Muramasa Rebirth is an enhanced port of the original Wii game. It's mainly the same game with a few minor additions (obvious ones being Trophy support and slicker visuals). One look at Muramasa and you can see the art direction is unique and different to the majority of games. Strikingly beautiful, the environmental backdrops are stunning and amazing. Angles and outlines are sharp yet the shading and vibrant colours used make the game pop out. You almost want to a screenshot, print it out and hang it up on your wall, it is literally a piece of art. The main characters' designs are equally good, Momohime looks elegant and able to dish out damage while Kisuke is wild and speedy. The character animations are smooth and without a hitch, even when there are numerous enemies on screen, the frame rate doesn't drop.
In terms of gameplay, Muramasa Rebirth is described as an action RPG. However, the RPG elements are like, restricted to gaining experience to level up and equipping swords. The game is a sidescroller brawler, normal attacks are mapped to square while special attacks to circle. You have your standard button combinations that lets you dodge, roll, combo and jump. The twist here is that your character equips three swords at one time such that you can switch blades whenever you want. This is an important gameplay element as blocking and using special attacks depletes a bar and once it's empty, you sword breaks, significantly weakening your offensive abilities. Potentially, you can get into the whole routine of button mashing; this is especially true in the earlier sections where enemies are easier.
Later on, you tend to have to dodge and time your attacks, as well as watching out when to switch your blades. That said, simply overpowering your enemies still works, especially when dodging requires an awkward button combination that takes getting used to. Pulling off an awesome combo like knocking your enemy skyward, rapidly striking them while airborne and then slamming them back down into the ground is satisfying and presents a nice visual spectacle. As mentioned, you fight on a 2D plane, there isn't multiple "planes" (i.e. not a 2.5D game) but Muramasa does have some verticality. It's nothing major and most of the time you just go from left to right or vice versa. While you can explore, there isn't any true rewards.
Uniquely, there are two stories to play through, Momohime and Kisuke. Momohime's story starts off confusing. Upon beginning a new game, you're immediately thrust into a tutorial with no cutscene explaining anything. The first half hour can get confusing as you're trekking onwards fighting random enemies with no idea why. As you interact with NPCs and the background starts to unfold, you understand more. While it isn't the most addictive story, it's passable and gets better as it progresses. Basically, Momohime's is about a demon taking over her body and the journey they experience, revolving around the Demon Blades. The game breezes by and you feel as if you are advancing the story too quickly. As a result, you feel as if the story isn't as fleshed out as it could have been.
You can easily finish Momohime's story in five hours the first time through, slowly taking in the sights, fighting all enemies and talking to everyone. There's even a trophy for finishing the story mode in under three hours so that's saying how short the game could be. The normal ending is a bit disappointing and after you defeat the final boss - which you might not even realize it was the final boss until the ending cutscene plays - you will be like, "is that it?". Granted, the boss fight was exciting but it didn't feel like it was hard enough. There are only two difficulties, a normal difficulty which feels too easy and a hard difficulty which can frustrate as you will only ever have 1 HP (one hit KO), there's no inbetween. Kisuke's story isn't as interesting as Momohime's but still engages you by around halfway into it. Kisuke's story is distinct and doesn't crossover with Momohime's apart from some brief cameos. His story is about him losing his memory and saving the one he loves.
There were more closure in Kisuke's story which makes it having a better ending out of the two. There were some sweet moments, although you could tell where it was going, it was still great. Kisuke's bosses are more imaginative, allowing you to fight giant spiders, centipedes, dragons and the like. However, the already easy difficulty was taken down another notch, making it super easy to breeze through. I found it interesting that characters kept their Japanese voice actors and that the whole game has spoken Japanese dialogue. It keeps an authentic feel to the game since it is set in Japan, all text are translated into English so don't worry about missing out on anything. Everything is subtitled and the translation is fantastic.
One small hiccup in the control scheme is that you use "x" to talk to NPCs, this happens to be the button for jumping as well. Therefore, you need to align yourself just right in order to engage in conversation instead of accidentally jumping. It can get slightly annoying considering that the game doesn't even use two of the physical buttons available on the Vita. The game employs random battles in that while you're happily running from one side to the other, the camera will suddenly lock and enemies appear, it's an interesting take. The music has a classic Japanese twist but isn't too spectacular. There are a few areas where it'll make you perk your ears but most of the time, you tend to zone it out. Overall, Muramasa Rebirth is a fantastic game. It's has plenty of eye-candy and while it may be a tad easy, the combat is fun and never outstays its welcome.
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