Onimusha: Way of the Sword Puzzle Solutions

Who this is for: players stuck on the mask room, and anyone searching “Onimusha puzzles” who expects a long list — this game keeps its puzzles short and mostly tied to exploration.

Quick Puzzle Index

Mask Puzzle — Full Solution

Location: during the “What Lurks in the Shadows” main mission you enter a room with four masks above a locked box and four masks on the opposite wall against shoji screens; the objective switches to “Solve the mask puzzle” (VGC).

The trick: walk behind the wall and look at the far side of the shoji. Each mask lets a different amount of light through small slits in its design — the number of light shafts tells you the shooting order.

Solution: shoot the masks above the locked box, left to right, in this order:

1. Third mask
2. Fourth mask
3. First mask
4. Second mask

Reward: the Unsettling Mask, usable as a key to open a door you passed earlier. Shizuka also drops hints if you wait — the game basically solves it for you.

Find the Hidden Path and Other Exploration Puzzles

Several “puzzles” are really exploration checks: hidden paths revealed by environmental clues, and hidden rooms/doors that appear when your Oni Gauntlet glows blue (trigger Oni Vision). Guide coverage exists for specific spots (e.g. hidden Oni doors and treasure paths per VGC/AppMedia), but the game has no large logic-puzzle set — if a room looks like a dead end with glowing cues, treat it as an Oni-Vision check before assuming a solution sequence.

Malice Barriers (Red Walls) — Not Puzzles

Corrupted areas are blocked by Malice barriers (red walls). These are not puzzles: you break them with Oni Strength, which unlocks after the “Careful What You Wish For” mission (beating Rasho-gan). If players search “how to get rid of red walls”, the answer is story progress, not a trick (AppMedia).

Rewards and Progression Impact

• The Unsettling Mask from the Mask Puzzle is a key item — open the earlier door it unlocks for the area’s collectibles and materials before moving on.
• Exploration puzzles mostly pay chests: Power Stones, Oni Stones and rare materials sit behind hidden doors (Power Stones, materials).
• Nothing in the verified puzzle set locks the story — every puzzle is a reward shortcut, not a gate.

Where Solutions Are Discussed

Release-week guide coverage is concentrated in a few walkthroughs (VGC, Polygon) and Japanese wikis (AppMedia). If you find a room that is not covered here, search the mission name plus “puzzle” — this page will be expanded as more spots are verified.

FAQ