Introducing: Onimaru
Monday, February 6, 2012 at 5:21PM General Onimaru is Quince's top military man. You can think of him like Sun Tzu in that he's a master of the art of war. He is known for his strategic planning, tactical maneuvers, use of terrain to his advantage, his ability to discipline an army, and his ability to know the enemy.
Onimaru is actually an outsider to Flagstone, though he's won many battles in foreign lands and at least one on Flagstone soil against the former regime. Grave was just a boy then, and he lost his father that day. Onimaru claimed the Stormborne family sword as a war-prize, and were it not for the intervention of Mistress Persephone, Grave would never have received his family heirloom.
Many years later, Quince was able to recruit the General. There, Onimaru raised an army and due to his harsh style, the troops called him the Flagstone Enforcer. He also investigated unorthodox forms of military force, including the use of wild elephants and an experimental program to create clockwork soldiers with the help of the then-head of Flagstone Research & Development: Max Geiger.
In a fighting game, Onimaru won't rely on combos. Just the right strike at just the right time is more his style. All his moves in his (still in-development) Yomi deck are actually "Can't Combo" moves, and yet he's still a fearsome opponent.
In Flash Duel, he has one of the most interesting abilities in the game, Clockwork Soldier:
The Clockwork Soldier greatly restricts the opponent's movement. It puts the squeeze on them, letting Onimaru close the distance to them one way or another. This opens up even more potential interactions in the 2v2 and Dragon Raid modes.
In Puzzle Strike, Onimaru shows his versatility with Wartime Tactics:
This lets him reveal a puzzle chip from his hand, then get a one-time use of any other puzzle chip in the bank, as long as it costs the same or less as the revealed chip. Onimaru's tactics are so honed that this gives him access to a wide variety of effects immediately, without waiting the usual one or two turns to draw them.
General Onimaru is a formidable foe to anyone who would threaten Flagstone or its right to rule. That goes double for outlaw barristers and mutant stone golems who would sow the seeds of dissent with their illegal Fantasy Strike tournament.
Next time we'll meet Troq, a lowly foot-soldier in the Flagstone army.
Reader Comments (8)
You need someone to lead your army? hmm well I need a face mask thing with a hole in it for my fantastic moustache. sounds like we got a deal
So you read the script for the Fantasy Strike movie already? I wonder how that got leaked.
Is the gameplay for his fighting game version intended to resemble Hakumen? Because then that's another character I'll have to play. I hope he'll at least have an insta-kill counter super/ultra.
I doubt he's intended to resemble Hakumen since Sirlin hates Blazblue, ha. I would guess more of a Claw influence.
Onimaru is nothing like Vega. I guess like Hakumen, but I never played Hakumen even one time, nor do I know what his moves are.
His heavy attacks are really slow and hurt like a fucking freight train. Also he has a special super meter which recharges automatically, but all of his specials consume various amounts of it. So you land hits rarely, but if you do, you can make it count. Has a super that hits basically fullscreen and can be charged up to be unblockable. Has various counter moves, including a counter-super.
He's also a boss character, which is what inspired the three rules of BlazBlue:
1. Do not fuck with Hakumen.
2. Do not fuck with Hakumen.
3. Do NOT fuck with Hakumen.
My impression of Onimaru was always, ``Oh, he`s a SamSho character.``
These updates are so fantastic. I'm completely serious when I call this currently "the most interesting news in fighting games" even though it's for a non-existent FG! ;-) The very fact that this kind of character design exists is fantastic & also, this character seems perfectly designed for my tastes (which was my one previous bug-bear with the fantasy strike roster; where was "my" character - problem solved).
I don't find any obvious parallels with any other FG characters really (outside of maybe SamSho as Lofobal notes, but that's never had any play in my area). Hakumen is extremely combo based (as is EVERYONE in BB to a great extent IMO). Same with Vampire's Bishamon too; again, pretty much combo-based really, even if he relies on them less than others a bit.