The Nintendo Switch 2 has already proved itself handy for playing ports of demanding AAA titles on the go. The upcoming Onimusha: Way of the Sword is one of those titles, offering surprising visual fidelity on such a slim device. It also increasingly shows that Switch 2 ports are the strangest way to play any of these games, especially with controls that harken back to the Nintendo Wii.

Capcom invited me to run through more than two hours of Onimusha: Way of the Sword, both on PlayStation 5 Pro and on Switch 2. Based on what I played, the game is shaping up to be a difficult, though cerebral, hack-and-slash adventure that will make you feel all the more badass once you master its systems. Itâs a game about parrying, dodging, countering, utilizing the environmentâa door as a temporary shield, for exampleâand waiting for the moment where you see the prompt appear on screen to perform a high-damage attack. Parries are that much more important since you can effectively steer enemies in certain directions. It also depletes enemies’ stamina, helping your attacks punch through their blocks.

And that makes it all the more strange that the developers at Capcom decided to put Wii-like waggle controls in the Switch 2 version.

Whatâs becoming more evident with the Switch 2 after more than a year is that games are still experimenting with how to make use of the Joy-Con 2 controllers. Mouse controls are only one piece of that puzzle. Onimusha: Way of the Sword adds the waggle controls only to the right hand. Joy-Con 2. Swishing the controller to the right will perform your faster, less damaging one-handed attacksânormally tied to the âXâ button. Flicking up and down will perform the more damaging two-handed attacks, the âYâ input.

It is perhaps the strangest kind of game to apply motion controls to. Onimusha is the kind of difficult hack-and-slash title in which timing is paramount. Players have to watch for enemy attacks and determine when it’s best to parry and when to strike. Regular enemy chaff is pretty simple to dispatch, usually by dismembering them or by slicing them in twain from neck to navel.

Bosses, on the other hand, are where the difficulty really sets in. I fought through several bosses on the PS5 version. One of the demons that gave me special trouble was a many-armed Oni who was prone to stealing hands from blissfully unaware supplicants (itâs as messed up as it sounds). I also played through one of the gameâs first bosses exclusively with the Switch 2’s motion controls, and it wasnât necessarily more difficultâjust stranger. After a few deaths, my attacks became more deliberate. I didnât so much waggle the controller back and forth as I did swipe. Did I feel more like a swordsman? No, of course not. But during that short time I spent with the game, I did have fun, with or without waggle controls.

I didnât have enough time to truly get a grip on the story and characters. You play as Miyamoto Mushashi (yes, heâs named after the famed swordsman Toshiro Mushashi), a rough, though occasionally noble, swordsman whose true goal is to prove himself the strongest fighter, even as the world is invaded by dark Oni. Heâs inextricably linked to a gauntlet thatâs able to absorb souls. The bracelet is also inhabited by another Oni, who effectively becomes your Cortana or Navi character to help guide you between the various combat encounters.

The PlayStation 5 version of the game already looks detailed (even if it’s overly dark at times, to the point that some characters blend into the mud and debris in some arenas). But it was surprising how good the game looked on Switch 2. Capcom told me the game targets an upscaled 900p resolution when in handheld mode, where it plays at 30 fps. When hooked up to a TV, the game gets up to 1080p resolution, again thanks to DLSS upscaling. Capcom managed to make the gameplay feel tight even at these lower frame rates.

Onimusha on Switch 2 will also support gyro aiming for your bow weapon (which mostly comes into play for picking off ranged units and for using environmental attacks to dispatch enemies). Gyro aiming has become a staple of Switch shooters since Splatoon. Every new Switch 2 port has been forced to add some feature that you can only get on Nintendoâs handheld. Cyberpunk 2077 on the Switch 2 used mouse controls. Star Wars Outlaws let you use the touchscreen for menus and minigames.

So why not add Wii controls to a game close to 20 years after Nintendoâs motion-based console first hit the scene? If youâre deciding between playing Onimusha on PC, PS5, or Xbox, or getting it on Switch 2 (itâs a game-key card, unfortunately), then at least the handheld version offers something none of the other platforms do.

Onimusha: Way of the Sword launches on Sept. 4.