Onimusha: Way of the Sword Has the Best Parry in Video Games

I’ll be honest: I’m sick of parrying in video games. What once was a unique combat mechanic has become as standard as jumping in action games. Even James Bond can parry in 007 First Light, as if he’s a Tarnished warrior taking down Radahn. (You’re just punching out a dude named Arthur, no need to show off!) It’s gaming’s most overused mechanic at present, and the move has lost its impact as a result. It takes a lot for a parry to stand out these days. That makes Onimusha: Way of the Sword all the more impressive.

Capcom’s new action RPG, released Sept. 4 for consoles and Windows PC, follows the industry trends to create a combat system built around blocks, evasive dodges, and, yes, parries. It doesn’t sound all too interesting on paper, but Way of the Sword is a reminder that great animation and sound design can make a huge difference in a game. You can see that reflected in its parries, which are the finest counter-attacks I’ve ever felt in a game.

Onimusha’s parries rip

Way of the Sword’s action is built entirely around reaction. As a skilled swordsman, Miyamoto Musashi knows how to read an opponent’s every move and respond with a deadly answer. Reflex dodges, Issen strikes, and blade locks all make you feel like you have mastered the art of the duel. You can always turn an enemy’s attack around on them if your timing is right, and you know the right move for every situation.

Image: Capcom

Naturally, sword deflection plays a major role in that dynamic, and Capcom knows that you can’t take a good parry for granted. When you parry a strike in Way of the Sword, you don’t just hear a metallic dink as your enemy trips off balance. It’s a moment. Steel smashes together with a loud clank. Musashi uses his force to drag his sword across his enemy’s as sparks fly off in every direction. All of that is punctuated by a hard controller rumble on my DualSense that properly communicates the strength it takes to pull off that feat. All of those elements get more intense the tighter your timing is. A perfect parry even slows time down to really let you soak in the moment of impact. It’s every aspect of the game — animation, game feel, sound — working in concert.

It’s unbelievably satisfying. While I usually hate parrying in games simply because I don’t trust my reflexes, I was determined to pull them off as often as possible in Way of the Sword just to get that feedback. Capcom makes it worthwhile too, as successful deflections build up Musashi’s Blazing State gauge and gets you one step closer to executing a powerful strike by chipping away at a foe’s stamina. Not that I need the extra motivation — the shower of sparks is enough to keep me blocking.

More important than the aesthetic satisfaction, though, is how that little maneuver builds Musashi’s character. He doesn’t just feel like your average video game swordsman who can hit the same moves as well as any create-a-character. You get a real sense of his power and expertise every time he deflects an attack. My favorite detail is that he doesn’t even need to be facing an enemy directly to pull off a parry. Dynamic animations make it so you can block with Musashi’s back turned, which will result in him convincingly swinging his sword behind his back and twisting his body to push his enemy aside. It doesn’t feel mechanical, as it can in so many action games. There’s a sense that Musashi is pulling off a bit of improvisation in fights to ensure he always has the upper hand.

I can’t say that I’ve put this much thought into thinking about parries in other games. The move so often feels like an obligatory addition that’s there because that’s what modern players expect. Way of the Sword doesn’t take a single maneuver for granted, loading each one up with little details that build to a best-in-class combat system. You will believe that Musashi could crush any video game character in a duel.