Muramasa : the Demon Blade
Post nostalgia #8
Revival of gaming in Paris
Type of Game
The beat 'em up that made me even more obsessed with fantastical Japanese folklore—and made me realize I was no better than the hardcore geeks at my game design school.
Release date on our machines
November 2009, when the world could still hope to see the triumph of the left, equality, solidarity, environmentalism… oops, that’s not what this is about. Sorry.
Developer
Vanillaware, made up of former Atlus employees. Shin Megami Tensei, Persona… and Legend of Kartia, too. They keep releasing insane BTA games—no surprise there, folks.
Publisher
Rising Star Games Ltd. has been bringing Japanese expertise to us—us Europeans eager for the very best of the best—since the 2000s!
Muramasa: Not available on any platform newer than the Wii U. And it hurts to admit that the Wii U isn't exactly young anymore. Ouch.
Ah, just a quick disclaimer: Actually, I’ve never played it! Alright, let’s move on! But no, no, I was just joking around! Let’s all have a good laugh! I mean, I really have never played it, but I still really want to talk about it. Because I absolutely loved it, even without having touched it—I know it pretty well, at least from a distance, but… All right, I’m not going to get out of this one, oh well. In my second year of game design school, I moved in with two of my best classmates into a nice apartment in Paris. It belonged to the singer Emilie Simon, for the record, even though we didn’t know that until we moved in. I was already listening to her albums before I got there, and I listened to them even more once I found out we were squatting in the apartment she’d rented out while she was on a trip to the U.S.—and that she MIGHT STOP BY ONE OF THESE DAYS!! In the end, she never came, and we never had any contact with her at all. Too bad for me, but good for her, I guess. Anyway, the living room served as our shared living space during the day and as my bedroom at night; the distinction between day and night became increasingly blurred as time went on, especially when you’re living with twice as many game consoles and computers as people. During the day—that is, from 7:00 p.m. to 3:00 a.m.—my buddy would often set up one of his three consoles next to my desk. That way, I could watch him play while staying glued to my computer—for example, while getting insulted on DoTA—while he tried out a whole bunch of different games.
An Unexpected Nesting of Mirrors
When Muramasa came out, I barely touched my PC anymore—I was so captivated by what I was seeing on the screen. Watching my roommate get a blast out of the game, but also get incredibly frustrated, remains one of the most fascinating social experiences I’ve ever witnessed. Watching him get stuck on certain parts of levels, tough bosses, or monsters that were too strong for him allowed me to learn certain areas of the game by heart. I also spotted the early signs of a much more annoying problem: this roommate was a huge, treacherous, lying, and vicious jerk—exactly like the monsters he couldn’t seem to take down in the game. Talk about immersion! You can’t get any better than that.
A breath of fresh air in the fray
To be honest, it had been years since I’d seen a good old-fashioned side-scrolling beat ’em up. My best friend Randall Geyser and I had recently replayed Turtles in Time on an emulator, along with all the Golden Axe games on the Mega Drive and the first two Streets of Rage games, but nothing more recent. I could really see just how far gaming had come in fifteen years. Muramasa was still a game about beating up bad guys, but at the same time, it was nothing like my old 16-bit classics. Much richer gameplay, breathtaking animations, sumptuous environments, an insane bestiary, impeccable art style, and a fairly well-balanced exploration element. Back then, the term “Metroidvania” already existed, but people didn’t throw it around thirty-seven times a day to describe everything and anything. Clearly, those were blessed and innocent days.
I could go on like this for a long time, but who wants to see so many commas in so few words? You have to experience it with a controller in hand to truly appreciate the whole thing. Which I didn’t do, HAHA! Think of this as a tribute, not a sham. A little bit of dishonesty, and it all goes down smoothly. Besides, there’s no way I can stop now that I’m on a roll. Because even though we’re talking about a beat ’em up—and so, in theory, mindless button-mashing—Muramasa has the feature that blew me away the most: the sacrosanct progression system that I’ve worshipped since the dawn of time. Ever since 1992 and Warriors of the Eternal Sun as well as U.N. Squadron, to be honest. Our character gains experience, as do their weapons; they (he or she, depending on the storyline) unlock new combos… and then, they improve their cooking skills to give themselves extra buffs!
Who would’ve thought to incorporate stirring miso soup—so you could send a huge demon flying into the air? Hats off to whoever came up with that idea. Plus, the food shots really make you hungry. Has ramen consumption gone up since late 2009? It probably has. I’ll stop talking about the gameplay for now, even though it’s just as enjoyable to watch as it is to play, given how impressive Muramasa is in terms of on-screen dynamism and visual effects. So I’ll move on to the atmosphere. The landscapes are enough to make anyone who’s usually allergic to medieval and fantasy Japan fall in love. The enemies and other mystical creatures pay a magnificent tribute to Japanese mythology, even if the design of some female NPCs seems to have come straight from the imagination of a teenager a bit overwhelmed by his hormones.
This little red flag would get even worse in Dragon’s Crown, released by the same developer and designed by the same horny teenager, I imagine. Those gaming sessions set off some interesting mental processes in my brain. As soon as my roommate loaded up his game, I’d start jotting down game concepts based on Mahjong. Yeah, I know—it’s originally Chinese, but it’s been all the rage in Japan for ages, too. I’d discovered this ancient board game at Eddie Chatterton’s place—my dad’s buddy—between two slaps from Theme Park and three high kicks from Enduro Racer. Ever since that day, I’ve been obsessed with all the tiles that make up the game—and that also make up the levels in Taipei. For example, I wanted to create a BTA where forming combinations of Mahjong tiles would grant access to associated abilities and equipment.
Whether it’s a hack-and-slash or a tactical game, I’ve never been able to make up my mind, and I’ve been stuck ever since. But at least it was a change from the eight hours straight I’d spend on DotA as soon as I got home from school. Back then, I still believed I had a shot at becoming a respectable game designer—hahahahaha, such naivety. It’s no better than the constant defeatism and mild depression that define me today. Or maybe it is, just a little bit? In any case, Muramasa offers an incredible variety of settings. Waving fields of wheat, haunted forests, damp and cold caves, misty mountains, and magical temples—among a thousand other varied biomes… HAH, no, not biomes—I hate that term just as much as I hate “Metroidvania.” Let’s just say that everything is absolutely beautiful, teeming with detail and magic. Kind of like Rayman.
Stereotypes Just the Way We Like Them
The music may have enchanted me on an even higher level than all that stuff. I thought it was just perfect—exactly what a Westerner expects to hear when they love Japanese culture but know nothing about the country. Every now and then, I wouldn’t even look at the TV screen anymore; I’d just let myself be carried away by the melodies and sounds of those instruments so characteristic of this ultra-watered-down folklore. Well, I think so, anyway—it makes sense to me, but I did say I didn’t know anything about it. During those moments, my concept for a BTA / hack-and-slash / tactical Mahjong game was coming together at breakneck speed! It wasn’t until later, when I showed it during an interview and the boss of the company in question made fun of me, that I realized I might have to start all over again—and that becoming a Game Designer was going to be a little more complicated than I’d expected. Whatever—that’s in the past; let’s move on, come on. Forget that you spent seventeen thousand bucks on this school for nothing… HGNNNAARH! Yeah, okay. A team of several musicians worked on the OST—including Hitoshi Sakimoto and Masaharu Iwata, no less! Does anyone need me to provide a little context? Gauntlet IV, Vagrant Story, FF Tactics, Bloody Roar 2—are those good enough examples of killer titles? There are plenty of others, but I don’t have any articles to link to, so I’ll keep it to myself. It’s got everything you need to create a legendary soundtrack. Epic, melancholic, dark, suspenseful… you’ll hear koto, shamisen, not-so-welcoming monk chants, gongs, pan flutes, various drums, bells, and everything else that embodies the cliché of Japanese music that plays while we’re smashing demons. But it strays from that a bit at times, leaning toward anime-style tracks with heavy electric guitar riffs or more electronic sounds. It’s that 2000s thing where everything gets mixed together, you know? Well, I really like it, so I’m not going to complain. In any case, there’s one track in particular that brings tears of joy to my eyes every time I hear it. It’s one of the rare exceptions to have made it onto my childhood video game playlist, even though I’ve included almost nothing from after 2002 on it. Just as Muramasa makes me feel like I’m pretty knowledgeable about Japanese culture, its soundtrack creates a false nostalgia that’s just as cool as the real thing. Well, good job—what else can I say?
Backsaber
It took my roommate a long time, but when he finally finished the game, he naturally set it aside to move on to something else. He managed to get me to play co-op with him in Gears of War 2; I watched him closely again when he powered through Darksiders, and especially when he decided to start competing in Street Fighter IV. Yeah, he had every console—just like half the guys in my class, those jerks. But little by little, our relationship fell apart, for reasons like his lack of involvement in our school projects, or because he simply spent three years trying to squeeze money out of us—my other roommate, my girlfriend, and me. Not to mention his endless tall tales on every subject, especially when it came to his romantic conquests. It was as if, once Muramasa was put away in the closet, our good friendship could no longer last. Afterward, I wanted to try a Vanillaware game for myself—half to recapture the incredible feeling of Muramasa, half to exorcise the unhealthy presence of my roommate, who was still lingering in the back of my mind.
I bought Dragon’s Crown. I enjoyed it for a while, but not as much as its predecessor. And then there’s the character design… To think I’d been bothered by the unrealistic boobs of one or two girls in Muramasa—now I realized how bad it was! I heard that a new remake has been announced for 2027, this time coming to all current-gen consoles, not just as a Nintendo exclusive. Good news—this game deserves to be known by the whole world. Maybe I’ll even actually play it this time. Probably not, since I’m still stuck playing the same old stuff these days, but just piquing my curiosity is quite an achievement. If it could help me finish that Mahjong game concept, that’d be a bonus, too.
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