《Muramasa: Revenant Blades》上手体验与感想

At a recent preview event, I was given the opportunity to sit down and play the upcoming Metroidvania-style remaster Muramasa: Revenant Blades for an hour and a half. This play session was on PC, but rest assured, the game is coming to Nintendo Switch 2 and Switch. In the demo that I played, which was eventful, to say the least, I got a strong idea of what to expect from this game when it releases next year – but was it fun? Short answer: absolutely, it’s ridiculously fun. If you want a little more detail, let me break down my experience.

In the demo, I had the option of choosing from two playable characters, Kisuke and Momohime. Another four will be available when the game launches, but for my time with the game, I chose Momohime. Two difficulty modes were available for this demo, Demigod mode and Mortal mode. I chose the latter, which is an easier difficulty setting to get to grips with the game as I was unfamiliar with the series going in.

For those who aren’t familiar with this one, Muramasa: The Demon Blade is a side-scrolling hack ‘n’ slash game first released on Wii in 2009. A re-release on PlayStation Vita followed in 2013, which included the Genroku Legends DLC alongside the base game. Here in this new version of the title, we have all of the previously released content in 4K, with updated localization text and brand-new English voiceover among other improvements. As I was personally unfamiliar going in, the whole game felt completely original; it played so smoothly that I didn’t know the core of the game was from a release over a decade and a half ago. 

The demo begins with a tutorial that teaches you basic movement and traversal. I messed around with Momohime’s movement, learning her double jump and fast fall techniques, and stopped for a beat to admire the art style. It was beautiful artwork and all of it looked absolutely stunning in motion as well as idle. To make a comparison very early, in a lot of ways, the game felt to me like a 2D Devil May Cry game. Combat gave me serious DMC vibes and exploration also gave me that same feeling.

As mentioned above, the game follows the Metroidvania genre; games that adapt the format of titles like Super Metroid and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. These include things like unlocking weapons, a heavy focus on exploration, traveling from one room to another, and sometimes having to return to an earlier room to resolve a puzzle or complete an objective. There are certainly those elements at play here, but it very much felt like its own thing. The game starts quite hand-hold-ish, not allowing you to explore too freely as you navigate the first few areas, but after defeating your first boss fight, the game really opens up.

To talk about combat, you attack using, unsurprisingly, blades. Momohime had three different types she could equip and weapon swap between, including a faster blade that could do a lot of hits in a short space of time but perhaps lacked a little in power, a longer sword which was the reverse, and one obtained from the boss fight that had a projectile attack and some unique moves. Dozens upon dozens of blades can be crafted, and each one features unique attributes and abilities that make them fun to mess around with to see what suited how I wished to play the game. 

Blades break after enough damage taken, so sticking to just one is maybe not the best way to go. Here’s where the DMC comparisons are going to come in, so bear with me. Weapon swapping works very much like DMC4, where it can be done at the press of a button – even while you are in the middle of an attack combo. Also like those games, the Batman: Arkham titles or the recent LEGO Batman, a combo number is seen on screen and the number gets bigger and bigger for every hit you land without getting hit yourself. There are evasive measures the player can take to avoid taking a hit, like a dodge roll, jumping out of the way, a sneak slash that Momohime uses to dash and slice to the other side of the screen, but she can only do so a few times before a cooldown period. Combos can feel exhilarating to pull off. There are plenty of methods of attacking, too, with aerial attacks included in the toolset as well as screen-wide attacks that hit when swapping blades. The player is rewarded with health back and points that can be used with the smith toward crafting new weapons. 

The boss fight I partook in was really cool. Momohime was up against a blue ogre-monk-like character that had multiple health bars and different attack patterns. After dying a few times here, it was actually in this skirmish that I figured out how to dodge roll and string combos together more effectively while evading his attack patterns. It was very satisfying to defeat him, and upon doing so, the game opened up for me to explore more freely. It was suggested I move one area to the right to progress the plot, but the directionless dolt that I am found myself running in the opposite direction entirely.

On my travels, I came through caves, forests, open fields, busy Edo-period-style towns, across beaches and seas and beyond, until I eventually realized that the fights I was getting into were against enemies that could very easily kill me, but the reverse not so much, and soon enough, it dawned on me I had taken a wrong turn at Albuquerque. I went looking for a full map in the menu, which had a handy tip at the bottom telling me where I should be going. Sadly, I was on the opposite end of the overworld and getting back was a nightmare. I was trying to retrace my steps, but constantly losing to stronger enemies due to low health. Luckily, there was no traditional life system in this demo, so when my health hit 0, I restarted in the area before I entered combat. Less luckily, by the time I figured out how to make my way back to the story path, my time with the game was over.

I didn’t want to stop. I very much had the itch to keep playing. Though I perhaps wasn’t intended to stray so far from the intended questline, having the option to was really fun, and as I roamed freely, I came across a whole load of different enemy types to test my blade. Kappas, samurais, ninjas, beasts and ghosts all got sliced up and some required different methods to defeat. The ghosts, for example, required their projectiles to get flung back at them to do damage, so on the part of the player, it required some more patience before the assault, rather than just going right in to deal damage.

The English voice work was fun – it had the charm of those Funimation dubs from the late 2000s, early 2010s, and the character artwork in cutscenes was very clean. The map feature was useful and clearly labeled locations, as well as where I currently was. There was also a minimap display that was handy, and not intrusive during gameplay. The whole UI looked good and didn’t distract from the beautiful backgrounds each area boasted. 

The whole game had this real engaging mystical vibe that translated across the whole experience, from the characters’ designs and backgrounds, to the way characters spoke and the feelings those conversations evoked. The music of the game was stellar as well – I was particularly digging the battle theme. This was some of the most fun I’ve had with a 2D action-RPG game in quite a while, so I’m looking forward to getting to play more of this game when it releases in February next year.