Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams

Capcom once swore up and down that the Onimusha series would end with the third installment, but that didn't stopit from blatantly setting up a sequel at the end of Onimusha 3. And sure enough, it's not even two years later and we're only weeks away from the release of Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams. In a sense, though, Onimusha as we knew it has ended. None of the old characters are coming back for the sequel (at least not in playable form), and the old "samurai Resident Evil" approach has finally been ditched in favor of a tighter focus on hack-and-slash action.

Set 15 years after the death of cackling warlord Oda Nobunaga in Onimusha 3, Dawn of Dreams revolves around Soki, a young, blond, samurai ogre (or Oni) who uses twin broadswords to chop his way through hordes of demons. Said demons have gone and allied themselves with former Nobunaga toady Hideyoshi Toyotomiand are poised to once again stomp Japan, andblah, blah, blah. Commence to slashing.

While Dawn of Dreams retains plenty of the old Onimusha touches(the puzzles, the soul-sucking, and so on), it also goes in entirely new directions.Unlike in previous games, the camera is controlled by the player andcan lock on to enemies, which allowscombat to take center stage. Super attacks, devastating combos and dramatic kill moves look to be the mainstay here, with enemies crowding around and just begging to be cut to ribbons.