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[Spoiler Free] Muramasa: The Demon Blade Review
Topic Started: Sep 22 2009, 01:51 PM (171 Views)
CopShadowGuy Sep 22 2009, 01:51 PM Post #1
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The Night

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Yes, I'm making a review for a game! Why? Because I bought this game after seeing a few screen shots and a video and think it's pretty great. The game wasn't very well publicized in America and I hope to bring this game to some or your attention. It was present at E3, and when I bought the game, it had a sticker on the cellophane wrapping that read "Best Wii Game of E3" on it, so that has to mean something.

Basic Plot: The game is divided into two stories. In each story, you play as either the girl, Momohime, or the guy, Kisuke. Momohime is a girl who has been possessed by another spirit (that little green thing by her on the box) that seeks to obtain a certain sword for certain reasons. Kisuke is a guy who has forgotten who he is. Both characters venture across an old Japanese landscape trying to reach their individual goals. Both of their stories overlap slightly. You'll run into characters from the other story every now and then.

Gameplay: Here's where it gets pretty fun. The game is a 2d side scrolling hack n' slash. It has mild RPG elements in the game (XP and levels). As you level up, you can get stronger swords. There are long swords and blades. Blades are faster and good for ground combat while long swords tend to be slower and better for aerial combat. All swords have a soul meter. Each sword has a special ability that decreases its soul meter by some amount. You are able to carry 3 swords with you at any time. If you use your sword too much to block an attack, its soul meter decreases to 0 and it breaks and you must return it to its sheath while it regenerates. If you sheath the sword before it breaks, it regenerates faster.

Both characters have ground and air combos for attacking. They both also have parrying attacks and rolling dodges for defense.

Battles are fast paced and exciting. Depending on how well you do in battle, you gain more XP and level faster.

The game has 2 difficulty modes (and one extra challenge mode), muso (easy) and shura (hard). On hard mode, the enemies abilities scale up to your current level, so stronger swords are more necessary.

Graphics:
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The graphics are quite stylistic. You move your character through settings like beaches, bamboo forests, rice fields, cities, and country roads, The whole game almost looks like a mix between flash animation and oil paints. Both of those screenshots are from the Japanese version. Of course this is all English in the US verion.

Audio: The music ranges from "wow this is great" to "this sounds kinda weird" (opinion there). It is all Japanese-styled music as that is where the game takes place. All dialogue is in Japanese with English subtitles as well. As someone who knows a decent amount of Japanese, I can say the subtitles aren't very accurate. That may be a poor choice of words...the subtitles give you the gist of what is said, but they omit many things said. Sound effects are well done as well.

Here is one of my favorite tracks from the game that just happens to be on Youtube as well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYIpQ6S5ZpM
This track is about as techno-y as the music in the game gets but you can still hear the traditional Japanese influence in the music.

Controls: You have 3 control options: Remote + Nunchuck, Classic Controller, GameCube Controller. I use the Remote + Nunchuck and the buttons are all mapped out pretty well. One thing I've had a huge problem with is moving with the control stick (it is like this on all controllers). All movement is done with the stick, that includes jumping and rolling. I have tap jump turned off in Smash Bros., so I'm not so used to pressing up to jump. It makes precision jumping quite difficult. Other than that, attacks (normal and special) are easy to perform.

Overall Rating: Arbitrary Number/Slightly Higher Arbitrary Number. Forget the number rating. If you like what you read and saw, I'd suggest picking this game up. It seems to be a rare gem for the Wii.
GET AGAINST THE TREE!!!
 
CopShadowGuy Oct 9 2009, 07:06 PM Post #2
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The Night

 First post edited to now have a music sample.
GET AGAINST THE TREE!!!
 
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