I would not use Wukong as a barometer for success for any other game outside Wukong. There’s en entire backstory and lore surrounding that game that do not and will not translate to other games. While Nioh and Sekiro and other Soulslike are the games closer to Onimusha, for obvious reasons, and are the ones closer and more realistic to how Onimusha might do in the marketplace.
“While you can imagine Sekiro, Nioh, Bloodborne, etc. have given us an iteration of Onimusha and Castlevania, they still aren’t, nor ever will be, those games.”
They don’t have to be those games. They just have to take their place in the marketplace and in the conversation. And in this case these games have not only iterated on them older games, but bested them by a country mile. AND, they have given us what Konami and Capcom have failed to give us throughout the years. Konami can’t make a 3D Castlevania game to save their lives. But even if they did, Bloodborne and the rest of the SoulsBorne already took that franchise’s place and gave us THE best and quintessential Castlevania 3D games ever. Untouchable to this day.
Now, does that mean Onimusha, or a new 3D Castlevania, will fail because of this? No. But it does mean that it will be compared, and if it’s perceived as inferior it might very well be affected by it. Nothing in that Onimusha trailer showed anything we haven’t seen before. Not even close. And it also didn’t gave an indication as to what type of game it will be. So, as of now, we only have speculations based on the previous entries, which were all over the place I might add. There’s a reason the series tanked and went away. Let’s put it that way.
“I just don’t see cause for that concern that other have surpassed the design and it’ll just be another drop in the bucket.”
I do. But regardless, even if it’s actually “successful” by our standards, it could still very well end up being just another “a drop in the bucket.” Especially with how unrealistic sales have to be now a days for a franchise to be kept going. So keep that optimism up and make sure to tell you friends about the game for sure.
“This game has me more hyped for it than the Elden Ring DLC that was shown. And I’m a huge Elden Ring fan, so that’s telling.” C’mon, lets be realistic and honest with ourselves here. That Elden Ring DLC is nothing more than a FromSoftware take on the whole Fortnite formula. If you really want to compare the hype, then compare it to Elden Ring and to Shadow of the Eldtree and to Bloodborne. Or, more precisely, to Sekiro and Nioh. But Elden Ring, its DLC and Bloodborne were HyperHype. Onimusha’s trailer don’t even have 1 million views 19 hours after release. So temper your expectations for now is all.
Now, with that said. Nothing that was shown in that trailer was special. But that doesn’t mean or says anything about the game’s quality. My take is on the market and perception, not on how cool a cinematic camera shot is. Because in this day and age? “Cool” Cinematic Trailers are indeed “just another drop in the bucket” and a dime a dozen. So we’ll agree to disagree and we’ll revisit this in about 2 years…IF it stays on target that is.
And to be clear, yes, I do want Onimusha to be successful. I like the first 2 games and I would enjoy for the series to make a comeback past just 1 entry. I personally would love for it to be a more “grounded” Resi/Dead Space Samurai Horror type game with a combat style closer to that of Ghost of Tsushima, since that’s the direction I feel would help set it apart from the SoulsBorne genre. But who knows. Regardless, I’m hoping for the best, but I’m keeping my expectations realistic and calling it as I see it.