If you like pretty things, the good folks over at G4 have posted a video showcasing a fairly hefty chunk of gameplay footage from Vanillaware's upcoming Wii title, Muramasa: The Demon Blade. It's a direct feed, so you'll get a look at what you'd actually be seeing on screen if you were the one playing it. I am not the one playing it, and that makes me sad.
Still, I'll take what I can get at the moment regarding this beautiful game. The video gives us a closer look at some of the gameplay details and finer points of Muramasa, with commentary from Ignition Entertainment's Development Director, Shane Bettenhausen.
I'm not sure how I feel about that whole breakable sword mechanic, but I'm willing to put up with a certain amount of abuse from something so gawww-juss. Vanillaware games are kind of like a girlfriend that way. See the lovely in action after the jump.
This game is good enough to warrant the purchase of the console, solely for this game. I played the import... drop dead gorgeous and addictive as hell!
Check out the fishbowl effect on the background at around 2:15. Killer.
@Hopeless Savage: I knew what you meant, but it's late and I'm a wiseass. I do kind of agree though, looks a little floaty. Hopefully it won't be annoying.
If I'm slashing the hell out of hundreds of ninjas with one sword, I'd have to say there would be a breaking point somewhere in there. It definitely looks good, I like the layout being Castlevaniaesque and all. Then I got uncomfortable when the bug boss came around. I don't dig the thought of giant centipedes crawling around on my screen.
Glad they opted not to have motion controls in there, shows that it's not necessary to put it in every game made for the Wii.
Thankfully i am here to assist your imagination. Here's a simulated Muramasa comparison between 720p, 480p bicubic upscaled (hi-def upscalers use this, most TV upscalers probably use bilinear, which is slightly worse) and, to go that extra mile, 480p spline upscaled (spline treats the pixels as polynomial functions, a vector drawing of sorts, spline is the best quality we can get with current algorithms, but no hardware upscaler uses spline afaik).
That's cool but usually when people say this would look better in HD the game doesn't really seems to look that bad. Although I admit 720 looks alot better than the others we can't insult something for not adding something that may be done poorly.
I'll say it again and again until someone listens... the game is unfortunately not all it's cracked up to be.
Granted, it's got probably the best art direction and sound direction ever made in a 2d game, but the gameplay is severely lacking. Repetitive and unoriginal. Trust me, you'll realize once you start playing that this game is severely over-hyped. And your swords break. CONSTANTLY. It's just annoying.
The last thing I want to do when playing a 2D action/platform adventure title is have random battles. But I guess being the RPG whores that they are, Vanillaware decided to do it and put them in this game. Oh did I forget to mention that they're random battles that RESPAWN?!
I'm glad at least, that they kept the original japanese dialogue and just did english subs. I really wasn't looking forward to a poorly-acted english dub. Kinda sickens me, though, that it took so long to come out over here. Really really sad. And it'll go under the radar just like all the other Vanillaware games.
I agree it looks kinda repetitive, but how exactly is it unoriginal? I mean, I can't say there are too many other games that come to mind when I try to compare.
I was somewhat disheartened not by the sword breaking (that's a cool idea) but by what happens if all three swords break. Hop around and dogde waiting for them to heal? How long does that take?
I think if Nintendo got off their butts and did something about demo distribution this game won't have to end up selling 50k copies.
@Xero, i'm not saying it looks bad nor am i trying to put down Muramasa. I was just replying to Monodi, who went on the defense about HD graphics even though nobody before him mentioned them :)
@Agnates, read my post again: the 480p samples are upscaled for easy comparisson and i clearly embedded only cropped samples, not full 1280x720 pixles images... i'm not trying to punish anyone trying to read this article.
Sounds like just what I wanted it to be. I think they made the right choice with the voices here. Where as with Odin Sphere was better with the english voices, taking advantage of the language used by Shakespeare, japanese fits perfectly in this game. That being said I hope they port Odin Sphere and maybe GrimGrimore & Princess Crown to the Wii. The sword break mechanic seems fine to me, makes no always use one sword and makes you actually think about which sword to use in a boss battle.
The sword break is actually like the POW meter in Odin Sphere. It makes you ditch the Beat 'Em Up way of thinking, and only attack when necessary or when you're sure you can do some damage to the enemy. Button mashers will have quite a rude awakening with it (like I did at the start of Odin Sphere).
And I'm not particularly sold on the "Press to attack, hold to block" mechanic. It didn't work well in Odin Sphere. Unless blocking becomes worthwhile, people will probably just resort to dodging.
It looks about as repetative as Odin Sphere was, so I hope the story is as good as or better. I was excited when the guy said that they would have completely different storys and the whatnot though. As long as I don't have to fight the same 5-6 bosses 5 times each, I'll be happy.
Was anyone else turned off by the second part? Screen after screen after screen of backtracking and orb collecting. And consumable weapons? What are we back in SaGa territory again? I'm getting less enthused about this, the more I see of it.
It looks so pretty... but it also looks quite repetitive. It's not like Castlevania where you would have faced 10 different enemies, a few scenery changes and evolve your tactics in the same time. It also looks annoyingly floaty like LittleBigPlanet. I'd love to try someone elses copy though hehe
I like how people complain about a side-scrolling action game being repetitive. OF COURSE IT'S REPETITIVE. YOU WALK IN ONE DIRECTION AND KILL STUFF OVER AND OVER. THAT'S THE POINT. Yeesh. Bunch of retards here.
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Contest:
1:00 AM on 07.26.2009
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Yet another stellar third-party game for my Wii; What the fuck is going on heh?
@Hopeless Savage: I knew what you meant, but it's late and I'm a wiseass. I do kind of agree though, looks a little floaty. Hopefully it won't be annoying.
Glad they opted not to have motion controls in there, shows that it's not necessary to put it in every game made for the Wii.
And Momohime is <3.
Now imagine how much more awesome the graphics would be at 1280x720 instead of 640x480 ;)
@Shogunu
I'm imagining it and it doesn't seem to be making a difference...
dicks explode
(cont.) because we could look at a wider scenario
Why oh why did I sell my Wii!!!
Thankfully i am here to assist your imagination. Here's a simulated Muramasa comparison between 720p, 480p bicubic upscaled (hi-def upscalers use this, most TV upscalers probably use bilinear, which is slightly worse) and, to go that extra mile, 480p spline upscaled (spline treats the pixels as polynomial functions, a vector drawing of sorts, spline is the best quality we can get with current algorithms, but no hardware upscaler uses spline afaik).
720p:
480p bicubic:
480p s-spline:
That's cool but usually when people say this would look better in HD the game doesn't really seems to look that bad. Although I admit 720 looks alot better than the others we can't insult something for not adding something that may be done poorly.
Granted, it's got probably the best art direction and sound direction ever made in a 2d game, but the gameplay is severely lacking. Repetitive and unoriginal. Trust me, you'll realize once you start playing that this game is severely over-hyped. And your swords break. CONSTANTLY. It's just annoying.
The last thing I want to do when playing a 2D action/platform adventure title is have random battles. But I guess being the RPG whores that they are, Vanillaware decided to do it and put them in this game. Oh did I forget to mention that they're random battles that RESPAWN?!
I'm glad at least, that they kept the original japanese dialogue and just did english subs. I really wasn't looking forward to a poorly-acted english dub. Kinda sickens me, though, that it took so long to come out over here. Really really sad. And it'll go under the radar just like all the other Vanillaware games.
I was somewhat disheartened not by the sword breaking (that's a cool idea) but by what happens if all three swords break. Hop around and dogde waiting for them to heal? How long does that take?
I think if Nintendo got off their butts and did something about demo distribution this game won't have to end up selling 50k copies.
@Agnates, read my post again: the 480p samples are upscaled for easy comparisson and i clearly embedded only cropped samples, not full 1280x720 pixles images... i'm not trying to punish anyone trying to read this article.
And I'm not particularly sold on the "Press to attack, hold to block" mechanic. It didn't work well in Odin Sphere. Unless blocking becomes worthwhile, people will probably just resort to dodging.
-Said while passing fox girl with giant, heaving breasts
You take a wake up,eat, shit again, eat, shit again.
People said Odin Sphere was repetitive, but the story was amazing.
:(
*stares intently at picture of Momohime*
:D