Muramasa: The Demon Blade: Positives
There’s an old axiom that the best things in life are free. This is complete crap because everything comes at a cost, be it financial, emotional, physical or temporal. However, the general idea is sometimes simplicity is better than complexity. Cuddling on the couch with someone you share love with can be infinitely better than spending a day at the Playboy Mansion. A simple game of hide and seek with a toddler can be more enjoyable than a game of soccer or football with people your age, especially if it’s your child you are playing with.
Video games can work the same way. In fact this is one of the reasons a lot of older players complain about the good old days. By trying to stuff your game with tons of additional content and things to do you open the door for more flaws and problems. With the budget spent on a game like Rogue Warrior Rebellion could have developed an exceptional 2-D downloadable adventure. Chances are it would have not only been better, but sold better as well.
The greatest strength of Muramasa: The Demon Blade is its simplicity. While its greatest flaw is in how long it drags that simplicity out, it doesn’t stop the game from being easy to pick up and play. If you ever find yourself taking a break from it you can easily start right where you left off with little adjustment time. Everything will click right back into place instinctively.
The game revolves around the simple act of killing guys with swords. To forge new and more powerful blades you collect souls. Items also play a vital role in that they can not only restore health but also grant you spirit, another ingredient required for the forging of weapons. There are two base models of sword, one which focuses on quick cobra-style strikes while the other is more of a bludgeoning gorilla. You either deal small bits of damage in quick and rapid succession or clumsily deal it in one long swing that enemies can see a mile coming.
No matter which blade you choose there are enough shared abilities and styles that combat doesn’t change much. I’d go so far as describing the combat as being elegant. It takes little skill to perform extended combinations of attacks, and the more comfortable you get the more you dance across the screen. This isn’t to say that the game is easy. You’ll have to do your best dodging attacks and making sure the blades never run out stamina deflecting blows. Once the stamina is gone the blade is broken, leaving the player vulnerable until they can switch out to one of their other two weapons. Constantly changing blades becomes a major part of gameplay, especially in desperate efforts of crowd control.
As I stated in the Negatives entry, the length of the game is tedious. One can also view the collection of blades and attempts to get all the endings as tedious as well. However, it’s a manner of pointless grinding that gives cause to return to the game. Instead of restarting from the beginning and grinding through the least challenging areas the player can load a game up and instantly head for the more challenging sections.
While the game lacks a “quick play†option there is still a high level of replayability. Load up an old save, drop in to play previous levels or quick travel to one of the many challenges, and face off against foes. If it ever becomes too easy then simply switch over to the higher difficulty (or start a new game on the harder difficulty).
The combat is enjoyable enough that you don’t want to skip battles even when you’re trying to rush through the story. The number of repeated screens passing by will become tiresome, certainly, but the fights within them will not. The number of swords to forge and endings merely provide reason to return and play the game again and again.
I wouldn’t recommend the game for any higher a price than $30. It’s certainly a solid title, though. Despite the simplicity there is a lot of reason to go back and play it more, just as the old arcade games like Contra and Ninja Turtles never get old. Muramasa: The Demon Blade is a good title, and if you ever need a game you’d like to just pick up and play without much mental strain then it’s perfect.
