It's been a while since I had such mixed feelings about a video game. That's not to say the game is bad, but it it seems rife with things that I would have done differently (or demanded someone else do differently while sipping a fine brandy and lounging in a big leather chair).

The best thing about the game is the graphics. Not only does it properly support 480p so it doesn't look like vertically-letterboxed ass on my HDTV, but it legitimately looks good doing it. I'm sure it would look better in HD (everything looks better in native HD), but I won't penalize the game for what might have been. The getting into the game is easy and there's the linger “just one more boss” feeling even when you're an hour past when you'd like to get to bed.

On the other hand, I found the interface to be awkwardly tuned. The slightest touch of the control stick up or down will cause you to jump or duck and the stick must be returned to a vertically neutral position before the action registers again. More than once I died because I had the stick a fraction of a degree up and my character refused to jump or roll. Similar issues can be found with the sequence of button and direction holds required for some of the different moves; in short, I approve of the arsenal but not the triggers to fire it. Block and attack are mapped to the same button, attacking can reflect projectiles and blocking them reduces your sword's soul meter (basically HP for the sword). Several times, I had swords eaten away because the game couldn't tell that I meant A: Attack and not A: Block and once blocking, the recovery time stuck me there blocking a torrent of projectiles until the sword broke.



Some tasks seem to be intentionally annoying. Cooking takes no less than half a dozen button presses just to use a healing item (one to select, one to take the lid off the pot, several to eat, one to replace the lid, one to reflect on your fucking meal, and one last press to get out of that tedious bullshit), and using anything from your inventory automatically kicks you back to the game. Since you can just pause the game again immediately, it serves no purpose other than making you run through menus again.

The combat is pretty weak, and I had quite the chuckle when I skimmed GameFAQ's message board and saw users talking about BnB combos. For those unfamiliar with the term, it's short for “bread 'n' butter”; they are standby combos for reliable execution and damage. Comedy gold, as well, seeing as this involves mashing A and holding forward. There really doesn't seem to be any other combo. There are 108 swords but they come in two types, so you have two shallow sets of moves with no variation other than “blade” or “long blade”. You also gain new swords with increasing attack power fast enough that it's difficult to really gain any affinity for the secret arts that differentiate one sword from another. I read in another review (Joystiq's, I think) that it was like a 2D Devil May Cry. This is true, if you consider a Devil May Cry made so lacking in depth that it appears to be two dimensional.

After finishing the game with both characters and going back for several of the post-game white barrier caves and paths, I can't imagine how this was supposed to be fun or interesting. For starters, there's no indicator to tell the player which caves have been cleared and which haven't, and no label until you go in. Only one of them has held a unique boss instead of fight X number of Y enemy, and ultimately, the best I'm going to get out of it is the option to replay the final boss fight with the best sword and see a third ending for a game with a terrible story. It sure does run up the gameplay timer, but that's about it.



Finally, the bosses. Oh bosses, you're so retro in a completely annoying way. Start, find out every attack starts you on fire, die because you can't change equipment during a fight; equip anti-burning item, restart, try to learn bosses attack pattern but you can't because the boss likes to fly off the side of the screen and shoot stuff at you, die; restart and die a few times until you learn the sound effect that comes before the boss stops uninterruptedly attacking for a couple seconds, maybe finally win if you don't get juggled for all your life by a chance hit. I've come to terms with video games being “unfair”. It's one guy against an army, led by a quirky boss squad, where they feast on the pain of damned souls and poop atomic, soul-damning explosions in some freakish circle of life. This is fine. Losing because I don't psychically know the status effects and attack patterns of bosses in a game I've never played before isn't fun. No, don't champion how “old skool” the game is. People stopped making games like this for a reason.

TLDRz! Here's my honest opinion of Muramasa
Very pretty and kinda fun. It's an alright 2D action game with a ton of stuff that pisses me off, just not quite enough to trade the damn thing in...yet. I played it because it was new and then stopped playing it because I have lots of other games that I could replay instead of slaving away for the chance to do the last boss battle four more times.



Who does a man have to screw to get Viewtiful Joe 3? And lets make sure it's on PS3/360 so we have plenty of buttons at our disposal.