Muramasa: The Demon Blade (Wii) Review

Welcome to Wednesday night on SuperPhillip Central. Our next review is for one of the more visually-appealing games of this year, and it's on the Wii of all places! It's Muramasa: The Demon Blade!

The Art of War

Vanillaware may not be a household name to many people. They're the development studio behind the relatively successful Odin Sphere for the Playstation 2. Like Odin Sphere, their next game is also oozing with style and is aesthetically pleasing. This game is Muramasa: The Demon Blade for the Wii. Based on ancient Japanese folklore and filled to the brim with style and substance, is Muramasa: The Demon Blade a cut above the rest?

Play as Momohime or Kisuke.

It is the age of demons, magical spirits, and feudal flair in Japan. Muramasa tells the tales of two separate people, Momohime, a princess possessed by an ancient demon, and Kisuke, a ninja on his own who is riddled with amnesia. Each of their stories progresses through eight acts, and after completing both characters' stories, a final chapter is unlocked that wraps everything up. Each character starts out on different ends of the world map with different bosses to battle and beat. The stories are not handled very well as it can be quite difficult to follow each one due to lazy storytelling and a lack of context during scenes. What voice acting included is all Japanese giving the game a distinctive foreign film feel. The localization doesn't translate the dialogue word-for-word. Instead, the localization gives a gist of what each character says. Every character and NPC in the game gets spoken dialogue showing no corners were cut on this aspect.

The basic flow of Muramasa has whichever character you choose running from one room to the next, occasionally entering a random encounter. This is where an exclamation point flashes on the screen and summons a multitude of enemies for your character to slice and dice. After a room is cleared of enemies, bonus experience points from striking first to not taking any damage are awarded after battle. The rooms themselves don't have much in the way of actual platforming. Many of these rooms are large, empty, and repeat themselves often throughout the course of the game. This can get quite repetitive running through the same rooms over and over. Occasionally, a hidden item will be located in a room signaled by an orange marking on the map. When found, the item will be placed in your character's collection of goodies.

There's plenty of opportunities to take in the sights.

Muramasa has a Metroid-style of progression. Instead of accessing new areas with new abilities, you access new areas by acquiring new blades. Blades earned from bosses destroy specially-colored barriers blocking your character's progress. There's a hundred or so different swords in all to collect, each with special abilities, and these are acquired through various different means. You can forge a profusion of new blades once your spirit and vitality are high enough, you can acquire swords from bosses, or you can collect them from enemy-infested lairs. These lairs, too, have barriers that only certain blades will open.

If you get lost running around the similar-looking rooms, you can use your map to know where to go. An arrow on the map, which can be placed near the middle of the screen for easy access, will point in which direction you need to go. Unfortunately, there's plenty of times where you'll be scampering through areas all over again, backtracking. There's times where you'll be repeating ten, twenty, thirty rooms just to reach where you need to go. Sometimes you won't even get any battles while doing so making the process all the more tedious.

Each sword has a special art skill
that can be unleashed on foes.

Speaking of battles, Muramasa is an action-RPG at its very core. Battles consist of Monohime or Kisuke slicing up enemies that appear on screen. The action in this action-RPG is very fast, fluid, and fun. Scoring and chaining combos is almost effortless, and depending on the difficulty you're playing on (either Muso [normal] or Shura [hard]), you can evade and block attacks with ease. The challenge level of the game can be changed at any time. In battle and over time, your blade will weaken in strength as it is used to block attacks. If it takes too much damage, it will break in two and need to have time to itself to repair. Thankfully, you can equip three swords at once and exchange them on the fly, sometimes even damaging all enemies on screen in the process. As battles end, the experience you acquire make lengths to increase your level, giving you more strength, defense, and life flame (or hit points).

There's a decent amount of enemies in Muramasa. Sure, you'll more likely get your fill of ninja and tengu, but there's plenty of variety in the enemy design. Many times you'll face off against six or more enemies at once. A boss battle concludes every act, and this is definitely where the design shines. Many bosses will take up large portions of the screen with some taking up the majority. Boss battles are the most difficult and rewarding part of Muramasa. Each boss has multiple life bars that slowly empty as they're damaged. If a battle is too tough and you lose, your only penalty is the chance to retry or to start back right from outside the boss battle. Ample save points, many located right before a boss, are widely available making long periods without saving a non-factor most of the time.

I better start "kraken" on beating this boss. Wakka-wakka.

Muramasa's biggest draw may not be its actual gameplay but its presentation. Rest assured, Muramasa is a gorgeous game with beautiful, colorful, crisp visuals and plenty of eye candy to ogle. Backgrounds use various tricks such as paralax and a fish-eyed view to add extra dimension to areas. Models are highly detailed and superbly animated from small characters like Momohine to large characters such as many of the bosses you'll battle. Everything in the presentation package has been tailored with the greatest of effort even down to your character eating a savory dish of food to regain spirit. It's like food pornography! Meanwhile, the soundtrack is in part by Hitoshi Sakimoto who is best known for his work on games like Final Fantasy Tactics and Vagrant Story, and it's excellent in helping give the game that ancient Japanese ambiance.

Frozen land but the fire inside still burns.

Muramasa: The Demon Blade may be breathtaking game to behold, but its gameplay can only be masked so much by the beauty of the visuals. There's a lot of needless backtracking and repetition involved. The game can sometimes feel like a chore running through recycled areas again and again. There's also little in the way of exploration. These problems aside, Muramasa is a very capable action-RPG with tons of style and plenty of "oooh, pretty" moments. As it stands, Muramasa: The Demon Blade gets a modest recommendation as a good, but not great game.

[SuperPhillip Says: 7.75/10]

Drawn to Life (DS) Review

Today is the North American release date of Scribblenauts, the next game by 5th Cell, the team behind this reviewed game. The original Drawn to Life was a creative if not easy platformer for the Nintendo DS. Expect a review of Scribblenauts in the coming weeks. As for now, here's a classic review of Drawn to Life.

The Stylus is Mightier Than the Sword.

Drawn to Life is an interesting experiment crafted by the folks at THQ. Wait. What? THQ? The company that produces those average Nickolodeon games and other shovelware? Hold it right there! Don't leave this review yet! Their latest game, developed by 5th Cell, is one of most refreshing handheld titles to come out in awhile, and it possesses its own unique charm.

Your role in Drawn to Life is as The Creator-- a deity who watches over a village (which you can later name) full of cute characters called Roposa. However, an evil Roposa named Wilfre concocted an army of dark shadows to turn the once happy land into a foreboding realm of darkness. Not fulfilled with just doing that, Wilfre tore numerous pages out of the Book of Life-- the book containing the Roposa village's assets such as the moon, the stars, several important buildings, and much more. The pages were scattered throughout many worlds. With little hope for the village left, many of the Roposa abandoned the town. This is where you come in. The three Raposa remaining beg to you to create a hero to help them turn their village back to its former glory by designing a hero over the body of a mannequin. Players can design up to three heroes to play as.

Create a character from scratch...

The game flow is rather simple. The mayor will ask you to gather the four page segments of one platforming level, so he can return them back to the Book of Life. After retrieving the segments and placing the page into the Book of Life, the Creator must then draw the object needed using a template for guidance. The object drawn will then return to the village in tangible form.

There's two parts of Drawn to Life's gamplay. There's the village where you'll on an overhead map, scurrying to and from, talking to Raposas to gather information to continue to the next level, and then there's the platforming stages. What does one do in these stages, you ask? Well, a variety of things. For one, there's three Raposa hidden in each level to gather. These were Raposas who abandoned the village in its hour of need but were later captured in shadow cages by Wilfre. Additionally, there's templates or page segments that need to be gathered which are also strewn about the level. Players must collect all of the Rapos and templates in an area to continue on in the level. Finally, there's three hidden secrets in each level. These range from patterns for drawing to stamps to new abilities. Wilfre's stretch of dominance is present in each area of the game. By rubbing the stylus over the icky black goo you'll come across, you can scrub and clean the goo from the level.

...Or use a pre-made template.

The controls of the platforming sections are responsive as well as fluid. There's enemies to leap on as well as shoot with your custom-designed shooter Tokens are the currency which come in various colors and values to be used at a village shop. When your character gets hit, it reveals part of its mannequin base. Get hit as bare mannequin, and you lose a life. Platforming won't win any rewards for originality, but that's okay. The main "draw"-- pun intended-- of Drawn to Life is the creation aspect. Not only can you create you own characters, but in all of the levels you'll come across dotted-line shapes that need The Creator to fill them in. For instance, there's platforms that need to be drawn to advance, so all you need to do is let your creativity run wild and draw any form of platform within the perimeter of the dotted lines. I drew a colorful horizontal carrot for platforms. There's A LOT of customization in Drawn to Life. You'll draw new shooters for your character, springs that bounce you to and fro, tiki heads (I designed mine to resemble Mario) that leap from one position to another, a rocket ship, submarine, hang glider, snowboard, surfboard, wings for your character, a sword to wield, and so much more. There's really nothing like seeing your own drawing creations in action to put a smile on your face.

The Raposa village of whatever you wish to call it.

The first three worlds each have five levels in them including the boss battle level.
There's four big boss battles in the game. These are the most difficult part of Drawn to Life, and even then they're quite formulaic and easy to beat. However, they could give a young child a run for the money. The platforming and boss levels in Drawn to Life are split up by play-time in the village itself, going to speak with various Rapos to progress in the game, drawing new items for the village from the pages of the Book of Life collected in each of the levels, and buying goodies from the secret items you collected in the levels. The Rapos in the village each have their own personalities, and even though it's a kids game basically there's still humor that adults like myself will laugh at.

So what about the drawing? Well, it's pretty easy and intuitive to get into. You get the perimeter of the shape, and you must draw an object within those lines. It's perfect for beginners who can just color in the shape with the fill-in tool, and it's nice for advanced drawers to be able to have a sense of freedom in what they want to draw. Character creation is fair for any skill of artist. There's pre-made templates that you can simply base your character off of, or you can just draw whatever is in your mind's eye instead. There's a decent amount of colors to choose from to give any drawing an extra dimension if desired. Furthermore on the graphics, the backgrounds are rich and vibrant. Enemy models are well done, and the character designs are apt also. The music is quite good. There's a number of notable pieces, and even a touching vocal piece that runs before the credits.

A main problem that Drawn to Life has is its difficulty. It's clearly made for the younger crowd, and with that comes an easy difficulty. Skilled gamers will have no problems plowing through this game within ten hours-- drawing time excluded. However, does this mean that Drawn to Life won't appeal to adults? Of course not, and only the insecure would say otherwise. Drawing gives the game a lot of depth, but without that this title would just seem like just another average THQ platformer in the line of Jimmy Neutron or Spongebob Squarepants. You needn't be an artist to enjoy this game. All you need is a little creativity. If making stick figures or wangs (I know there's some of you out there) is your thing, great. You'll like Drawn to Life. If you're more into high-detailed art, hey, you'll like Drawn to Life as well. It's a solid purchase, and I would best describe it as an Eastern game from a Western developer. It's a nice combination, and for all intents and purposes it works wonderfully regardless of its ease of difficulty and brevity.

[SuperPhillip Says: 8.0/10]

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (PS3) Guest Review

One of my biggest problems with the Metal Gear Solid franchise is its attempt to mimic Hollywood. Games are games-- not movies. Having to sit for twenty minutes watching a scene after only playing the game for five minutes is not good pacing. Don't get me started on the plot either. Regardless, that's why I didn't bother reviewing the following game-- Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. How well did it stack up to its predecessors?

"Did You Rike It?"

Back in 1998, Konami released Metal Gear Solid on the Sony Playstation. At that time, there hadn’t been any game quite like it. While the action-stealth gameplay was fun, it was the movie-like presentation that really brought that title to a different level. When the series landed on the PS2 a few years later, the visuals were given an overhaul helping both the gameplay and cinematic experiences further. Some would argue that this caused the decline of the series as you spent more time watching the game than actually playing, especially by the time the third installment rolled around. I was one of those people. Whereas MGS2 only became imbalanced near the very end, MGS3 had 10-15 minute cutscenes frequently throughout the course of the game. It wasn’t until a month or so ago that I saw that I missed out on a lot of fun stuff just because I didn’t give the game a chance. That’s the main reason why I tried to get back into the series by reviewing Portable Ops earlier this summer, and it’s also why it’s finally time for my review of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots.

It’s been a long while since gamers have been able to play as Solid Snake, and a lot has changed for our hero since then. Thanks to his imperfect cloning technology, his body is rapidly deteriorating before everyone’s eyes. There doesn’t appear to be much time left for Snake, but there’s still one last piece of business to finally take care of. . .his own brother, Liquid Ocelot. When gamers first take control of the aging hero and his quest, they’ll notice that it’s not just the hero that’s changed. You’re placed out in the middle of a desert city. This isn’t exactly the best place for a stealth mission, but you’re going to have to make the best of it. Luckily, you have a new suit referred to as OctoCamo. This device allows you to instantly blend into your surroundings just by leaning up against a wall or pressing your body along the floor.

War has changed. So has the battlefield.

Of course, that new camouflage technology isn’t going to do you much good if an enemy spots you, now is it? Well, that’s not as bad as it would seem as you have multiple options for taking them out in this game. As usual, you’ll eventually earn both a regular and tranquilizer pistol. Well, those are only two of the near 70 weapons you can unlock over the course of your game. Some of these can actually be purchased off of a man named Drebin, but only if you earn enough points. Taking care of non-human targets, not using healing items, that sort of thing. It works out well when you tie it into how you can use these weapons. Because of the huge arsenal that you can acquire, you can literally tear through the enemy army should you so choose to. Even if you create the dreaded Alert phase, you actually have a chance to fight out of it. That said, I chose to take the more stealthy approach just to keep up with the tradition. It works both ways, although the rewards are more generous if you don’t harm anyone as usual.

Guns are unlocked for use once Snake earns enough points.

The choices don’t stop there either. In the first couple of the game’s five acts, there are actually two armies fighting it out against each other. It’s your call as to whether or not you want to get Snake involved. If you do decide to play the hero and help out the local militia, then they’ll react more positively to his presence, letting him move around freely in their bases and even giving him items on occasion. Even better, if the enemy can be driven out altogether, then you are free to move about the area without any chance of causing an Alert. This is one of the things that make this opening part of the game so much fun. There’s just so many ways to go about completing the task at hand, and it makes for a great experience.

It’s just a shame that the whole game couldn’t be like that. For whatever reason, the game becomes much more linear once you start Act 3. While I don’t have any issue with playing the game, I do have a major issue with how little playing you actually get to do here. This act took me over two hours to complete, yet only around a half hour of it was spent playing. You don’t have to be a major in mathematics to realize that it’s just way too imbalanced. Worse, the scenes that you do see feel the need to explain the same thing that they had already told you just a few minutes earlier. I guess Konami knew that this part was going to be so boring that they tried to hammer the plot into your brain. Another thing that takes you out of the experience are the installation screens that the game throws at you six times through the course of the game. They only last for a few minutes, but every time you want to play through the game, you’re going to have to go over those screens again and again.

That would be funny if I didn’t have to look
at the same installation screen for 20 minutes.

Another detriment to the game are the actual bosses. While these encounters are somewhat fun, they sure aren’t Liquid’s men from MGS, Dead Cell from MGS2, or even the Cobras from the third game. To be quite frank, the bosses in this game come off as filler villains. You’ll see them, they’ll spew some random sentences, beat them, and then hear their backstories through a quick post-battle codec call. It’s only when you meet up with past familiar faces do these foes get interesting. The final fight of Act 4 is one of the most fun, if out of place battles in the entire game. Even if you aren’t able to get much out of the story, I think you’ll also feel by the time you’ve finished the final battle that this was a fitting end to Solid Snake’s journey.

This game is absolutely gorgeous.

Metal Gear Solid 4 arguably could have been the best in the series. There are so many options, and many of them are easily accessible even to newcomers. The problem with this game comes from when the action is taken out of your hands and you’re forced to sift through a boring 20+ minute dialogue sequence that could have been taken care of in less than half that time. I still wound up enjoying the plot for the most part, but I still can’t shake the feeling that this game really tried to wrap things up as quickly as it could with those large chunks of text instead of just letting the player do so themselves. As a result, Guns of the Patriots doesn’t quite reach the level of its predecessors, but I still found this game to be an overall solid experience.

[Overall: 8.75/10]

SuperPhillip's Favorite VGMs - 400th Video Edition

We wrap up our listen to the Final Fantasy series with Final Fantasies six through ten. This also marks the 400th video of my series of favorite video game music and soundtracks.

v396. Final Fantasy VI - The Phantom Forest

Final Fantasy VI is one of my favorite games in the series. The Phantom Forest plays not only in the titular area, but also in several caves throughout the course of the game. It's a haunting yet poignant track fitting for the areas.



v397. Final Fantasy VII - Highwind Takes to the Skies

Don't hate me for this, but Final Fantasy VII did nothing for me. To this day, I don't like the game, but I do appreciate the soundtrack all the same. Here's the airship theme from Final Fantasy VII.



v398. Final Fantasy VIII - The Landing

Final Fantasy VIII is the only PS1 era Final Fantasy that I completed and thoroughly enjoyed. I think I should give IX another chance, however. Have a listen to this track from FF8.



v399. Final Fantasy IX - Cid's Theme

The majestic theme of Lindblum! I have memories of playing Final Fantasy IX on the old PS1, and the load times were very long. I think it had to do with the PS1 of mine being the original model. It made battles much longer than they had to be.



v400. Final Fantasy X - Battle

This marks my 400th volume of SuperPhillip's Favorite VGMs. Huzzah! I brought champagne for the occasion, but I doubt everyone watching is above legal age. This is the peppy battle theme from Final Fantasy X. I couldn't stand the hero, so I didn't play through the whole game. Now that most heroes nowadays are space marines, I'm missing the whiny brats as heroes now.

Super Paper Mario (Wii) Review

This is another one of my earliest reviews as you can probably surmise by reading it. Super Paper Mario was one of the only games in the Best of the Best Wii story that did not have a review tied to it. Not anymore with this review of Super Paper Mario.

Paper-thin but thick with fun.

What was once scheduled to be a Gamecube game during its development time is now what I consider to be the second killer app for the Wii, Super Paper Mario. Just because the game started in development on the Wii's predecessor does not make this game a Cube port as you'll discover through playing in this platformer with RPG elements.

I now pronounce you Koopa and wife.

Super Paper Mario begins with the unlikeliest of scenarios-- Princess Peach and Bowser's wedding. Arranged by the crafty antagonist, Count Bleck, this union is said to cause worlds to be destroyed as foretold by the Dark Prognosticus, a book of undisclosed power. Without revealing too much, an unlikely hero comes to break up the marriage in the opening scene. Regardless, Mario treks off into a side-scrolling journey reminiscent of the old NES games.

Sometimes all you need in life is a little perspective.

You hold the Wii remote sideways. The 2 button functions as your jump button, and the 1 button calls upon the help of your secondary Pixl. Pixls are fairy-like beings each granting Mario and company a power such as ground pounding, turning small, throwing enemies, dropping explosive bombs, and more. Finally, the coolest feature is accomplished by pressing the A button to shift the world from 2-D to 3-D. Can't get past a tall pipe? Flip the world to 3-D so you can walk around it easily. The largest enemy in 2-D can be unveiled to be paper-thin in 3-D. As you can guess this tactic of flipping dimensions is used a lot for puzzle-solving, progressing in the game, and obtaining hidden items. Pixls are also used to help out via bombing switches, ground pounding pillars, throwing a stone into a switch, and so on. Additionally to the Pixls to assist you, new characters will as well including the hovering parasol-packing Princess Peach and her "husband", the King of the Koopas, Bowser.

The game's flow is by chapter. There are usually four sub-chapters (1-1, 1-2, 1-3, 1-4) in each chapter culminating in a final boss battle for one of the legendary Pure Hearts. These aforementioned hearts are said to open new worlds as said by the Light Prognosticus, the hero's book of yore. The first chapter boss for instance, can only be defeated by flipping into 3-D, catching a ride on its back, and tossing enemies into its antennae. Each sub-chapter has Mario and friends going from various locales hopping, bopping, collecting coins, battling mini-bosses, and doing all of Mario's patented gameplay of 2-D faith ultimately towards heading to the goal block ending a sub-chapter.

From 2-D to the 3-D.

I called this game a platformer with RPG elements because you'll be doing RPG-like actions such as managing your inventory, gaining experience, leveling up to increase hit points and your attack strength, wading through lots of text (some humorous and insightful and others just boring and pointless). You can collect cards of enemies to do double or triple damage to the enemy whose card you have acquired. These cards can be purchased in the hub town, found in various hidden areas in the sub-chapters, or taken directly from enemies using catch cards-- Pokeball-esque capture devices.

I very much prefer playing a platformer in the vein of an RPG instead of an RPG in the vein of a platformer as the previous Paper Mario games have been. The gameplay is refreshing and fun, there's sidequests to be had, various locales to (re)visit, and a vast majority of baddies to defeat. Few sub-chapters were tedious which involved the player to back-track, write down a bunch of numbers or directions for an asinine code, type the word "please" five different times to advance, and long text-driven sessions. The soundtrack is as generic and uninspired as Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. There were few tunes I could hum too or enjoyed the melodies of (most of the music doesn't even have an identifiable melody).

Hm... Yeah, that might be a problem.

Anyone though looking for a great platformer with very cool and clever 2-D to 3-D gameplay should definitely check out Super Paper Mario. It's what I consider to be the second killer app for the Wii, and the first killer app if you want something exclusive to the Wii.

[SuperPhillip Says]

Story: Guided by the Dark Prognosticus, Count Bleck wants to cause trouble by destroying various worlds. Mario and company to the rescue.

Graphics: Bright, colorful, and crisp. Sprites are excellent. 3-D worlds are a little bland though.

Gameplay: What you would expect from a Mario platformer. Simply brilliant.

Sound: The sound effects and occasional voices are nice. However, the music is quite generic and not easy to love.

Replay Value: From collecting all the cards to beating the Pit of 100 Trials, to finding all of the recipes and Pixls, there's a lot to do in this game.

[Overall: 8.5/10]