Dawn of Dreams begins in Sakai, Osaka, one-and-a-half decades after the evil Nobunaga has been defeated. Two mysterious characters dressed in Samurai armour wielding swords are duelling. A harsh exchange of words and swords clashing between two men would not have been an uncommon occurrence in feudal Japan.

The backdrop is dark and foreboding. The once beautiful and bustling city of Osaka lies in ruin and it seems the battle between good and evil has found its way to Osaka's streets. Japan is entering a new era: an era of further bloodshed and darker deeds is dawning and the Onimusha must rise to the challenge once more.

The cut scenes in Dawn of Dreams are absolutely insane. Graphically, the backgrounds, lighting and animation are nothing short of superb and do more than just sell the story. It makes you want to be part of it – what every game should aim to achieve. The facial expressions are crisp, detailed and expressive. Hair that looks so real, you almost think it is. The calibre of the animation really is quite amazing, almost reminiscent of the same type of animation used in Final Fantasy - Advent Children.

Onimusha roughly translated means warrior demon. Enter Soki - the main character in the story (Soki means "Oni of the Ash"). So, putting bits of the story together, we come to understand that Soki is a Samurai and one of the Onimusha (referred to throughout the game as the Blue Demon, just to confuse you even more). Further on, Soki gets to upgrade his armour (funnily enough, it's blue and really quite cool-looking), but we'll get to that later.

One of the better parts of Dawn of Dreams is the use of historical references -locations, people and pictures as cut scenes. The impressive depth of these aspects is like there is a 'real' story to be told behind the game and it's not just another walk-through of pretty animations and backgrounds with a bit of fighting tossed in.

The story slowly unfolds and more is revealled as you progress but for now, you just wanna kill. Well, there are plenty of mean-looking skeletal henchmen (Genma) to run through right from the get-go. That's bound to put a smile on any Samurai's face. It does, however, become pretty clear after the first two stages that there is more to Soki than a cool-looking sword and nice armour. Sooner than expected, you (Soki) find yourself on a rooftop with an even more ferocious demon the size of Godzilla trying to turn you into sushi. That's when things get interesting and it's only stage two...