Onimusha: Way of the Sword is a fantastic new action game and Capcom’s first Onimusha in 20 years. While the original Onimusha: Warlords (2001) played like classic Resident Evil in feudal Japan, where you fight demons as a supernatural samurai armed with an Oni Gauntlet, this one plays a little differently. Gone are the tank controls. Now, you’ve got a fluid movement system, a variety of defensive options, Oni Armaments (special weapons your gauntlet can summon), and a skill tree. But it always comes back to your trusty sword and how you use it, because it’s the one main weapon you get the entire game. It’s called Way of the Sword, after all.
It’s a style reminiscent of the beloved FromSoftware classic Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, right down to bonfire-like Spirit Mirrors that save your game, upgrade your character, and respawn enemies, as well as Hozuki Pouches full of limited healing items you’re constantly restocking. Together, these systems blend into near-perfect harmony, complete with the most satisfying parry animations I’ve ever experienced.
Onimusha: Way of the Sword is the best action game I’ve played in a long time, despite its flaws. And it certainly has the best boss fights in recent memory — all cinematic, interactive, and extremely satisfying.
I had so much fun playing Onimusha: Way of the Sword the first time that I knew I just had to play it again — and this time, rank the boss battles.
SPOILER WARNING: Before we get too deep into this, obvious spoiler warning. Ranking every Onimusha: Way of the Sword boss means talking about every boss, late-game fights included. So, I’ve flagged just the biggest story and gameplay spoilers.
In Search of a Worthy Opponent
You play as a young Miyamoto Musashi, the legendary swordsman, in an early Edo-era Kyoto overrun by demonic Genma. After a pack of them cuts him down, a mysterious figure straps an Oni Gauntlet onto Musashi’s arm, whether he likes it or not, and sends him back to the land of the living to slay Genma and absorb their souls.
I’ve beaten Onimusha: Way of the Sword twice now. Its lackluster side missions drag (you need them for the upgrades that make boss fights less tedious), but the real highlight, the showstopper, the thing that kept me coming back for more, was the bosses.
Capcom has known how to make damn good bosses for years, and plenty of these moves feel like callbacks to its deep catalog. Especially on Carnage difficulty mode, the bosses will raise your blood pressure and dare you to throw your controller across the room. Even if you do (which I did), you’ll pick the controller right back up and try again. I can’t remember the last time I couldn’t wait to fight a boss because the fights were just that damn fun. Not even Devil May Cry V, one of my all-time favorites, had this many bosses that kept me up all night.
Much to my delight, there’s even a Boss Rematch mode. I wish I could relive fighting these bosses for the first time, but this is the closest I’ve got. On Action difficulty, I mostly died chasing the tricky timing of Issen, the series’ signature counter, where you strike a split second before an enemy’s attack lands for massive damage. Carnage difficulty makes the bosses spongier and hit way harder, so getting hit once or twice is enough to take you out.
So, how did I rank the boss battles? For me, it all comes down to how much fun it was to learn a boss’s move-set and overcome it. The best fights are tough but fair, with moves that are a thrill to counter and characters with real style. The worst offenders get in their own way. Some are too easy. Some get recycled to death. Some play dirty. And some bury the swordplay under so many gimmicks you forget you’re fighting with a sword.
Like a wandering Ryu or an evil Akuma lying in wait, I roamed the game in search of a worthy opponent, almost like the real Miyamoto Musashi. Here’s my ranking of every boss in Onimusha: Way of the Sword — all 13 of them, plus one tag-team rematch that earned its own spot.
Difficulty Levels and Fighting Tips for Onimusha: Way of the Sword
Onimusha: Way of the Sword has three difficulty levels: Story (Easy), Action (Normal), and Carnage (Hard). Players only unlock Carnage after beating the game on Action. I was thrilled to play the game a second time, but it did mean I had to really focus on my skills.
Here are some tips for fighting bosses in Onimusha: Way of the Sword:
- Souls drive a lot of these fights. Enemies drop them as glowing orbs that restore your health and fill your gauges, but bosses can absorb them, too. If you let a boss eat too many too soon, it can jump to its stronger form(s) as early as its first health bar. Keep the souls away from it, and the boss will typically stick to one form until you knock out a health bar.
- The few Bosses with a third phase usually bring it out about halfway through their second. You’ve been warned.
- Parrying in Onimusha: Way of the Sword felt so good that I almost forgot deflecting existed… Until I ran through the game again on Carnage mode. That made Break Issen (the hard-hitting attack only available once you drain an enemy’s stamina) the best way to deal damage. It straight up kills weaker enemies and lets you target specific body parts on a boss. Make sure to get good at parrying, deflecting, and Break Issen before tackling late-game bosses.
- I’ve also included tips for fighting each major boss within my rankings below, in case you’re getting stuck.
And now, without further ado, my ranking.
Demonic Duds: The Worst Bosses in Way of the Sword
These are the fights I’d skip if the game let me. Three of them are annoying, one’s just boring, and none of them made me want a rematch.
14. Nue
I hated fighting these damn amalgamated monstrosities. They’re a blight on an otherwise near-pristine lineup of bosses. Part tiger, part electric snake, all annoying, the Nue fight like knock-off Monster Hunter enemies.
Their animations aren’t impressive. A few claw swipes. A very familiar backflip tail slam. An M. Bison-style Psycho Crusher spin. Their snake tails spit lightning and grow right back after you shoot them off. They were the first enemies that pushed me to use Reflex Dodge, a perfectly timed dodge that slows time, and they don’t even make that fun.
Then, the game makes you fight two at once. The first time, I chipped away at their stamina, the meter that leaves an enemy open to a Break Issen finisher once it’s empty, while the second Nue lurked offscreen, waiting to interrupt. The Earth-Shakers, a pair of demonic hammers I like to call the maracas because that’s exactly what they look like, broke them down faster. But by the next doubleheader, I’d figured out the optimal strategy: Deflect, break their stamina faster, and, surprisingly, Chain Issen them, carrying one counter straight into the next. That made the worst boss fight in Way of the Sword go by so much faster.
13. Dokyo
I’m almost positive Dokyo’s fight was designed simply to be annoying. After all, she is an annoying character. She taunts you, commits horrific things to innocent people, defiles corpses for her experiments (or for fun), and makes you run through a creepy underground labyrinth just to fight those damn Nue, which she made. I hate her even more for that. You don’t get the pleasure of fighting her until the end. And the fight is not pleasurable.
Fighting Dokyo feels like it belongs to a completely different game. She spams projectiles at you like a NieR: Automata boss and teleports away every time you close in, playing a game of keep-away with cheap tricks. Sometimes she floats in the air while an exploding head circles her, so you have to shoot it down with your bow. Other times, she creates two clones, and you have to use Oni Vision (your gauntlet’s way of revealing hidden enemies and weak points) to spot the fake and shoot it. The worst attack of all comes when she turns into a mask and summons exploding Genma to chase you. Your best bet is running straight at her so they blow up on her instead.
On her second health bar, she adds a teleporting blade swipe that caught me off guard until I got the timing down. Parry it, though, and she’s open for big damage. Otherwise, you’re stuck dealing with her tricks. Dokyo sucks.
12. Greater Nue
If the Nue weren’t bad enough, you get the pleasure of fighting an even bigger, more grotesque one about a third of the way into the game. It was the first fight on Action difficulty that really challenged me — but it was a challenge in the worst way.
The Greater Nue is the Nue but worse, as it is on all fours and has faster swipes, longer lunges, and purple-glowing unblockables you have to parry or deflect, because guarding won’t save you. Then, this bastard stands up on two legs, and its talons work like two swords. And boy, do they hit hard. Its vicious grab glows blue, like every grab in the game, so you either sprint away or time a dodge to reverse it. It even puts on its best Magnamalo impression and dive-bombs you.
Once I got its timing down and pretended I was playing Monster Hunter instead, I could Issen it with more confidence and punish its slow recoveries with the Earth-Shakers. (On Carnage, I swapped them for The Two Celestials, an Oni Armament that rewards well-timed combos with healing souls.) I’m glad you can at least slice its tail off during a Break Issen and throw it at it. But when this early skill check finally went down, I didn’t feel satisfied, just relieved it was over.
11. Daidara
This chunky pushover is the second boss in the game and perhaps the easiest of them all. Daidara isn’t annoying, just… boring. His club swings and jumping slams are slow and easy to dodge or guard against.
Fittingly, he’s a greedy boss, sucking up any lingering souls the first chance he gets. Sometimes I’d just let him collect them so the fight would be a little more challenging. The only saving grace for this slobbering behemoth is the cool animation you get when you parry his temper-tantrum charge and send him barreling into a wall. Otherwise, he was overall unmemorable.
A Cut Above: Solid Bosses in Way of the Sword
These fights range from good to great, but every one of them comes with a catch.
10. Ifuu
Ifuu is a dopey wind Genma general who doesn’t pose a huge challenge, but I appreciated his personality. He’s just a bro who wants a good fight. It’s a shame he can’t put up much of one. His moves are sluggish and telegraphed, and his wind slashes are easy to deflect right back at him. The one move that gave me a little trouble at first was his jumping slam, which comes out faster than you’d expect.
He’s got a cool enough design, too, like a fleshy balloon of a guy, and that balloon is where things get interesting. On his second health bar, he’ll inhale and float above you until the gross bladder on his back fills up. If you don’t shoot him down with your bow, he blasts you back and follows up with an extra-fast wind slash. He’s a moderately badass character with moderately cool moves. A cut above the duds, but not by much.
9. Byakue
Byakue is a pretty cool-looking character with his huge axe, and he was even a challenging hidden boss in the Way of the Sword demo. Unfortunately, he’s by far the most recycled boss in the game — the devs thought it’d be a good idea to throw him at you over and over and over again. Sometimes he comes with mobs of enemies. Sometimes he’s just hanging out where you’d never expect him. Sometimes he shows up after rounds of fodder around Kyoto. Either way, he’ll be there.
By the fourth or fifth fight, I was over it, even with the Enhanced version later on, because his moves never change. His swings are heavily telegraphed, his charges only fooled me a few times, and eventually I could Issen nearly everything he threw at me. Still, even by the eighth fight, he was more fun than every boss below him. Those parries are just so damn satisfying, and some send him spinning into whatever mob he brought along.
8. Burai
Ifuu’s thundering brother is definitely the cooler of the two, both in design and in fighting, and he has one of my favorite moves in the entire game. Burai swings a lightning naginata, mixing lightning-fast dashes, quick swipes, and a sneaky kick that can catch you off guard. But if you let him eat too many souls, his second form is when things get really good. He adds crisscrossing lightning strikes, turns his naginata into an electric whip, and takes a parry stance that punishes you for rushing in by dashing behind you for a stab.
And then there’s that move. He jumps straight up into the air and disappears, then, in a flash, slams back down on you with a lightning strike. The first time I parried it, I felt like I had light-speed reflexes. I was shocked you could parry it at all, but you can, and Musashi just shouts, “Not today,” and tosses Burai into the ground while Shizuka Gozen, the voice in your gauntlet, gasses you up for your speed. That never got old. Damn, this was a cool boss fight.
The only reason Burai isn’t higher is that he’s still on the easier side, a stark contrast to the next guy on this list.
7. Sasaki Ganryu
Ganryu is your mortal enemy, your dark mirror, your crazed rival, as hungry for power and a good fight as you are, maybe even more, because of how insane he is. His first fight is a blast. His later ones are… okay, held back by how cheap and obnoxious they get.
As your first boss, he’s a great introduction to the game’s core mechanics, from deflecting and parrying to, when you’re feeling bold, going for Issen once you’ve got his rhythm down. His slashes have a unique swagger to them, and he’s tricky as hell, varying his timing to throw you off, like dashing in and delaying the swipe. His metal hat is pretty cool, too.
Spoilers for late-game content; scroll down to the SPOILERS DONE image.
As the game goes on, Ganryu gets even more insane, powering up with human souls and massacring countless people in cold blood. He even gets a buddy from his gauntlet, Gioh, a tentacled demon twisted by his bloodlust until she’s just as crazy as he is. She becomes an awful enabler, and the two form a toxic, codependent relationship. Gioh’s sword-wielding tentacles follow up his strikes, forcing you to chain your defenses with awkward timing, and canonically, you can’t win the second fight.
The third fight is where it gets cheap. Nearly every hit he lands robs you of souls, and Gioh’s tricky grab is the worst of all, draining literally all of your gauges to power up. He’ll even straight up stop fighting you so Gioh can vacuum up souls elsewhere in the arena, and if you let that happen, she barfs up a monster of a sword that makes him faster and deadlier. On Carnage, one stab from him followed by one from Gioh means game over. Between the soul draining, the damage, and three damn powered-up forms, it was the second most maddening fight in the entire game. Thank goodness he only has two health bars.
6. Rasho-gan
The twisted wish granter is an early fight, but a very interesting one that introduces you to some new gimmicks. His design is crazy — Rasho-gan is covered in severed limbs, capped off with a twisted grin. He’s a tricky, clever fighter, in a far better way than Dokyo, because his gimmicks never pull you away from the swordplay.
Rasho-gan secretly powers up through demonic threads tethered to his shrine, but you can sever the connection and make him weaker. His slashes seem predictable until he starts throwing in faster overheads, and you can deflect his oily black projectiles right back at him, from rapid flurries to one slow, swirling orb that tracks you while he rushes in. In phase two, he uses his threads to grab you from a distance and hoist boulders and trees overhead, which you can shoot down onto his head. Phase three brings out his flaming scissors. Your best bet is to take him out before he powers up too soon.
This was a fun fight that used its gimmicks the right way. It’s only held back by the fact that Rasho-gan is such an early fight, making it a little easy on rematches.
5. Shuten Doji
This sake-swilling, shit-talking oni, drunk on his own special brew of blood-infused alcohol, took me places I never expected a boss fight to go. Shuten Doji’s drunken kickboxing-master style is a little tricky to read at first. He’ll lean back, only to rush in surprisingly fast with his golden sword, or drop his gourd, which explodes out of nowhere. And when he jumps up mid-combo to stab you, you get yet another really satisfying parry, with that crunchy, grinding feel, real weight behind it, and sparks flying. Then, he’ll disrespectfully take a few swigs of his brew mid-fight to heal.
But this fight is also special because depleting his first health bar unlocks Musashi’s Oni Awakening, essentially a Devil Trigger. For a limited time, you’re invincible (taking hits only drains your Awakening gauge), you move and attack faster, and the Issen window widens dramatically. You also get the Oni Onslaught, a screen-clearing slow-mo slash that takes a huge chunk out of an enemy’s health and ends your Awakening on the spot.
It’s the perfect time to get it, because right after, you chop Shuten Doji’s head off. But that doesn’t stop him. You only gave him another weapon. His flaming head fights alongside his headless body, spitting fire while the body combos you, and when you counter the head’s grab, you slam it back onto his neck, at least temporarily. (That’s straight out of the legend, by the way — when the warrior Minamoto no Raiko beheaded Shuten Doji, the severed head kept right on fighting.)
Without Awakening, this tag-team might’ve felt impossible. With it, you take him down handily. This was a damn good fight and almost made its way to the top of my list. But these next four are on another level.
The Final Four: The Best Bosses in Onimusha: Way of the Sword
These are the fights that kept me up all night. They’re tough, they’re (mostly) fair, and every one of them made me better at the game.
If you’re worried about story spoilers, stop reading now! You can continue to the SPOILERS DONE tag to read my conclusion.
4. The Stormchaser Duo, Ifuu and Burai (The Rematch)
These guys just couldn’t get enough of you. Even after you defeat them, they go on their own training arc in hell and come back for more, and by then, I was enjoying the thrill of battle as much as they were. It felt more like a friendly sparring match than a boss fight, just a bunch of bros who love duking it out.
With Shuten Doji and Ganryu, the second enemy was more of a nuisance than anything. But with these two, it’s endearing to watch them sync up their attacks and come up with new moves together. They charge you with a criss-cross slash, and if you parry it, one hits the other and they start bickering, leaving both open to hits from the maracas (aka the Earth-Shakers). Once they power up (yes, they each still have two health bars, which made this a battle of attrition on Carnage), Burai charges along the ground while Ifuu vanishes for a lightning strike. But you can parry both at the same time, tossing Ifuu on top of Burai in the most satisfying parry in the entire game.
Their deadliest attack sends them flying offscreen on a nimbus cloud, just like a young Goku in Dragon Ball. A massive tornado fills the screen with lightning bolts and wind gusts until they finally fly at you for an all-out attack you can parry, throwing them off the cloud and sending them toppling to the ground.
Ifuu and Burai’s rematch is such a unique approach to a boss encounter; I hope more games take a page from Capcom’s book here. Double boss fights can be the worst, especially the Godskin Duo in Elden Ring, but at least these guys practiced their moves and came up with new attacks instead of just spamming you.
3. Benkei
Benkei is one of my favorite brutes-turned-punching-bags in the game. This heavily armored warrior monk wields a naginata and is deceptively fast for his size. To do any real damage, you have to break his armor first, with sumo slaps or hits from the Earth-Shakers. Or you could make it hard on yourself and just use your sword, like I did the first few times. Even early on, he’ll punish a deflected swipe with an unblockable follow-up.
Once the armor’s off, he pulls out a second naginata and sets them both on fire, just to aura farm on you. Deflect one attack, and a faster second one follows. Deflect that, and he slams both naginatas down on you at once. Deflect all three, though, and you shred his stamina for a few Break Issens. It’s basically a rhythm game with a giant flaming monk.
The second time you fight him, his Fully Armed form pulls out the big guns. Literally. He’ll blast you with an explosive cannon shot if you aren’t quick enough to shoot the cannon first with your bow, or spray fireballs you have to run from. He’ll toss daggers and weirdly arcing axes you can deflect. Then he leaps into the air and hurls a massive hammer down at you. Dodging it once isn’t enough, because it slams into the ground in a huge area-of-effect blast you have to dodge again. I had so much fun countering every one of these unblockables, even when they felt endless. Benkei is one of the most entertaining fights in the entire game.
2. The Final Boss: Minamoto no Yoshitsune
Minamoto no Yoshitsune. This bastard. He’s absolutely the worst. Just a villain through and through. No tragic backstory, just a cunning, sadistic bastard. And he fights like one, too. Between his three forms, incredibly fast attacks, crazy arsenal, and some of the toughest gimmicks in the game, he’s by far the hardest boss in Onimusha: Way of the Sword. The only thing keeping him from the number one spot is all the unskippable trash talk.
His sword is the first problem. You can technically get through every phase but the last without it catching fire, but one grab or one solid hit sets it ablaze, so more often than not, that’s the version you’re facing. His unblockables take up damn near the whole screen and come at you relentlessly, so your best bet is to run in close and parry. His grab is the most obnoxious. It’s so slow, so long, so unskippable, and he talks so much shit during it that every time he landed it, I stopped and checked my phone for texts. Worse is his jumping spin, which ends in a deceptively fast unblockable sword strike. If it connects, it leads into another monologue in another tedious cutscene while he drains a ridiculous chunk of your gauges. Again, none of this is skippable.
In his second phase, Minamoto no Yoshitsune drags you into a new dimension and dons armor you have to break first, Benkei-style. This disrespectful bastard opens by leaping up and stomping on you again and again, arms folded like M. Bison, then blows up the ground beneath you. From there, it’s melee combos with strict dodge windows, tracking arrows to deflect, a counter that punishes button mashing, and a grab that feints into a teleport to wreck your timing. God forbid his sword is red and blazing, because then he’ll hit you with three teleporting unblockables back to back. On Carnage, any one of those attacks can kill you.
The third and final form is probably the worst of them all. He’s nearly invulnerable unless you’re in Oni Awakening, and he sucks in the souls around him for an Oni Onslaught of his own. There are no checkpoints, either. Every time you die, you start over from the very beginning.
I spent hours learning to beat him and probably lost a few years of my life from him running my blood pressure up. But fighting him taught me how to optimize every fight using every defensive move I had. Parry to fill your Blaze gauge and enter Blazing State, which lights your sword up in blue flames for more damage, faster stamina breaks, and more blue souls for your Oni Armaments. Deflect to break his stamina for a Break Issen. Reflex Dodge his melee to build your Reflex gauge for bonus damage. In Oni Awakening, Issen every single attack. And don’t ever let him hit you.
Minamoto no Yoshitsune is a bastard to the very end, but he’s also extremely badass and the most challenging boss of them all. He even dances over you after he kills you. He’s not even a good dancer. But he’s a true supervillain.
The No. 1 Oni
1. Dohatsu-ten
Despite all of the other amazing boss fights, there’s one boss I couldn’t get enough of, even though, like Byakue, you fight him multiple times. He’s just so damn cool. His design is so cool. His name is so cool. Even his entrance is cool — whenever he enters the arena, you hear an angry battle cry as he slices his way into your dimension.
Dohatsu-ten treats you like a worthy adversary and talks to you like one, praising you when you damage him, though he’s just as quick to call you weak and unworthy. The dude just wants a good fight, like Ifuu and Burai, and I was more than happy to give it to him every time.
Dohatsu-ten is a fast swordsman with a massive demonic blade that reminds me of Sparda from Devil May Cry. He’s got quick three-hit slashes, a 360-degree slash, powerful three-hit kick combos that sometimes swap the third kick for a slash, and volleys of wind-slash projectiles.
He’s got the best elements of the best bosses all rolled into one. He only has one health bar, but once you get halfway through it, or let him absorb too much of your blood, he powers up. He teleports and dashes at you in the blink of an eye, and it’s so satisfying to block or Issen every time. He likes to double up that attack on you, like he couldn’t believe you blocked it the first time. Little did I know, this was all training for the final boss (see #2). His wind slashes come in threes, and he even takes on a counter stance. Hit him, and he kicks you into the air, juggles you with a Marvel vs. Capcom-style aerial rave, and slams you into the ground.
The pacing is excellent every time, and I never got sick of fighting this guy. For the first time in years, I had a boss who made me smile and say “bring it” every time he appeared. This demon reinvigorated the thrill of battle in me at a time in gaming when I thought the art of a good boss fight was lost. And best of all, Dohatsu-ten doesn’t overstay his welcome or lean on any ridiculous gimmicks. It’s just a straight-up sword fight with a swordsman.
Mastering the Way of the Sword
Onimusha: Way of the Sword is the best action game I’ve played in a long time, despite its flaws. And it certainly has the best boss fights in recent memory — all cinematic, interactive, and extremely satisfying. I never got tired of parrying or deflecting, even against the most insufferable bosses. And even when Carnage mode made enemies spongier, it forced me to optimize the game’s defensive mechanics to make the fights go faster.
Once you beat the game on Carnage mode, the game gives you the Bishamon Sword as a reward. It’s essentially a game-breaking prize because it widens the Issen window so much. By the time I beat Onimusha: Way of the Sword on Carnage, especially after getting that sword, everything felt easy.
I truly feel like I have mastered the way of the sword. Now, like Musashi, I’m back on the road in search of my next worthy opponent.
Onimusha: Way of the Sword, developed and published by Capcom, released on September 4, 2026, for PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch 2. MSRP: $69.99.
Want more tough-as-nails fights? Check out our Cuphead boss ranking and our Dark Souls boss ranking.
Donovan is a lifelong gamer with a love for fast-paced, single-player action games—especially Devil May Cry, Metroidvanias, indies, and action RPGs. He’s also an “advanced scrub” at fighting games and will play just about anything fun. Donovan is passionate about seeing more diverse characters and creators in the industry—or at least better hair options for Black people. With over a decade in journalism, he joined The Punished Backlog in 2023 to write more about what he loves. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram @dono_harrell.
