Yeah, I’m pretty late on reviewing this, I took a while to actually get around to playing it.

I saw a bunch of videos and previews for this and I was really hyped. And when it came out… I didn’t buy it for some reason. But now I did manage to get it and I am not disappointed.

Read on and see why!

Developer: Vanilla Ware
Publisher: Ignition Entertainment
Date of Release: September 8 2009
Platforms: Nintendo Wii

Genre: Side-scrolling Action
Players: 1

Looks and sounds
The graphics are some of the best 2D graphics outside of HD 2D games such as BlazBlue. Everything looks incredible. Everything looks like it’s out of a classic japanese painting. Multiple layers of background add lots of depth and style to every screen. There’s a good variety of areas you visit, and each of them looks unique. The character design is a bit more anime-style, but with that old japanese painting style applied to the usual anime look, making each character look quite unique. Some enemies have really weird looks, like that big red demon guy in Momohime’s story, but even then he looks like a demon painting would look… with a bit of a comical effect to it. Not much to add here that hasn’t been said before: this game looks great. Though it really makes me wonder how great it would look in HD…

The sound is great too. The music has a classical feel to it, and always fits with what’s going on. The voice acting is in japanese, and it’s actually quite good. Each character has a distinct voice, they seem to pretty much always use the proper emotions and they’re pretty believable. The rest of the  sounds use classical japanese instruments(mostly drums), other than the sword slashes and such. Overall the game sounds quite good.

Story
The game actually has 2 stories.

Momohime’s story features a princess (or something of the sort) who got her body possesed by an evil spirit. You play as both Momohime and the spirit (controlling her body), as the spirit tries to find a sword that will enable him to take over another body. As the quest goes on, the spirit and Momohime actually bond and learn to know each other, and even team up at times. It’s a pretty basic story, but it’s pretty fun. I haven’t finished it though (I’m 1 or 2 bosses away from the end), but from what I’ve seen it’s pretty enjoyable.

Kisuke’s story is also pretty basic. Kisuke is some guy who lost his memory, and a bunch of people are trying to kill him. So he wanders around trying to figure out why he lost his memory, and trying to remember what he forgot. He ends up teaming up with fox spirits and a revived princess (or whatever she is) to find a sword that could end up reviving the Dog God, who would wreck havoc in the world. A pretty enjoyable story with some nice twists. The ending is a bit strange, but whatever

I actually think the 2 stories are seperate, though both of them share NPCs, supporting characters and plot points. Both characters have their own “sexy big-boobed fox lady” following them around in the quest, and that character gives them both the power to get swords forged by…. the spirit of Muramasa I guess. You can even meet the other character if you go in the hot springs scattered across the game. There’s new endings as you finish both stories and finish them more times but fighting the bosses with different swords, and other conditions.

Gameplay
The game is a side-scrolling action game. It has a bit of a Metroid/modern Castlevania feel to it, though the action itself is quite different.

Fighting
Pressing the A button makes you slash your sword. Pressing different directions with A makes you do different attacks. Holding the A button and pressing directions does more different attacks. Using all those attacks you can pretty much make your own combos. Certain attacks send enemies flying in the air, enabling you to combo them in the air. Different types of enemies will react differently to attacks, and some attacks might be more effective against. If you fight Samurai enemies, they actually block all your attacks, and you need to do the right attack to destroy their swords so you can actually hurt them. Some enemies have projectiles, which you can reflect back to enemies by timing your sword slashes right.

An interesting thing here is that you can have 3 swords equipped at once. Using the C button you can switch to any of the swords you have equipped. If the swords are flashing on the top of the screen, switching swords will produce an attack that hits everything on the screen for quite a bit of damage. Each sword, other than having a different attack strength, also has a different special attack. You launch the special attack by pressing the B button. Attacks range from projectiles, stat boosts, powerful multi-hit attacks and various other things. This uses some of the sword’s soul power. Repelling projectiles and getting hit also depletes the sword’s soul power. If the sword loses all its soul power, it break. You can then switch to another sword, which will make your broken one restore after a certain amount of time. If a sword is not being used, it also recovers soul power.

Boss battles are pretty fun. Some require you to find the boss’ patterns (they have patterns but those can kinda change) and find when to attack them, and you need to avoid their attacks as much as possible because they’re really strong. This makes for really tough and really fun boss battles.

Overall, the fighting is quite fun. Only “problem”? Dying isn’t actually a bad thing. You get no EXP removed when you die (you even keep the EXP you might have received in the battle that you just died in), you lose no money, and any item you used in that battle in which you died is given back to you. It also starts you back at full health. Dying in a non-boss battle gives you your items back and full health, so you will either have to redo the fight but with more chance of winning since you have full health, or the fight might not happen at all this time around. Against bosses, you just get your items back and full health. This is a problem because there’s really no actual challenge to the fights since you get nothing bad for dying, but at the same time it removes the tedium of having to go back to town for healing items and such.

Leveling
Killing enemies gives you experience. At the end of each battle you also get EXP bonuses depending on your performance in the battle (if you strike first, if you get high combo counts, if you don’t get hit, and some more). You also get money.  Leveling boosts your 2 stats, as well as your HP(Life Flame).

Killing enemies, and just normal exploring, gives you souls. Eating food gives spirit. Spirit and souls are used to forge swords. Each character has something similar to a skill tree, except it’s swords instead of skills. Each sword has a number of souls and spirit you have to pay to make it. Making a sword will enable you to make the sword under it in the tree. Sometimes you’ll come across a sword in the tree that you can’t forge. Those are swords you get from bosses. So beating bosses gives you access to more swords. Each sword has a stat requirement, so you have to level up to be able to equip better swords. There’s a huge number of swords though, so there’s a lot of variety of special moves, and certain swords can give stat boosts and reward boosts, so you can pretty much customize your characters how you want. You can also equip 1 accessory which can give you various boosts as well.

Game flow
The game flow is relatively simple. In a metroid sort of map, you are told where you next destination is. As you travel you will get to areas where  a boss resides. After beating the boss, you get a new sword, which enables you to destroy barriers of a certain color, enabling you to explore more of the world, and ultimately going to your next objective. Despite being a Metroid-like game, it’s a lot more linear. Don’t get me wrong though, there are some areas you won’t actually visit that way, so there’s still some exploring to do. And there’s a few side-quests and optional dungeons.

Overall
This is a great game. There’s some replay value, with a bunch of exploration. The fighting is simple, but really fun. The looks and sounds of the game is great.

It’s not all good though. The lack of any penalty for dying is a bit cheap since you can use it at your advantage, but it does make the game a lot more accessible. There’s lots of pointless backtracking. Most areas with bosses require you to backtrack through all of it after beating the boss, but without any enemy encounters, which is just a waste of time.

But in the end it’s a really good game, and anyone whining about the Wii’s lack of “hardcore” games who hasn’t played this needs to check it out.

(yes, there’s a few elements I didn’t really talk about like cooking)

Pros and Cons
Pros
- Looks great
- Sounds great
- Fighting is fun
- Multiple endings
- No penalty for dying makes it more accessible

Cons
- No penalty for dying makes it too easy
- Lots of pointless backtracking
- Jumping by pressing up on the joystick needs some getting used to

The Save Factor
As of the writing of this review, the game can be found for $40 at multiple retailers(best buy, gamestop). And I think it’s completely worth the full price. So the Save Factor is $40.

jobocan Console, Games, Review, wii