Eh....I always suck at starting stuff off.......
Graphics
Not so much graphics but art style. This game is beautiful. HD kiss my ass. When you see such beautiful hand drawn artwork on screen you cant say anything else. I can honestly say this is the best looking game I have ever scene. Theres been more than a few cases where screens and videos I thought didnt do games justice. The latest being Tatsuoko vs Capcom. I saw screens and videos and thought the game looks pretty bad graphically.Once it was running on my TV though I saw how gorgeous it really was. Muramasa is the same. In screens I thought this game looked really unintersting and boring. Videos came out and I was truly impressed. It look great in motion and did more justice than any screen. Now that I have it running on my screen Im blown away. All the vibrant colors, smooth animations,slick backgrounds, and awesome 2D characters and 3D effects. This is the best looking game Ive ever seen.
For anyone that'll say Ive never seen HD games. Ive passed MGS4 and played Eternal Sonata,Valkyria Chronicles,Bioshock, and more. Valkyria Chronicles is only 2nd to this game. It makes me think developrs are lazy when they stick to gray brown and black when you can make games looks as beautiful as Muramasa and Valkyria Chronicles.
Gameplay/Presentation.
Those most important. Just in case you dont know. This game supports Wiimote/Nunchuck,Classic Controller,and Gamecube. It does not support NES style Wiimote like I read before.
Ok well I gotta say Im gonna be sad when this gam gets localized because the menus just look so sweet in that black brush caligraphy kinda look. I dont wanna see english text lol. The menus are pretty straight forward in the beginning. You got your obvious New Game and Continue options in the beginning. When you start a new game there are two options. Obviously I cant read Japanese so I dunno wtf Im looking at. I knew you can play as a Male (Kisuke) and a Female (Momohime) The two options were colored in Blue and Pink. I wanted to play as Momohime so I just chose the pink option and I was right. That menu is when you choose your character. =P
From there on I just continued to choose pink options.(I believe the color you choose in beginning effects what mean yes or no later on. I chose pink so it means yes and blue means no.)
After you choose your character you get the option for a tutorial. You can skip it but I chose to take it. (Without knowing. >.<) The tutorial is simple and teaches you basic techniques such as Jumpin,Fighting,Switching Swords,Guarding and using healing items.
I played a bit with Classic Controller and more with Wiimote/Nunchuck. I belive the CC feels alot more comfortable than the WM/N combo.
A wierd little thing is that you jump by flicking up the analog instead of pressing a button. You get use to it pretty quickly and it makes sense.
Combat is fast. You can button mash the A button on both and get cool combos but flicking that analog certain directions your character can do certain dashes that pull off other cool moves. You can jump and slam back down with a kick and that can leave to more combos. Dont get me mistaken though. If you just button mash you will die. It takes skills and you need to learn how to move around and doge in order to win. Especially since enemy attacks take away a good amount of damage. In short this game is challenging and dont expect a mindless button masher. You need some skill.
A gripe I have with WM/N combo is that blocking is done by holding A instead of another button like where CC you attack with A and block with B. It takes longer and sometime you might just tap in the midst of fighting. Flipping through your healing items is also a bit trick with the Wiimote. You gotta use the D-pad which feels awkard to me. I mean its been done before but shuffiling quickly and the pressing down to use item just dont feel good to me. I ge confused. Where in CC you flip with.....R button I think.>.< Trust me though it felt better and easier on the CC.
I played more with Wiimote instead of Classic Controller and I just stopped playing with Wiimote so my bad.
A really neat thing in the game are the swords. You can wield up to three as of now. They have different abilitys obviously. One sword is basically a default sword. Another sword is a wierd floaty kind of sword. While using it and jumping you'll stay in there float around slowly and beat the shit out people. Good for fighting enemy that take flight or takign an enemy in the air with you.XD I had another sword that was pink and obviously the more powerful but less durable.
Yes. Durable. These sword have a "health" bar if you will in the top center of screen. The more you use a sword the more health its gonna take away. Once it depletes it breaks and you're left with a broken half blade. When that happens you switch over to another sword. These swords dont leave permantly however. When running through the world there are green orbs that heal your sword and enemys also drops these orbs. So make sure to collect them all.
Ive only played a little over an hour and I encountered my first boss. Which you might have seen. The dude with one eye. Bosses have two health bars. A regular giant health bar and another mini one. What you have to do is bring the larger one to nothing and it will in turn take some off the smaller one. Since this was the first boss it wasnt too hard but I did happen to break two swords. Needless to say these bosses seem like they will get alot tougher as the game goes on.
The in game menus are somewhat harder to navigate through in all Japanese however. It not too friendly for non japanese speakers. The more you play the more menus get unlock. You get an item managment menu, a menu to upgrade your swords (Awesome blacksmith animation), basic options at the bottom and a few others I cant really explain or know what they do. >.< But with some common sense you can learn the important ones.
Uhm......ok world.
This game is pretty much side scrolling. You run around and every other screen has a batch of enemys that you have to fight. Eventually you reach a town and have houses to enter for some items and cool looking NPC to talk too. Again I dunno what the hell theyre saying but it seems interesting. The VA are great so I hope this gets Japanese audio option when it comes over. Everynow and then you run into someone who runs a restaurant.You choose something off the menu and eat and it heals you but when you choose an item you get this eating animation on screen. Its pretty damn awesome. You see a rice plate press A and it slowly starts eating it. Neat little thing.
Saving is done by checkpoints (unfortunatly). Thats what the furry woman with the boobs is for. Shes at every checkpoint so Im guessing that her role in the game. =P Id also like to say this game isnt an RPG. Ive playe a decent amount of RPG so far and this feels nothing like one. Its an action game. Maybe a few RPG elements with the swords but its a an awesome action game. Theres nothing too overwhelming like in RPG that can confuse the shit out of you. Its straight forward pick up and play.
End.
Ok I think Ive said all Ive had to. Everytime I do this shit I feel like its all over the place.......which it probably is. Excuse all the spelling errors that I know are gonna be on there even though I tried to clean up.
If youve got any questions about the game just ask. I'll answer........If I know the answer.=P
In short
- Beautiful 2D Art
- Easy pick up and play gameplay
- Challenging not mindless button mashing
- Menus easy to navigate
- Slick presentation
- Sword managment is fun and seems like it can be as simple or deep as you want it to be.
