Muramasa: The Demon Blade follows two main characters, whose plots seem lifted straight out of Japanese folklore. You choose which character to play as every time you load the game, and your save slot keeps tabs on them both individually, allowing you to swap back and forth if you so desire.

Momohime is a young princess who finds herself possessed by an evil spirit named Jinkuro, who forces her to journey across the land and cooperate with his sinister plot to usurp power.
Kisuke, the other main character, is a ninja who has suffered a lapse in memory, and is shocked to see his old clan accusing him of a crime and a betrayal he has no recollection of committing.
 
Both characters piece together their respective stories as they progress through the game, and the individual plotlines intertwine and cross over occasionally as you go. Muramasa is a side-scrolling 2D fighting game not dissimilar from the recent 2D Castlevania games, where you explore branching paths across the game's map, broken up into a series of “rooms” with exits on either side. As you pass through each screen, you may be ambushed by groups of enemies, at which point a battle begins. Both characters fight using one of many swords you can collect throughout the game, with the expected range of moves: slashes in multiple directions, combo strikes, mid-air slashes, and evasion and blocking maneuvers. Each sword has a special attack as well, which differs for each weapon. You get a wide range of jumping abilities (double jumps, quick descents, gliding), with responsive controls and fluid movement. As a result, chopping down hordes of enemies is satisfying.
 
Relying too heavily on blocking or secret moves depletes your sword's energy, eventually breaking it. A broken sword has much less power in battle, but repairs itself over time, a  process you can speed up by collecting souls expelled from defeated enemy creatures and found loitering around the platforming segments of the stages.

It's also worth noting that Muramasa makes use of the GameCube and Classic controller, if the Wii/Nunchuck style doesn't suit you. All three work wonderfully with their own merits—a nice extra tier of customisation for those who need it.

There's a bit of an RPG element thrown in. Each battle yields experience to level up your character, giving more health and increasing stats. Using recovery items and eating at restaurants dotted across the Japanese countryside not only restores lost HP, but also boosts spirit, a vital statistic required for forging your blade into new weapons with new stats and abilities. Each character has a branching tree of swords to collect. Some swords are given as prizes for defeating boss characters; others you can forge, as long as you collect all the blades that come before it. Eventually, the two branching paths connect, and you work your way down towards forging the one ultimate sword, which unlocks a final boss. In total, there are 108 swords, with individual powers that come into play when you use them. Each sword has a secret art, kind of a special move unique to that blade.
It's a good idea to keep multiple swords equipped, as you can swap them in battle when one breaks, which performs a powerful unsheathing move that hits all enemies on screen. On top of the swords, there is a range of equipment that improves various abilities and stats if you need to deck yourself out further.

The game starts out with two difficulty modes: Muso (unparalleled) and Shura (scene of carnage), with slightly different play style for each. Muso is more focused on leveling up, exploring, and progressing the story as you slice through enemies like warm butter. Shura, on the other hand, requires precision and masterful use of evasion, blocking, and swords' hidden moves, making each battle a difficult scenario to overcome.
 There's also an unlockable difficulty that drops you down to one HP and prevents your character from leveling up entirely­­—a mode for players with a die-hard thirst for challenge.
 

Now that I've gotten all the niggly details out of the way, I can move onto Muramasa's strong point: the art. This game is absolutely GORGEOUS. It's prettier than can be described in writing, and must be seen in motion to appreciate.
The entire game is presented in a style resembling tapestries and drawings from the Edo period of Japanese history, from the characters to the maps to the painterly backgrounds.

Characters move using various “pieces” layered over the top of one another, each with their own separate animation (much like a flash cartoon), but the fluid motion and attention to detail make the sprites fit together seamlessly. The art intentionally looks like a flat, 2D painting, but with such masterful care taken towards representing every character, NPC, and enemy creature with uniform style, you'd almost believe you're looking at a 3D model.
 
Each background contains layers upon layers of individual motion, and in some areas in particular it can be eye-popping. As you dash through fields with grass and willows blowing in the breeze, run along the shore to see individual waves crashing behind you, or dash across the curved rooftop of a ninja castle you're infiltrating, it's hard not to want to stop and just watch the majesty of the Muramasa world going by. Baddies are taken from Japanese mythology, such as the oni horned demons, kappa turtle imps, and tengu crow-people. Bosses are gigantic, often taking up so much room that you can only see part of their bodies from where you stand, requiring you to jump high into the air just to get a glimpse of their heads.

When you stop at a restaurant or cook food from the items in your supply, you see the meal stunningly rendered in the same painting style—it looks realistic and delicious enough to make any player hungry. You then get to physically “eat” the food by tapping the A button to take each bite; even the movement the food makes works flawlessly. Dumplings jiggle slightly as you bite in to reveal the bean paste in the center; soup sloshes around in the bowl; little grains of rice fall from your onigiri and land on the plate. If Cooking Mama's meals looked half this good, I'd be the Iron Chef by now.
 

If one was to look up “hidden gem” in the gamer's dictionary, I wouldn't be surprised to see this game listed there.
If you want to see everything Muramasa has to offer, you have to complete both characters’ stories, which will unlock a slew of extra content. There are multiple endings, plenty of different modes to try, and other bits of fan service. There's just so much going for this game that it's impossible not to recommend. If you haven't played this game and you own a Wii, go out and buy it now. NOW!!

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