts to recruit him before being reunited with Kaede as they follow the boy Yumemaru who Yuki took under her care. When Samanosuke finds Yumemaru spirited off, he learns from Tokichiro that Yuki is essential for a human sacrifice where the Genmas' god Fortinbras will bless her blood that Nobunaga will drink to gain the power to destroy the Saitō clan.

The origins for Onimusha can be traced back to 1997, when Capcom's Yoshiki Okamoto told magazine Dengeki Nintendo 64 about an idea he had for a ninja version of Resident Evil (1996) that could potentially make its way to the Nintendo 64 or 64DD. The game would be set in a "ninja house" filled with booby traps, similar to the mansion from Resident Evil, where battles are fought using swords and shuriken. In a 2003 interview with GameCenter CX, Keiji Inafune explained that the project began when he proposed a Sengoku period version of Resident Evil to company executives which he called "Sengoku Biohazard". Development began on the PlayStation with Inafune being given Resident Evil 1.5 to use a basis for the new game.

Onimusha was planned by Capcom as a trilogy. Its first title was originally being developed for the PlayStation, but the project was eventually moved to the PlayStation 2. The PlayStation version was scrapped and never released. It was about 50% complete before it was canceled.

04 million copies sold in Japan. The game went Platinum in just under a month in the region, quickly becoming the top-selling PlayStation 2 game ever at the time of its release. By July 2006, the PlayStation 2 version of Onimusha: Warlords had sold 800,000 copies and earned $28 million in the United States. Next Generation ranked it as the 75th highest-selling game launched for the PlayStation 2, Xbox or GameCube between January 2000 and July 2006 in that country.

Combined sales of the Onimusha series reached 3 million units in the United States by July 2006. Capcom VP of Strategic Planning and Business Development Christian Svensson referred to the first two Onimusha games as one of their most successful titles.

The game spawned two direct sequels, Onimusha 2: Samurai's Destiny and Onimusha 3: Demon Siege, that followed Samanosuke and more warriors in their fight against Nobunaga Oda. While Demon Siege was the closing chapter of the story, Capcom developed Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams due to popular fan response. There have been two spin-offs, Onimusha Tactics and Onimusha Blade Warriors, that focus on different genres. A bug within Warlords inspired game designer Hideki Kamiya in the making of the action game Devil May Cry.