Let’s go ahead and take care of the obvious. If you know anything about this game, you know that it is gorgeous, probably the best looking game to come out on Wii since Wario Land: Shake It last year. Muramasa blends elements of ancient Japanese art with modern anime to create an amazingly beautiful game to look at. The amount of detail in the game is staggering. There are layer upon layer of, well, layers that come together to create an amazing sense of motion. Elements in the foreground move very quickly as your characters move and they move slower and slower with every level of depth until fading off into the horizon. The game also uses many newer concepts such as fish eye lenses and bloom lighting to add even more depth to the game. The only thing that could have made this game better looking would be a higher resolution, which the Wii just isn’t capable of. This really is almost a perfect work of art in motion. The soundtrack to the game also blends together ambient Japanese music with more modern Japanese rock that fit perfectly with the action going on screen and you will find is just very enjoyable to listen to.
Muramasa: the Demon Blade combines two separate campaigns that do not overlap very much to tell the story of Momohime, a feudal Japanese princess who has been possessed by the soul of a skilled swordsman, and Kisuke, a soldier who has amnesia. Both stories take place on opposite ends of the world map and work their way towards the middle where eventually they overlap somewhat. The beauty of the campaigns come not in their simplicity, but the amount of complexity that comes out of that simplicity. The game play comes in the form of a very small number of buttons. The analog stick or D-pad, depending on your preferred method of control, is used for jumping. There is an attack button, a special attack button and a button that you can use to switch your swords on the fly. That’s basically it. With those 4 inputs you have a number of different attacks that can be performed based on the combination of buttons used. These are all explained in a detailed tutorial that takes about 5 minutes to complete. After that, you are thrust straight into the action with no story to set things up. The story is told throughout the game by encounters with a large number of NPC’s and recurring characters, all of which are fully voiced in the original Japanese. That design choice further immerses you into the world of Muramasa and the fact that you have to read subtitles makes you feel like you’re watching a Japanese martial arts movie.
The martial arts movie feel is also a huge part of the design of this game. The characters are very fast and have the usual crouched forward, running on the toes movement that you would expect ninjas to have, and they move very fast. Muramasa is not a slow game by any means. Everything you do is fast and it can take a bit of getting used to. At no point, aside from a few story moments do the characters move at anything but a run and that is a good thing because there is a lot of backtracking that you will have to do. The game takes that element from the Metroid series, but thankfully gives you a very detailed map that is easy to follow and you’ll use it, often. You do have the choice of removing the map from the screen, having a small version of it or blowing it up to full screen with the press of a button. There are a number of times throughout your play where you’ll find yourself running through 10-20 screens you just cleared out and you’ll thank the developers that you move very quickly, or that could have gotten very tedious, very quickly. These backtracking moments, though, really give you a chance to take in the beauty that is Muramasa. 
The combat is very typical of old 2-D brawlers. During your run through the environment exclamation points will pop up on the screen and you’ll be locked into a small area where a number of enemies will come at you, many times up to a dozen at a time. These battles, do not take very long, most ending within less than 30 seconds. It provides a great stop and go feeling where you go from simple platforming to hardcore action and back to platforming quickly and it happens at nearly the perfect moment every time. During these battles you’ll have to keep an eye on your sword meter because if your sword runs out of soul power it will break and you’ll be defenseless. To combat this you can carry up to three swords at a time that can be switched on the fly, many times giving you a special attack that will hit every enemy on the screen.
The boss battles are the best part of this game. All of the bosses are unique and amazingly detailed. They are also very reminiscent of old 2-D shooters where the boss fills most of the screen and you have to use all the abilities at your disposal to dodge their attacks and counter at the right moment. These battles can also be very challenging taking up to 15 minutes to complete if you don’t die during the battle. Thankfully, if you do die there was probably a save point outside the boss area and they are scattered pretty liberally through the entire world, meaning you won’t have to replay much if you die. Muramasa also uses light RPG elements to give a bit more depth to the play. Battles give you experience points that you can use to level up the two main characters. There is also a forging element where you can create new swords, up to 108 in total. This requires the use of souls collected throughout the levels and gained through eating food at shops in the many cities. You can also collect ingredients and cookbooks that you can use to create recipes that can regain health and there is a large inventory of items that you can use to aid you in battle.
Final Score: 5/5 Excellent
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