It's about time I "gave thanks" today and finally fulfilled my promise to the user chosen review. So, I'll start with the Wii side and pick up Muramasa: The Demon Blade. I'm not going to give my typical long-winded sentence that leads to a precursor of how my general review will go, I'll just go flat out and say this game is vastly, incredibly, undeniably over rated purely because it looks good.
So, Muramasa follows two stories and two different characters. There's Kisuke, an amnesic criminal whose being chased for a crime he can't even remember and Momohime, a sword-swinging princess whose been possessed by a dark spirit and forced to carry out its plans. The rest of the plot I couldn't really comprehend with my child-sized brain. You'll get pretty much random cutscene interludes that layout the story, but even then I still couldn't grasp what was happening. It's qute honestly poorly segmented and could definitely be a little more fluent. Still, if you like typical "amnesia and possession" storylines and can grasp the cutscenes, you may have yourself a good romp. Otherwise, the menus are nicely laid out and stuff like that.
The real heart, or lack of heart here, is the gameplay. Muramasa is just not all too fun. The RPG aspects are pretty basic. You'll level up, get some different equipment, etc. You have three blade slots to switch between and only one slot for an additional equippable item. Even as a minimalist's RPG I would've liked less emphasis on blades and more emphasis on equipment. There's also a blade forging mechanic which is relatively deep, but yet again it's just getting another sword (even though the ones you receive in game are already super powerful). As for combat, it's just pretty mindless. Run around, hack baddies, switch blades if yours gets broken. Over and over again. There's a varied amount of enemies, but it really just comes down to slicing and dicing and buttom mashing. An also annoying feature I found was the lack of a single button to jump. Instead, you have to hit up on the respective analog stick you're using. As for level design, it's quite honestly just completely boring. Many times you'll run through a square on the map (since levels are divided into small areas that are respresented as individual squares on the map) and nothing will happen. No jumping to a higher platform, no talking to locals, no fighting. Even when you do fight enemies, you'll just enter a combat sequence, mash them, and run through section after section without anything to do. Boss fights are nicely diverse, but are really just "hack, switch blades, heal, repeat". I forgot to mention that there are two storylines to followIt seems like Vanillaware was attempting to make a "look at the pretty pictures" game than a real, competent Ninja Gaiden-esque game.
The game is really meant to be a show off piece of graphics and a nice display of sound, and it does both of those nicely. The game is entirely nicely drawn 2-D, from backgrounds to characters. It just looks very pretty. I personally think that other 2-D games, like A Boy and His Blob, look better and have better character animations, but that could just be my personal opinion. The sound is a very traditional Japanese music soundtrack, kind of like Okami. I actually do like traditional Japanese music (none of that J-Pop crap), so I enjoyed it. Voice acting is all kept in Japanese, whether you like it or not. I think an English option would have been nice to have for the voice acting, but no cigar.
Overall, Muramasa is a game purely sold on style that shuffles core gameplay mechanics under the carpet. While it's a feast for the eyes and has a pretty nice soundtrack, the core gameplay is quite honestly weak, repetitive, and boring. The levels are barren, the fights are nothing but glorified button mashing, and the RPG aspects aren't impressive. It has some nice boss battles, but the game can't be saved purely on that. Game developers really need to make a game that's more flash than flair, and Muramasa is a shining example of why.
Presentation: The story isn't exactly presented well and the plots, while decently entertaining, can be hard to follow. Menus are nicely laid out. 6/10
Graphics: Impressively drawn 2-D art work all the way through. No slowdown or anything when there's a lot of enemies on screen is impressive. I think that the animation here isn't as good as A Boy and His Blob, but that's just nitpicking. 9/10
Audio: A nice traditional Japanese soundtrack blends with the impressive visuals. The Japanese voice acting is preserved in the NTSC/PAL transition, which helps authenticity, although an English option would be nice. Other hacking and slashing sounds are nice. 8.5/10
Gameplay: Flat out weak. Lots of barren, useless sections of levels segmented by generic hacking and slashing fighting. There's practically no diversity from level to level. RPG aspects are pretty minimalist, which can be good, although an emphasis on more upgradeable armor instead of blades could have been used to great success. The blade forging mechanic is cool, but you'll already receive a new and super powerful blade each level. Boss fights are fun, but it doesn't help offset the boring, empty levels and repetitive combat. 4/10
Lasting Appeal: There's two different stories to go through and each will take a decent amount of time to finish. There's also additional modes, but each of them are essentially just the story mode with slightly different tweaks. Even with all this, the boredom of empty levels and generic combat won't keep you hooked for long. 6/10
Overall: 5.5/10
So, Muramasa follows two stories and two different characters. There's Kisuke, an amnesic criminal whose being chased for a crime he can't even remember and Momohime, a sword-swinging princess whose been possessed by a dark spirit and forced to carry out its plans. The rest of the plot I couldn't really comprehend with my child-sized brain. You'll get pretty much random cutscene interludes that layout the story, but even then I still couldn't grasp what was happening. It's qute honestly poorly segmented and could definitely be a little more fluent. Still, if you like typical "amnesia and possession" storylines and can grasp the cutscenes, you may have yourself a good romp. Otherwise, the menus are nicely laid out and stuff like that.
The real heart, or lack of heart here, is the gameplay. Muramasa is just not all too fun. The RPG aspects are pretty basic. You'll level up, get some different equipment, etc. You have three blade slots to switch between and only one slot for an additional equippable item. Even as a minimalist's RPG I would've liked less emphasis on blades and more emphasis on equipment. There's also a blade forging mechanic which is relatively deep, but yet again it's just getting another sword (even though the ones you receive in game are already super powerful). As for combat, it's just pretty mindless. Run around, hack baddies, switch blades if yours gets broken. Over and over again. There's a varied amount of enemies, but it really just comes down to slicing and dicing and buttom mashing. An also annoying feature I found was the lack of a single button to jump. Instead, you have to hit up on the respective analog stick you're using. As for level design, it's quite honestly just completely boring. Many times you'll run through a square on the map (since levels are divided into small areas that are respresented as individual squares on the map) and nothing will happen. No jumping to a higher platform, no talking to locals, no fighting. Even when you do fight enemies, you'll just enter a combat sequence, mash them, and run through section after section without anything to do. Boss fights are nicely diverse, but are really just "hack, switch blades, heal, repeat". I forgot to mention that there are two storylines to followIt seems like Vanillaware was attempting to make a "look at the pretty pictures" game than a real, competent Ninja Gaiden-esque game.
The game is really meant to be a show off piece of graphics and a nice display of sound, and it does both of those nicely. The game is entirely nicely drawn 2-D, from backgrounds to characters. It just looks very pretty. I personally think that other 2-D games, like A Boy and His Blob, look better and have better character animations, but that could just be my personal opinion. The sound is a very traditional Japanese music soundtrack, kind of like Okami. I actually do like traditional Japanese music (none of that J-Pop crap), so I enjoyed it. Voice acting is all kept in Japanese, whether you like it or not. I think an English option would have been nice to have for the voice acting, but no cigar.
Overall, Muramasa is a game purely sold on style that shuffles core gameplay mechanics under the carpet. While it's a feast for the eyes and has a pretty nice soundtrack, the core gameplay is quite honestly weak, repetitive, and boring. The levels are barren, the fights are nothing but glorified button mashing, and the RPG aspects aren't impressive. It has some nice boss battles, but the game can't be saved purely on that. Game developers really need to make a game that's more flash than flair, and Muramasa is a shining example of why.
Presentation: The story isn't exactly presented well and the plots, while decently entertaining, can be hard to follow. Menus are nicely laid out. 6/10
Graphics: Impressively drawn 2-D art work all the way through. No slowdown or anything when there's a lot of enemies on screen is impressive. I think that the animation here isn't as good as A Boy and His Blob, but that's just nitpicking. 9/10
Audio: A nice traditional Japanese soundtrack blends with the impressive visuals. The Japanese voice acting is preserved in the NTSC/PAL transition, which helps authenticity, although an English option would be nice. Other hacking and slashing sounds are nice. 8.5/10
Gameplay: Flat out weak. Lots of barren, useless sections of levels segmented by generic hacking and slashing fighting. There's practically no diversity from level to level. RPG aspects are pretty minimalist, which can be good, although an emphasis on more upgradeable armor instead of blades could have been used to great success. The blade forging mechanic is cool, but you'll already receive a new and super powerful blade each level. Boss fights are fun, but it doesn't help offset the boring, empty levels and repetitive combat. 4/10
Lasting Appeal: There's two different stories to go through and each will take a decent amount of time to finish. There's also additional modes, but each of them are essentially just the story mode with slightly different tweaks. Even with all this, the boredom of empty levels and generic combat won't keep you hooked for long. 6/10
Overall: 5.5/10
