article by Toby Jones, illustration by Madeline Queripel

Hey there, Wii owner. Do you have your copy of Muramasa: The Demon Blade yet? If not, go ahead and pick it up. You'll really like it. Well okay, admittedly it isn't for everyone- you'll only enjoy it if you're interested in endlessly creative, mind-blowingly gorgeous works of art that are also fun to play. So if you only like video games that are derivative and boring, I suppose you should look elsewhere. For everyone else Muramasa is a revelation, one of the best new side-scrollers I've played in ages.

Muramasa is most well known for its rich, painterly 2D graphics. It looks better than almost anything out there right now, to an almost frustrating degree. If it's been possible to make games this beautiful the whole time, why isn't everyone doing it? Do people really just want bland brown-gray "realistic" graphics? Either way, Muramasa is really in a league of its own and almost worth the asking price to just see the sights. It goes to show that, with few exceptions, developers have really been dragging their feet when it comes to pushing the limits of what 2D can do this generation.


The graphics would mean very little if the game wasn't actually enjoyable to play, and luckily that's far from being the case. What we have here is a lively, action-based side-scroller with RPG elements. You run around and cut up enemies with a sword, get XP to level up and forge better swords, and engage in show-stopping battles with gargantuan bosses. It's not particularly complex, but it never gets boring. The whole thing actually reminds me of what No More Heroes might be like in 2D, with its similarly intuitive enemy-slicing controls and memorable boss encounters.

What this game does better than No More Heroes, though, is downtime. While NMH makes the player suffer through tedious side missions and chores between levels, the worst you get in Muramasa is a couple minutes of backtracking here and there. This backtracking is one of the main things reviewers have complained about with this game, but I think it's important to keep it in perspective. It's far from the most annoying thing a game has put me through, much more painless than the fetch quests in Metroid Prime or Wind Waker and less of a frustrating time sink than your average RPG grind.

Muramasa may not change your life, but it is a wonderful piece of work. It's to this game's credit that it can be so much fun despite being pretty simple, and I eagerly await Vanillaware's next offering. I think they have it in them to create a true genre classic, and this game shows that they're well on their way. People are always complaining about a lack of third party "core" titles on the Wii, and Muramasa is exactly what they've been yearning for. If you buy it there will be more games like it, so please do yourself and the world a favor and buy it. Heck, while you're at it why not pick up Zack and Wiki, Little King's Story, House of the Dead Overkill, ExciteBots, De Blob, Rune Factory Frontier, Boom Blox, Klonoa, Deadly Creatures, and Madworld? Your Wii will thank you.



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