I don’t think I need to tell anyone twice that has seen at least one screenshot of this game that the game is truly an artistic masterpiece of this generation. Le crème de le crème of artistic gaming splendor. This is clearly Muramasa’s weapon of choice, but what other spears did developer Vanillaware decide to toss your way? Well, what IS Muramasa besides fodder for the games as art debate? It’s a 2D Action RPG exclusive to the Wii, but daring enough to scrap any type of possibly fatal motion controls, so there are no gimmicks included in this package. (Thank goodness.) There are two playable characters in Muramasa, which romanticizes Japanese folk culture through and through. The characters, the backgrounds, the clothing styles.

Two different characters will be available to you, Momohime and Kisuke. Though I usually break into the cons later rather than sooner, I have to discuss the story one way or another. There really almost isn’t one. There, I said it. And what story is present, gets very convoluted for no reason, and becomes fuzzy at times at what is going on in the story at all. Riddled with Japanese culture and the oftentime references, players unlike myself who do not commonly play games of a similar setting, will feel uneasy and pushed away rather than invited in to the story. I assure you, you aren’t missing much, it is a very shallow path for both characters’ storylines. Since story is generally my first and foremost interest in an game, that was what I first sought out and wanted from Muramasa. But… Muramasa is hard to call a standard RPG, if an RPG at all, so we might be able to let this slide. It has leveling up elements, and that’s more or less the height of the take off that genre. Character models in the town often get reused sometimes, which came across as somewhat lazy to me as well, given the creative art style this game is clearly known for.

Interestingly enough, initially there are two difficulty levels will be available to you upon booting up. Shura and Muso. Muso is what I’d equate to normal mode. Shura will bring out your more rugged side as a much harder mode, and even more rigorous battling (oh you know, those infamous one-hit KO modes) will be had via the mode Shigurui, unlocked by beating the game on Shura. Why I call it interesting is because you can intermittently switch the difficulty style while playing without having to return to a main menu to test your true skill set. You may also save your game mid-story with one character, and start up the path for the other character. You’re not forced to play through first as Momohine and then be allowed to play Kisuke’s, you will be able to choose and continue either path at any given time. Save points are placed at various checkpoints, most often before a major boss battle.

What Muramasa does pleasantly well is combat. As you scurry across the colorful 2D planes, exclamations will flash as you are alerted to an oncoming onslaught of enemies. Ninjas, kappa (water imps), samurais and plenty of mystical creature can be found aplenty throughout your journey. Once a battle begins, you draw your sword automatically and will be poised to take on often ten or more enemies! This plays very well for the combo system that is infused in Muramasa. Rather than playing up the time old tale of mashing the A button for massive damage, Muramasa asks that you hold the A button down to submit to a blocking position, from there, you can choose any direction via the nunchuk’s thumbstick to launch the beginning of your deadly combo attack. Left, right, up, down — You will launch your enemies and swipe at them furiously with your blade to net as high of a combo count as possible, which of course will result in a great XP net at the end of the battle. Pressing the B button will launch a small special attack to your nearest enemy. What really matters, is when your blade is fully charged, you can unleash your blade’s true power. Parrying and defending will use up your stamina, so you will have to be cautious and pay attention to your meter at the top of the screen to make sure you don’t overwork your blade. You can carry up to three blades in battle at a time, and when a blade’s stamina runs too low, it will break and your combo will end, throwing you to the ground in which you must swap out one of your other blades. This does not render that blade useless, it must simply then be given time to recharge once again to be put to use.

My absolute highest praise of Muramasa, will hands down be the intense and well, epic, boss battles. Each boss has a completely different strategy and method of attack in which you must proceed accordingly. For example, your best course of action against the battle with the samurai Yukinojyo will be to set your mind to breaking his sword. Doing so will leave him with a low defense where you will want to unleash your blade’s secret weapon (via the C button).

Each blade is more or less the same, slight variations in appearance, and each has their own special attack. There are 108 blades in total in which some can be found throughout the game, but the more powerful ones must be attained via the game’s weapon forging system. The forging system is very refined and done beautifully. You will collect tons and tons of little spirits throughout the game which you will use to fabricate new pieces to add to your arsenal. You will easily find some with special attacks that resonate well with you, but blades quickly can become dated and you will want to seek out stronger weapons as your level up. It’s done very well and became rather addicting for me. If I were to fail at a boss battle, my only assumption would be to scream profanities and then toil away to collect more spirits, because clearly, my weapons were not of my deserving standards.

If you’re a completionist, make it your goal to gather up all of the blades in the game! It’ll make you feel all the more elitist than you already feel (as a completionist). Keep ego stroking to a minimum though, please! Also it is worth mentioning briefly that there is a small but cute cooking element involved via the main menu in which you can purchase recipes and ingredients from peddlers to whip together some useful healing items and such on the go, which is useful since I found that shops are very much spaced out from one another. I made heavy use of this feature. Alcohol can be bought as well, and no, sake bombs are not available at your local tavern.

The game also features a Japanese-only language track, which fits in quite well with the thick of things. The voice acting is very attractive and refreshing to be able to play it in its purest form, given the environment, it makes you feel like you fit right in. The musical elements in the game strongly do nothing short of accentuate and heighten the environment of the game. It panders well to the feudal Japanese setting. The composer, Hitoshi Sakimoto, is a talented one, responsible and regarded for his previous work on titles such as Odin Sphere and even the likes of Final Fantasy XII.

Now more than anything, we like to know what we’re getting out of a game, the real value, before we drop our Washingtons, Jacksons, Lincolns, and Hammys on a game. And I am particularly even more cautious when it comes to Wii games. Well, there are two paths I can send you on depending on your gamer profile. If you like to just play through a game, enjoy it once, and part ways, perhaps even commit to a trade-in, then a playthrough of one character alone might cost your soul almost 10 hours in itself. Which sounds to me like a rental, but if you like to get down and dirty, wipe the sweat off your brow and sit back for hours in your jammies while you play, as many players who enjoy Japanese-themed games tend to be, Muramasa: The Demon Blade will net you countless hours of enjoyment, upwards of 20 full hours. Completing each character’s storyline, toggling the difficulty level for yourself, experiencing what you will discover to be a vast amount of endings, as well as forging all 108 blades will give you plenty worth sticking around for.

Tags: Action, Ignition, Marvelous, Muramasa, Muramasa The Demon Blade, RPG, Vanillaware

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 17th, 2009 at 9:06 pm and is filed under Featured, Reviews, Wii. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.