Super Mario Odyssey Helped Shape Onimusha: Way of the Sword's Tactical Combat

Onimusha: Way of the Sword draws from an unexpectedly broad group of influences, but one of the most revealing is also one of Nintendo's brightest, most playful modern games. Director Satoru Nihei has identified Super Mario Odyssey as a major inspiration for Capcom's samurai action game, specifically because of the way its approachable movement conceals a much more demanding and reactive action system underneath.

It is not the immediately obvious answer for a game centered on swordplay, supernatural enemies, and a dark historical-fantasy setting. Viewers might reasonably expect comparisons with modern samurai action games, given Onimusha's emphasis on lethal encounters and its return to a feudal Japanese backdrop. Nihei's explanation instead points toward a broader design priority: making controls intuitive at first contact, then allowing players to find increasing depth as they become more confident.

That philosophy has significant implications for Way of the Sword. Rather than treating accessibility and tactical expression as opposing goals, the team appears to be pursuing an action system where clear inputs, readable responses, and player discovery all work together. It is an approach that fits a series with a long history, while also suggesting that Capcom wants the new Onimusha to stand on its own in a crowded action-game landscape.

An unexpected influence with a clear design lesson

Nihei described Super Mario Odyssey as a game that is simple to understand on its surface but becomes increasingly dynamic and challenging when players dig into its systems. Nintendo's game is immediately welcoming: Mario can run, jump, dive, throw Cappy, and capture creatures with little friction. Yet skilled play quickly reveals a huge number of movement options, combinations, recovery tools, and routes that are not necessarily required to finish the main adventure.

For useful background on this topic, read Anime Fighting Simulator codes for September 2026: Active Shards, Boosts and Tokens.

That balance is central to why Odyssey is so often praised. A newcomer can enjoy the basic pleasure of moving through its worlds, while an experienced player can use momentum, dives, cap throws, jumps, bounces, and captures in ways that make Mario feel remarkably flexible. The game does not demand that every player master every technique, but it consistently rewards curiosity and precision.

For Nihei, an especially important element is the relationship between actions and counters. In his view, Odyssey gives players a responsive exchange: the game presents possibilities, the player chooses an action, and the systems offer an answer that can be understood and acted upon. That constant feedback shapes the feel of Mario's controls. It is one reason even basic movement can remain satisfying across dozens of hours.

Bringing that lesson into Onimusha does not mean turning its protagonist into a platforming hero. Instead, it suggests that swordplay, positioning, defense, and enemy interactions are being built around the same principle of legible cause and effect. When players commit to a strike, evade, or defensive response, they should understand how that decision changes the situation. When an opponent reacts, the player should have meaningful options in return.

Why responsiveness matters in a tactical action game

Action games often live or die by the quality of their controls. Visual spectacle can create a strong first impression, but players spend most of their time feeling how a character starts, stops, turns, attacks, recovers, and responds under pressure. That is particularly true for games involving close-range combat, where a fraction of a second can determine whether a defensive choice feels deliberate or frustrating.

Onimusha: Way of the Sword appears to be placing tactical feeling at the center of that interaction. Nihei's focus on adapting the ideas behind Super Mario Odyssey to Onimusha's controls indicates that the goal is not only to make combat visually impressive. It is to make players feel as though they are participating in a responsive conversation with enemies.

In practice, that can mean several things without requiring a one-for-one comparison to Mario's moveset. Attacks need distinct purpose. Enemy behavior needs to communicate danger and opportunity. Defensive mechanics need to produce outcomes that players can learn. Movement should make it possible to adjust spacing and recover from mistakes, but it should not remove the importance of commitment. The more clearly those pieces connect, the more room there is for mastery.

It is also a useful direction for welcoming players who may know Onimusha primarily as a classic Capcom name rather than as an active series they have followed for years. A control scheme with an understandable baseline can help new players enter the experience. A deeper layer of timing, reads, counters, and situational decisions can then give returning fans and action specialists reasons to keep refining their approach.

The inspiration from Mario is less about copying a genre and more about studying how exceptionally clear controls can support surprising depth.

That distinction matters. Great influences do not always lead to obvious surface similarities. In this case, one of the world's most celebrated 3D platformers is being used as a reference point for the feel of a sword-fighting game. The connection is player agency: both games want an input to feel intentional, a response to feel understandable, and experimentation to be worthwhile.

Gundam and Silent Hill f inform the game's character

Nihei was not the only Capcom creative discussing influences. Akihito Kadowaki, the Onimusha series producer, also highlighted ideas that helped guide the project. After bringing up Silent Hill f, an influence that can be felt in the game's world design, Kadowaki cited the Gundam series as a core point of inspiration.

Gundam is a franchise known not only for its mechanical designs and large-scale conflicts, but also for a vast lineup of distinctive personalities. Its characters often carry strong visual identities, competing ideals, rivalries, and emotional histories. Kadowaki's interest in that aspect of the series suggests an emphasis on ensuring that Onimusha's cast is memorable rather than simply functional.

That ambition is already reflected in the personalities surrounding the game, including Musashi, Okuni, and Takamura. A supernatural samurai adventure needs formidable threats and striking locations, but character chemistry can give those battles more weight. If players can quickly understand what makes each ally, rival, or adversary different, then the larger conflict becomes easier to invest in.

The mention of Silent Hill f is similarly intriguing. Its presence as an influence on world design points to an interest in atmosphere, unease, and environmental identity. Onimusha has always had a supernatural component, and a more unsettling or evocative world can help its demons, violence, and period setting feel more cohesive. Combined with Gundam's character-driven inspiration, the result could be a game that balances intimate personalities with a distinctly oppressive world.

A blend of influences that suits Onimusha

At a glance, Super Mario Odyssey, Silent Hill f, and Gundam may look like an unusually disconnected trio. One is a vibrant platformer built around movement and invention. One represents horror-inflected worldbuilding. The other is a long-running science-fiction universe celebrated for dramatic characters and conflict. Yet their lessons address separate pillars of game creation: controls, atmosphere, and cast.

For Onimusha: Way of the Sword, that combination makes sense. Capcom is not presenting a game that needs to rely on only one familiar genre template. The series has its own identity, combining historical imagery with demonic fantasy and weapon-based action. Taking inspiration from different creative disciplines can help the new entry sharpen that identity rather than dilute it.

• Super Mario Odyssey: approachable controls with a deeper skill ceiling and clear reactions to player choices.
• Silent Hill f: a potentially stronger focus on world design and unsettling atmosphere.
• Gundam: a cast designed to be charismatic, distinct, and memorable.

Of those ideas, Nihei's comments on Mario may be the most surprising, but they are also the most useful for understanding the day-to-day experience Capcom wants to create. Players will spend every encounter making small decisions: when to attack, where to stand, when to avoid danger, and how to answer an enemy's response. If the controls make those decisions feel natural while preserving the consequences of poor timing, the game can offer both immediate satisfaction and lasting depth.

The value of looking beyond genre expectations

Developers frequently learn from games outside their own genre, even when those connections are not immediately visible in a trailer or screenshot. A racing game may borrow readability from fighting games. A role-playing game may study the environmental storytelling of a horror title. A demanding action game can learn from a platformer's handling and feedback.

Nihei's admiration for Super Mario Odyssey reinforces that good control design is not limited to any one kind of game. Nintendo's platformer has become a valuable example because it makes motion feel enjoyable before it asks the player to become an expert. Capcom's challenge is to translate that same clarity into a far more dangerous setting, where every tactical choice is framed by blades, monsters, and the pressure of survival.

Meanwhile, Kadowaki's references show that the team is considering more than combat fundamentals. A strong Onimusha needs a world worth entering and characters worth remembering. The focus on the likes of Musashi, Okuni, and Takamura, alongside the emphasis on atmosphere, indicates that Capcom sees the new game as a complete adventure rather than merely a showcase for combat encounters.

Onimusha: Way of the Sword therefore has an interesting creative foundation: Mario's elegant responsiveness, horror-tinged environmental sensibilities, and Gundam's flair for character. Whether every influence comes through equally in the finished game remains to be seen, but Nihei and Kadowaki's comments offer a clearer picture of the direction behind Capcom's samurai action project. The defining goal seems straightforward, even if achieving it is not: make every movement and decision feel good enough for newcomers to enjoy, while leaving enough tactical possibility for committed players to master.