In this day and age, one could be forgiven for assuming that the visuals of a videogame are more important than its substance, that graphical advancement is paramount to story, content, or even gameplay. After all, the vast majority of Triple A titles feature 'realistic' graphics, and almost every game case comments on the game's visuals. The drive for hyper-realism has all but eradicated the artistic edge of videogaming.
It can be a much needed breath of fresh air, therefore, when a game is released that is astonishingly beautiful, and without requiring hyper-realism.
Muramasa Rebirth is a PS Vita port of a little known game (in the West, at least - in Japan, the original version sold all of it's shipped copies in it's first week, topping the Japanese charts) for the Nintendo Wii, but expanded considerably (and that's before one considers the additional Genroku Legends expansion).
The game is set in Genroku era Japan, and follows the theme of 'Demon Blades', cursed blades said to bring great power to the wielder, but at the cost of tragedy, madness and death. The game centres on two individual stories; Kisuke, a fugitive ninja with no memory and his struggle to reclaim his memory and a mythical katana; and Momohime, a kunoichi possessed by the spirit of a foul swordsman. Each story is separate from the other, but do intertwine at points, meaning that the game can be played in any order, but for the best experience, both storylines must be played.
And with gameplay like that found in Muramasa Rebirth, I do not mind at all.
At a fundamental level, the game follows the 'Metroidvania' style of game - side scrolling combat platforming, with a great deal of backtracking to explore areas that were previously inaccessible, but where the game really shines is in the combat. Using pretty much just the Square button combined with left-stick movements, the combat system is very straightforward to learn, yet visually impressive as the character hacks, slashes, leaps, soars, and plummets sword-first through enemies. It's super smooth, but has a surprising amount of depth - you can't just button mash or you're going to break your sword. It's like watching the most beautiful Kung Fu film ever.
Beauty really is one of Muramasa Rebirth's greatest strengths too. Not only does the game run like liquid silk, Vanillaware really have gone to town with some of the most visually stunning hand-drawn artwork I have had the pleasure of viewing. If you think any of these screenshots look pretty, compared to the ebbing and flowing dance of the game in movement, the stills are a newborn deer staggering to its feet. It really is one of the prettiest games I have ever seen - certainly right up there with artistic classics like Okami.
Even the enemies - ranging from simple ninjas and samurai, all the way up through mythical japanese creatures like Kappa and Kitsune characters, to demonic monstrosities that almost fill the screen - look stunning and are animated with a lithe fluidity.
After each bout, you as the player are also graded on how the fight went, with some wonderful awards like 'Over Before It Started', that award additional points for impressive combat prowess. Points can be spent on all manner of upgrades, from new equipment to new techniques, which gives the combat a little more purpose than pointless hack and slash, and also adds a lot of replayability. For a long time, I found myself grinding fights purely to get better scores and, on several occasions, I even reloaded a save to fight a boss again because I just knew I could do better. This and the fact that the two storylines are fairly lengthy, and with optional challenge dungeons to tackle, means there's plenty to do in the game.
Of course, no game is perfect, and Muramasa Rebirth does suffer from a few fundamental flaws. The combat, as fun and visually stunning as it is, can become a little repetitive if the game is played for too long. Moving from one area to the next and hacking through another six ninjas can get a little monotonous, and the game has a nasty habit of sending you from one end of your known map to the other. That's a lot of fights, and a lot of running in one direction through areas you've already seen a dozen times. Although I can understand why it was left out, to create a more immersive and tense atmosphere, the game can get painfully tedious without a quick-travel system.
Secondly, the storylines, gripping as they are when they get going, are a little loose at the start. For a long time, I was merely running from area to area, hacking my way through seemingly endless mob spawns, towards the little red flag on the map, and I had no idea why. Even the brief dialogue thrown in occasionally in these early stages did little more than confuse me and make me wonder if I had accidentally skipped a significant cut-scene or the something. Eventually it started to come together, but it took a while for me to get just why I was hacking all these enemies to ribbons in spectacular fashion.
“Simply one of the most beautiful games ever created.”