Muramasa: The Demon Blade has been one of my most highly anticipated games for some time now. As someone who loved Odin's Sphere art style, but wasn't a huge fan of the actual gameplay, I was very interested to see what the company's follow-up game would be like. As it turns out, their follow-up is a side-scrolling action adventure game set in feudal era Japan, and it has one of the best and most stunning art styles I've ever seen in a videogame before.

Ooh and Aah

Muramasa is split between two adventurers: Momohime and Kisuke. Momohime's story follows the young maiden, who during an attack by a powerful warrior, found her soul kicked out of her own body and replaced by the evil warrior hell-bent on acquiring the body of a master swordsman. In order to switch to a new body, however, the evil spirit needs a special sword, and so Momohime's body unwilling finds itself being used. The story of Kisuke, meanwhile, follows the story of a young ninja with amnesia and who is hounded by the clan he once was a part of before something went down.

The story of Muramasa isn't half bad, but it's not the most engaging story I've ever been witness to either in a videogame; mostly the story serves as a way to advance the characters and move them to a new gorgeous level scheme. The game's story almost exclusively takes place before and after boss battles. Upon entering a special shrine to engage the boss, you'll be treated to an in-game cutscene, walk a bit to talk to people, fight and defeat the boss, then get another cutscene. Beyond the main plight of the characters, however, I actually had a fairly hard time following what was happening. I know Momohime is after a blade, but what's this about a wedding and betrayal. I'm not sure I fully understand it. Each story takes roughly 6-8 hours (depending on the difficulty), so there is a decent sized game to really delve into.

The game features two difficulty levels to start with, which most people will experience in the following way: 1) play one character's story on the easiest difficulty, and then 2) play the second character's story on the higher difficulty to see what changes. Going from the relatively easy difficulty to the next one up is quite a change, as you won't just see more powerful enemies earlier in the adventure, but they pack more of a wallop too. Whereas you could pretty much just swing and fully attack at all times during the easy mode, you'll have to do a lot more dodging, blocking, and then following up with your own attacks to succeed in the harder mode. Luckily, if you die, you've got infinite continues and spawn right where you left off, though needing to fight all the enemies you lost to on the last try.

Papa Smurf?

Levels are presented as a series of scenes hooked together by the far ends of each set. You won't necessarily fight in every new scene you come across, but you will fight throughout many of them. When you stumble upon an enemy, the game will momentarily pause as it thrusts you into combat, where you'll then hack and slash your way to victory. Once all the foes are defeated you're rewarded experience and money based on how you did. You then continue following the arrows on the map to reach your next destination, its boss fight, and then continuing the process over again until the game is complete. The game's map is completely left to right scrolling and somewhat of a simplistic maze. Your map, for instance, will tell you that your destination is either left or right of your current spot, but not how high or low. High and low branches are presented as "Go" markers in the middle of the scenes instead of the far sides.

Muramasa is a Wii game that's completely waggle free. You don't manually swing your remote in order to perform blade slices or flick the nunchuk to sheath your blade. Instead, the A-button is used for attacks - in conjunction with presses of the control stick to perform various uppercuts and sweeps – and blocks, while the B-button unleashes the special skills of the various blades and the C-button switches between weapons. Otherwise, you use the directional pad to move between items and use them, but beyond that there's nothing else. The controls are easy to learn, but hard to master. When you place the controls in the hands of a skilled player, it's a dazzlingly acrobatic spectacle as they dispatch enemies with wild flourishes and skillful maneuvering.

Though it's an action game first and foremost, there are several RPGs elements in play as well. First up, there's a crafting/cooking system, which you can use to make healing items you'll need in combat. Also, as you fight enemies and earn experience, you'll raise your level and stats, such as increasing the amount of health points at your disposal. You can also improve yourself by equipping accessories, which can do such things as raise vitality or resists ailments like burns and poisons. The main way you'll increase your power is by using Muramasa, a legendary maker of swords, who will forge more powerful blades for you as you present to him the needed spirits and souls to fill his quota. You can't just grab any sword you want whenever, however, as you must advance down character branching sword paths in order to forge specific blades you're yearning for.

Players can wield three blades at once, which is a huge part of Muramasa's gameplay. Besides each blade having its own visual look, they also have their own attack strengths, vitalities, and special moves that are activated by pressing the B-button. As you use the swords to block incoming attacks and unleash special moves, the vitality of the blade will wear down until it eventually breaks. Once the blade has broken, you need to switch off to one of your two remaining blades. All is not lost, however, because these are all special blades forged by Muramasa himself, which means that they automatically heal themselves over time just by keeping them in their sheaths. The problem is if you block too much and have weaker swords, it's entirely possible to find yourself weaponless, and unable to do any damage or protect yourself from bad guys till one of them fully heals itself.

Bamboo Brawl

Graphically speaking, Muramasa is one of the prettiest games I've ever seen, and has one of the most luscious and distinct visual stylings of any game since perhaps the original release of Okami; it's like playing a painting. Background environments range from open fields of swaying wheat to the branches of trees high up in the air to bamboo forests and cherry blossoms. Most of the environments even have little touches, which don't come into play unless you're battling, and even then it's possible to miss them. If you battle among hanging lanterns, for instance, a blade slice can very well send one crashing to the ground. As you battle ninjas and various demons amongst the bamboo, you'll cleave stalks in half and send them sliding to the ground. The game recycles a lot of enemies, characters, and level appearances, but mostly the idea works, as you're always getting to explore some new facet of the game's graphics you didn't see before. The game also sounds amazing, as it features a lovely Asian score, mixed with tons of great sound effects, and a very solid Japanese speaking vocal cast that brings to life the emotions of the characters.

Muramasa: The Demon Blade is not only easily the best-looking Wii game to date, but it's one of my favorite playing too. You've got a moderately sized adventure, rock solid high-octane action gameplay, and the most stunning game you're likely to see for some time. The game recycles a lot of ideas and is pretty repetitious from beginning to end, but otherwise it's a great game and one definitely deserving of attention.

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