Muramasa is not an instant classic, but it is a work of art.

User Rating: 9 | Oboro Muramasa WII
Graphics (9.8/10): Muramasa is, by no stretch of the imagination, a work of art, something you could easily imagine seeing in an art gallery – its video-gaming as an art form. Not only is it the best looking game of the year (so far) Muramasa is possibly the best looking 2D game ever made. Muramasa's weakness is its repetitive and sometimes completely empty scenery, also, artistically, the game is no Assassins Creed, but we are talking Wii capabilities, compared to much more power, 360/PS3 video drives.

Story (8.8/10): Muramasa has two extremely convoluted stories, ones which I found very hard to understand, also, there doesn't seem to be much of a story element in the game, which makes it closer to a pure platformer, rather than an action RPG. However, I did find Momohime's story easier to follow and the game itself is well paced.

Sound (10/10): AMAZING! I've watched Japanese movies with less complex dialogue. The Japanese voice-over work is stunning, this IS NOT Japanese anime! The games score, composed by Hitoshi Sakimoto – composer of Final Fantasy XII and Valkyria Chronicles – is beautiful, it flows, flawlessly with the games visuals. Muramasa, has, possibly, one of the best sounding original scores of the year.

Game-play (9.0/10): Muramasa is no doubt a fun game to play, but, its nothing that hasn't really been done before, the highlights of game-play, are the simplistic controls and the amazing sword-play and hit combinations, the lowlights are, sometimes completely barren landscapes – sometimes void of enemies for 4-5 screens – and the endless backtracking (which I didn't mind, it seems like a good excuse to take in the scenery, but it does get old and rather fast). I liked the concept of swords as keys, but I thought it could have been done much better (AKA, less backtracking).

Overall (9.25/10): Muramasa is a fun game to play, highlighted by its amazing visuals, great voice work, stunning soundtrack and simplistic, yet fun game-play. It's by no means an instant classic, but it is one of the best 3rd party Wii games, since the systems release. Besides a slightly convoluted and barely there story and some minor game-play flaws, Muramasa is a must buy for any Wii owner.