Ever go to a Japanese restaurant and see those fancy oil paintings on the wall? In Muramasa, the traditional art of Edo era Japan comes to life in the form of a 2D side-scrolling action game with a tinge of RPG elements.
If you’re familiar with Vanillaware’s past endeavors such as Princess Crown or Odin Sphere, then the concept of Muramasa should come as no surprise. You pick between Monohime and Kisuke and travel around Japan killing things and forging new weapons.
The game is relatively simple. Each character has a unique storyline and unique bosses. All you do in Muramasa is go from screen to screen fighting varying amounts of enemies and collecting points to aid in creating new weapons.
Swords are the name of the game. While previous games took more of a fantasy action-RPG approach, Muramasa in turn puts the action before the roleplaying elements. You can hack and slash your way through each mission, instead of worrying about spells and the like.
Muramasa isn’t just some cheap attempt to capture an American audience’s infatuation with Japanese culture. It’s deeper than that. It’s not just an art style, the whole game is homage to the ancient Japanese Edo period. While I’m not wholly familiar with Japanese folklore, I have noticed there is plenty of it to be seen. And not in the fish-out-of-water style that Shin Megami Tensei does it. This is the real deal.
The cooking system isn’t complicated, it’s there more for show. You can buy ingredients, and it will show the food being made. No, there’s no “potions” in this game. For the most part, it’s all authentic Japanese food. You can even go to in-game restuarants, and the screen shows the dishes prepared.
Previous efforts such as Odin Sphere held a very similar torch to the likes of Muramasa. While the games are similar, this isn’t simply a case of mindlessly approving a sequel based on the original. Neither is this a case of preferring Norse mythology to that of Japanese.
Muramasa feels more spot-on than any other game in this genre I’ve played. It feels complete. Everything about it comes together to make a great package.
One of the only problems with Muramasa seems to be its leveling up system. In a manner of speaking, the enemies will level up with you as you progress through the story. If you go back to old cities, however, the battles will be easier. In essence, it seems like power-leveling only does much good in regards to boss battles and bonus fights. I suppose I can live with that, but the old-school gamer in me was expecting leveling up to mean a bit more than it does in Muramasa.
