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Greater Nue - Version 5 vs Version 6
May 8, 2026, 08:42 AM
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11Greater Nue is one of the confirmed Genma types in Onimusha: Way of the Sword. Capcom describes it as a ferocious, chimeric beast that harnesses the power of lightning, reimagined in the game's dark-fantasy take on Japanese folklore. It was introduced to the public through the August 2025 Genma Experiments trailer and the ongoing Weekly Oni Memo updates, where it has been consistently positioned as one of the show elite encounters rather than a regular street mob. Within the currently revealed roster it sits on the boss-tier side of the enemy list alongside the other named Genma that fill specific combat niches.22Overview44The Greater Nue is the dedicated elemental heavyweight of the confirmed Genma line-up. Where Togemaru covers the high-speed mobility slot and Kogashira covers parasitic puppeteering with clouds of Malice, the Greater Nue sits in the roster as the lightning-channelling hybrid whose entire fight is built around reading the sky for incoming bolts. Promotional framing treats it as a set-piece encounter: a ferocious, chimeric beast rather than a faceless Genma mob, with on-screen scale and attack range that dwarfs the humanoid ashigaru-shaped enemies that fill most early Kyoto combat.66Its place in the public-facing marketing also reflects its tier. Capcom has used the Greater Nue in side-by-side shots with other boss-tier Genma and with Chijiko to communicate the breadth of the enemy catalogue: a grotesque face-mass with tentacles, a lightning hybrid, a spike-roller, and a parasite-host puppet. Within that structure the Greater Nue occupies the elemental spectacle slot.88Japanese Folklore Background1010The creature draws directly on the Nue, a legendary yokai of classical Japanese mythology. In the Tale of the Heike, the Nue is described as a composite being assembled from several animals: the head of a monkey, the body of a tanuki, the limbs of a tiger, and a snake for a tail. Other medieval sources such as the Genpei Jōsuiki swap some of those components, describing versions with the back of a tiger, tanuki limbs, a fox's tail, a cat's head, and a chicken's torso. The common thread across every version is the idea of a single creature built out of mismatched parts rather than a single species.1212In the folklore the Nue is a nocturnal, shape-shifting omen. It is said to cry out with an eerie, bird-like call that resembles the sound of a scaly thrush, and to be capable of travelling as a black cloud. Its recorded sightings cluster around the late Heian period and are tied to the reigns of emperors such as Konoe and Go-Shirakawa, where the appearance of the creature was read as a warning of disease or political upheaval. The visual appearance is sometimes explained as a composite of the animals of the sexagenary cycle aligned to the cardinal directions, which gives the creature a built-in cosmological symbolism beyond its monster-of-the-week role. That mix of chimeric anatomy, ominous cry, and cloud-travel is the base layer the game is drawing from.1414Folklore ElementDetailBody CompositionMonkey's head, tanuki body, tiger limbs, and a snake-headed tail in the most common Heike-derived description.Alternate FormGenpei Jōsuiki variant with a tiger's back, tanuki limbs, a fox tail, a cat's head, and a chicken's torso.Signature SoundAn unsettling, bird-like cry compared to the scaly thrush, part of the reason the creature was treated as an omen rather than a simple beast.MovementShape-shifts into a black cloud and travels across the night sky, primarily nocturnal.Cultural RoleRead as an omen of illness and upheaval in the late Heian period, especially around the Konoe and Go-Shirakawa imperial courts.1616Appearance in Way of the Sword1717The in-game Greater Nue pushes the chimeric silhouette of the folklore creature into a full dark-fantasy monster. The hybrid animal anatomy is still the base layer. The composite body, the feline limbs, the simian upper silhouette, and the tail that reads as serpentine are all present in the reveal footage. On top of that the game adds crackling electrical discharge across the body, so the creature is constantly wreathed in arcs of lightning that trace the outline of the beast even when it is standing still. The effect turns a yokai that is already a chimera into a visibly elemental threat at first glance.1919Scale is a key part of the design. Screenshots and trailer footage consistently frame the Greater Nue against open-sky or large-arena backdrops rather than tight street corridors, which sells it as a boss-sized encounter. The camera treatment in promotional material is the same treatment Capcom uses for the game's named duel opponents, which makes the Greater Nue stand apart from the rank-and-file Genma that populate regular mission combat.2121Combat Behavior2323The Greater Nue's moveset is built around lightning-charged attacks that rain down on the arena from above. In the legendary yokai's own words from the marketing copy, it rains down lightning, and the reveal footage shows exactly that: bolts that strike discrete ground positions on a telegraphed timer rather than a single continuous attack. The effect is an area-control fight, where the creature uses the shape of the arena and the placement of its bolts to shape the space the player is allowed to stand in, rather than a straight melee trade.2525Those lightning-charged attacks telegraph with specific timing cues. That matters because Way of the Sword's combat system is tuned around reactive defence. The game is not a safe-blocking action title; Capcom has repeatedly framed it as a parry-first design, where the protagonist's lightning-quick attacks are difficult to simply block and most enemy pressure is meant to be answered with a timed parry or a held deflect. A boss whose entire kit is built around telegraphed, timed strikes is the clearest show for that design philosophy, which is why the Greater Nue functions in trailers as the reactive-defence demonstration creature.2727Attack PatternHow It Plays OutLightning Bolt RainDischarges ranged lightning strikes into the arena on a telegraphed cadence. Ground positions glow or arc in advance, giving the player a clear visual cue to step out.Charged Contact HitsMelee and swipe attacks carry the same lightning charge as the creature's body, which converts simple hits into high-pressure pokes on the player's posture gauge.Telegraphed Wind-upsMajor attacks come with distinct visual and timing tells. The creature is designed as a reactive-defence show, not a random-pressure mob.Area DenialRepeated bolt placement limits where the player can safely stand, turning the fight into a positioning problem on top of a parry problem.2929How to Defeat3030Because the Greater Nue's kit is built around timed telegraphs, the encounter rewards the game's defensive toolkit rather than free aggression. Way of the Sword ships with two distinct defensive options: a typical parry used to repel an incoming attack at the moment of impact, and a deflect performed by holding block and tapping another button at the moment of contact, which locks the protagonist's sword with the enemy's weight and can redirect it into a stagger. Both tools shine against telegraphed bolts, where the cue-to-impact window is the exact kind of reactive read the systems were designed around.3232The payoff for clean reads is the signature Break Issen counterattack, which the series has carried as its hallmark finisher since the original Onimusha. Striking a split-second before an incoming blow lands triggers the Issen and unloads disproportionate damage on the Greater Nue in a single clean cut. Trying to trade hits with a lightning-wreathed chimera, on the other hand, bleeds posture quickly because every contact carries the elemental charge on top of raw impact. The safer fight is a patient one: read the bolts, step the area-denial pattern, hold for the parry window, and convert openings into Issen rather than long chains of unanswered pressure.3434Movement matters alongside timing. Lateral repositioning between bolt placements keeps Musashi Miyamoto out of the highest-density strike zones and makes the next telegraph easier to read on reaction. Straight-line retreats tend to put the player inside the creature's next marked zone rather than clear of it, while side-steps across the arena open up approach angles for the melee windows that follow the ranged salvos.3636TacticWhy It WorksRead the BoltsEvery lightning attack has a visible telegraph. Reacting to the tell rather than the strike gives the cleanest parry or dodge timing.Use the DeflectThe hold-block deflect locks blades and can redirect the creature's weight into a stagger window, which turns a defensive beat into an offensive one.Commit to Break IssenClean parries open the door to the signature Issen counter. A single Break Issen pays out more damage than a long, unanswered combo would.Side-Step the BoltsLateral movement clears marked ground zones. Straight retreats tend to plant the player inside the next telegraphed strike.Do Not TradeLightning-charged contact chips posture quickly. Holding guard through sustained pressure is worse than reading and parrying.3838Connection to Dokyo's Experiments3939The Greater Nue was formally introduced as one of the named creations of Dokyo, the sinister figure at the centre of the Genma Experiments storyline. The trailer frames Dokyo as an enigmatic entity who toils in a secret laboratory deep beneath Kyoto, producing new Genma as finished products rather than summoning pre-existing ones. The Greater Nue is listed alongside Kogashira and Chijiko as one of Dokyo's twisted creations, which anchors its lore specifically to that underground laboratory rather than to a random demonic incursion.4141That connection gives the Greater Nue a narrative weight separate from its combat role. It is not simply a yokai that escaped from folklore into the streets of Kyoto; it is a variant engineered by a specific antagonist for a specific purpose. Encountering it is meant to tell the player that Dokyo's work has moved past mass-produced foot-soldier Genma and into bespoke chimeric apex predators. That framing matches the way the creature is paced into trailers: late-reveal, large-arena, heavy audio cue, the beats of a plot-relevant enemy rather than an ambient street hazard.4343Visual Design4545The design language leans on two pillars: the folklore chimera and the elemental overlay. The chimera layer keeps the Nue recognisable to anyone familiar with the Heike Monogatari description, with the composite limbs, the simian-adjacent head silhouette, and the serpentine tail all clearly readable. The elemental layer wraps that body in constant arcs of lightning, puts a crackling charge across the claws and tail, and lets the creature emit bolts from its silhouette rather than from a separate spell effect. The two layers together produce a single consistent read: a yokai you recognise, upgraded into something the player has never fought before.4747Lighting is doing a lot of the silhouette work. Reveal footage of the Greater Nue tends to sit it in darker lit arenas, where the lightning discharge becomes the primary source of definition for the body. That decision keeps the chimera readable in motion, because the electrical arcs trace the outline of each moving limb, and it sells the elemental kit at a glance without needing any UI labels. The design also keeps the creature visually distinct from the other named Genma in the marketing. The spike-covered Togemaru reads as a silhouette of thorns, Chijiko reads as a mass of faces, Kogashira reads as a warped humanoid, and Greater Nue reads as a chimera wrapped in light.4949Soul Rewards5151Like other defeated Genma, the Greater Nue is expected to feed the souls economy that underpins progression in Way of the Sword. Souls are the core resource the protagonist absorbs from slain Genma, and they fuel both the between-encounter growth loop and the ability set bound to the Oni Gauntlet. Boss-tier encounters such as the Greater Nue are the kind of fights that return richer payouts than rank-and-file mob kills, which fits the creature's role as a set-piece rather than a routine filler enemy.5353Trailer and Media Appearances5555The Greater Nue was introduced to the public through the August 2025 Genma Experiments gameplay trailer, which aired as part of the Gamescom 2025 Opening Night Live programme. That trailer positioned Dokyo as the antagonist responsible for the new Genma and used the Greater Nue, Kogashira, and Chijiko as the three named creations shown side by side. Follow-up coverage in the Weekly Oni Memo updates on the official Onimusha site kept the Greater Nue on the front page alongside the rest of the confirmed roster heading into 2026, which is why the creature has a fully public name rather than sitting inside the generic Genma bucket.
