Vanillaware’s gorgeous side-scrolling action RPG is making the jump from a console often falsely accused of having no great games to a portable gaming machine wrongly bashed for the exact same thing.
Yes siree! Muramasa: The Demon Blade, first released on Nintendo Wii back in 2009, is being brought back to life on the PlayStation Vita as Muramasa Rebirth. A match made in heaven, I say, as the game’s luscious hand-drawn graphics are sure to look even more marvelous all hi-resed up on the Vita’s glorious OLED screen.
Muramasa‘s mythical Japanese tale is being completely relocalized in English for the Vita with original dual protagonists Momohime, a princess possessed by an evil spirit, and an amnesiac ninja named Kisuke. The game will also feature enhanced controls, including an actual jump button (on Wii jumping was awkwardly performed by pressing up on the D-pad/analog stick), as well as future access to four additional playable characters, each with new story scenarios, via DLC. (Bummer these new characters/scenarios aren’t included out of the box.)
Aksys Games has signed on to publish Muramasa Rebirth in the U.S., however a release date has not yet been announced. Hopefully it’s not too far off, especially with Dragon’s Crown still MIA and seemingly unlikely to surface any time soon. (It’d sure be nice to get Odin Sphere and Grand Knights History on the Vita too, but that’s just me dreaming of things that will never happen.)