The Muramasa is hardly a new concept in gaming. In Japanese folklore, the Muramasa blade is the evil counterpart to the pure Masamune, and both have featured prominently in JRPGs. Muramasa: The Demon Blade presents two intertwining stories of a possessed Princess, Momohime, and an amnesiac Samurai, Kisuke. While each has their mysteries, they revolve around the pursuit of various demonic blades through out the game’s world. Sometimes, the pursuit is for a good cause, other times not. The game’s structure, limited dialogue and traditional Japanese style makes the telling of the narrative a little stilted, but the stories tend to come together very nicely by the game’s end and each character has three endings each, for a total of six.
Where was he keeping that black stuff?
What makes Muramasa truly unique today wouldn’t have made it unique in yesteryear. Muramasa is a 2D side-scrolling action game fused with RPG elements. And it’s the 2D visuals that are the most exquisite aspect of the game. So much so that it’s hard to think of any fully 2D game that looks better. It may not be in HD, but it’s an incredible spectacle to behold. The backgrounds are all hand drawn and some have a few cute environmental effects in battle. Animation is top notch, the colour palette unlike anything you’ll see in a 3D game and the art style is the work of centuries of tradition. It’s a slight downer that there isn’t a huge variety in backgrounds and models, while the major disappointment is that the PAL conversion is terrible and bordered. The music is noticeably traditional Japanese in flavour and distinct from most other games, while the dialogue is rather bland, you don’t have to listen to any dodgy dubbing jobs.
Muramasa plays a lot like a 2D fighting game, though while it’s very easy to pick up and play, it has an intricate and fair combat system. At the core, there isn’t much difference between Momohime or Kisuke. In fact, but they’re pretty much the same. Thankfully though, the game doesn’t lose too much from it. Each story is divided into eight acts, and you fight your way through each of the game’s regions till the end boss of each act. Along the way, you’ll face random battles, forks in the road, items to find and some minor town exploring. While all the RPG elements are very simplistic in nature, the fact that they don’t take long makes the game compelling to play as you get to places quickly and battles don’t last long. This allows the game flows well and never seems to lose pace.
The battle system is purely action based and apart from boss battles and challenges, battles are generally short and sweet. Strictly, you only have one attack button, and one for your ‘Secret Arts’, which are specific to the sword that you have equipped. So, while you can get away with being a button masher, players really lose out for not learning the system, for what type of movement follows your current action. So how to lengthen your juggle, or how to get the enemy while they’re on the ground. To the game’s detriment, the easy mode, Muso, allows you to get away without learning the system, but real players will get their fix in the hard mode, Shura.
Wipe yourself off. Cos you dead!
You can have three swords equipped at once, and for a good reason. As you play, your swords will break but apparently, Muramasa blades fix themselves while sheathed from defeating enemies and receiving soul power. This gives the game a little bit of a management aspect and another attack option with the ‘quick draw’. That and there are essentially two types of swords, long and short, that handle slightly differently. Normal battles generally take less than 30 seconds but boss battles are massive with multiple health bars and a really enjoyable challenge, especially on hard. Overall though, there isn’t much depth in the system and there isn’t really any progression to it, so you won’t be learning any new moves. Despite this and the lack of a dedicated block button, it’s one of the fairest and balanced fighting systems around. This is namely because if you’re good and skilful enough, you can get through the game unscathed.
There are some interesting little systems at play in Muramasa. Progress is dictated not only by your level, but the swords that you earn and forge. Beating bosses will get you swords that can destroy the barriers that block your paths. Some barriers are not destructible till you finish the game, so it gives some replay value. Furthermore, forging swords is necessary to combat stronger enemies but can only be done with Souls and Spirit. Souls are acquired through defeating enemies, but Spirit can only acquired through consuming items and the food you can cook. In turn, you can only cook whatever you’ve found a recipe for. So, sometimes you’ll eat only to make sure you’ve got enough Spirit power to keep forging swords.
Each story will only take around six to eight hours, depending on how much you explore. However, with the three endings for each character, the additional areas to explore (admittedly, they’re the opposite character’s bosses) and over 100 swords to collect, you could easily push the play time to over 20 hours. So while it may not be as long as your conventional RPG, the fact that it flows very well and is easy to access helps make up for this. So most people will be able to play through and complete the game.
It would be nice to have more games that look like this.
Probably the worst part of Muramasa is the amount of backtracking that you have to do. Given the 2D structure, there are too many instances of one path in and one out, which makes the game feel artificially lengthened. It’s a real shame because the rest of the game flows really well. In terms of level progression, your enemies seem to always go up with you, so you rarely feel ahead of the curve, regardless of how much you level up. And finally, both the stories feel the same, as the world overall has very few changes to it. The same person in the same spot will still feed you similar lines. The only discernable change is whether they were hitting on you as Momohime or offering you a drink as Kisuke.
There aren’t a lot of games like Muramasa: The Demon Blade around at the moment, but that doesn’t mean it’s good because of that. It’s a fast-paced action RPG with a simple but balanced combat system and two interestingly intertwined stories. Not to mention, it’s played out on a palette straight from the finest hand drawn animations, it's a game that looks just as good as it's screens and has a beautiful art style inspired by tradition. Sure, the game is late, relies on artificial lengthening, requires a lot of effort to get past the lack of variety and has a poor PAL conversion. However, anyone looking for something different and beautiful, should give Muramasa a look. If you were sold at the screens, this is a game for you.
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