Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Muramasa: The Demon Blade | Review


Synopsis: Boasting such rewards as best Wii game, best artistic design, best action game, and best platformer, Muramasa: The Demon Blade is Vanilla Ware’s recent title to be launched exclusively on the Wii. The graphics and background environments have all been hand drawn and beautifully executed to stimulate while revolutionizing the new side scroller. In Muramasa, the player takes on the role of either Kisuke or Momohime, which each have their own separate quests to gather the demon blades. Players are able to use the Wiimote and nunchuk, Gamecube controller, or the classic controller to play through this innovative entry to the Wii’s library.

Praise: Muramasa sticks to what it did so great in Okami, which was adding RPG elements to a solid action title. However in Muramasa, Vanilla Ware decided to pay homage to the old school 2D platformer. With a hundred and twenty different swords to seek out, each with different strengths and special attacks, equipable items and the ability to forge weapons, so it is hard not to go back through the map and seek out challenges that you could not try on the first pass, due to not having a strong enough demon blade. The simplistic controls of the game make it easy to get into, and the leveling up to get the next, stronger sword, along with striving to get high number hit combos on top of the beautiful artistic backgrounds make it hard to put down...


Gripes: The repetitiveness is probably the only thing that hurts the gameplay of this title. The reason of this is that you play through the map and come across barricades that you are unable to pass through until you conquer the next boss and get the ability to take down the color specific barricade. After you defeat said boss, you then get the stronger blade and have to go back through the entire level and fight through the random battle encounters to take down the next barricade to start the process over again.

In retrospect, Muramasa: The Demon Blade is a fun game that I will definitely keep going back to play. There is a lot of replay value to the title to keep you coming back for more. After playing through with Kisuke, I immediately started on the harder difficulty level with Momohime, to begin the journey over again. Well done Vanilla Ware, I wouldn’t have expected anything less from you.

Mashbuttons.com gives Muramasa: The Demon Blade a 9 out of 10.

Muramasa: The Demon Blade is available now for the Nintendo Wii.

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