Muramasa is a Vanillaware game. Its not bad, the combat is fun but like all Vanillaware games there are huge flaws. The first and biggest flaw is that there is basically no story. You start in the middle of nowhere where stuff has already happened and theres no conclusion at all. This game is similar to Odin Sphere but the combat is greatly improved. The story however is much weaker. There are two characters you can play as, Momohime or Kisuke, and it takes place in the feudal Japan era. It has so much potential but they blew it.
Like other Vanillaware games, the graphics are great. Since this one is on the Wii its much better than the PS2 titles. Character designs are decently done, some are a little stupid like Momohime is basically running around with no pants and the fox girl Kongiku on Momohime's path has breasts almost bursting out of her clothes. The background is nicely done but there is a minor flaw. Sometimes you can't tell what is in the background and what is in the foreground. Sometimes you're not really sure what you can step on and what you can't. For a platforming game this can be annoying. But the maps almost all use the same background for laziness so once you see it once you won't get that problem again.
Combat is amazingly fun. Its fluid and its fast paced. Its a side scrolling brawler with a variety of combos and special skills based on the sword you picked. There is a normal blade which is fast and the combos are usually fast mini hits. The long blade is slower but it does multiple mini hits in a single swing. The long blade has a bug however that I abused a bit. If you jump in the air and use a long sword combo you have this gravitational pull when you hit something that pulls them towards you even if the enemy is in the air behind you. When you do this they cannot perform any action and with a long blade you can chain about 4-5 combos in the air before you finally reach the ground. Doing so on enemies that can leap in the air can combo upwards to 200-300 hits and kill them before you reach the ground.
However fun the combat is the difficulty is incredibly easy. Most monsters you can just spam your A button and kill them all. Monster lairs and Bosses provide a bit of a challenge but they are not that difficult either. When you first start a game it it lets you pick between two difficulties, Muso for people who suck horribly at gaming, or Shura the normal mode for average players. Once you beat either story once on Shura mode Shigurui mode is enabled. HOWEVER! You must start a brand new game instead of starting on new game+ which is continuing your story with the second character. The game lets you play either character at either time. You can play them both at once or finish one first. It is entirely up to you. Note that both characters can use swords unlocked by either character so its beneficial to play both at once. You may not have the amount of souls needed though. This game also pulls the same bullshit as other Vanillaware games though. To get the second ending of either character you must first complete both character's first ending and equip a secret sword you get after getting both of the first endings then beating the respective final bosses. To get the true ending you must equip the secret sword after getting both secondary endings then beating the respective final bosses. A pain in the fucking ass.
The characters are entertaining and you really want to get to know them a bit better but it never really expands on it. Momohime's route you're a princess whose spirit was forced out of her own body by a criminal called Junkuro. Who is he? What is he trying to acomplish? Nothing really is explained. All you know is he knows the Obouro style sword fighting. To keep it for himself he killed his master and all the other disciples. He's a badass who takes no shit from no one and travels to hell and heaven to get a sword back. Along the way you hear Momohime whine at every possible stop about how evil he is being. You get a few sentences of what happened such as Momohime's family being killed and overthrown, some guy who appears for like 2 minutes and gets his ass kicked by Junkuro, random monk who tries so hard to punish Junkuro and then gets a epiphany at the end of the game and turns "good" and travels around the land with Momohime following him because of Junkuro's fucking sacrifice to save Momohime.
The story is short. I finished Momohime's route in a little over 6 hours. Thats pathetically short especially with me dicking around in monster lairs, hot springs, and engaging in food porn every chance I got. I also left the game on for long periods of time while I did other shit. Theres more hidden content after you beat both stories but still. Another thing in this game is the hot springs. How fucking common are hot springs in Japan? Every 10 maps you see a new hot spring and even after beating a boss you all get into the hot spring together. You see a barely naked Momohime walking around. She looks like shes 12 for fucks sake. Its a free heal and sometimes you get to talk to people. Then theres the food porn. You can go into restaurants and order food and it will be placed on the table in front of you. You have to click A repeatedly to eat the item. It eats it bite by bite and Momohime will keep commenting on how nice the food is, etc etc. Cooking isn't much different. Sometimes I wanna bake a bunch of potatoes for the boss and its taking fucking forever because you have to dig a hole place the potato in the hole and cover it with leaves then set it on fire then pull it out. FOR EACH INDIVIDUAL POTATO. There no auto cook, you have to keep hitting the A button. It was cool seeing it for the first time but seeing it time after time is tedious.
This is it for now.
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