A few days before this year’s Tokyo Game Show , I had the chance to sit down and play Muramasa: Revenant Blades for a good while, and it was wondrous.

I am a longtime fan of Vanillaware and imported the original Japanese version of Muramasa on the Wii in 2009. Even back then, I fell in love with the game, not only through its sumptuous visuals but also in how it played.

Muramasa was also not your typical action role-playing game either, and this is actually part of its enduring charm for me.

On the surface, Muramasa looks like a fiendishly strict action game, with complex combos and intricate controls. The reality is that the combat is quite straightforward and intuitive, and that much of the progression is more down to upgrades and item management.

It’s this that I was able to delve back into when I sat down with Revenant Blades .

Obviously, the game now looks amazing in high definition, and even a lot prettier than the already improved PS Vita version. Quite simply, Muramasa has never looked this good, and with a game with such striking visuals, that says a lot.

However, what pulls you in is all the exploration and hunting down items and managing all your various weapons, which can also be upgraded.

Revenant Blades also includes more playable characters than the original game, and their stories and combat gameplay have all been fleshed out in detail as well.

So when my time was up, I hadn’t really noticed, as I was so engrossed and getting sucked back into a game I loved playing on the Wii.

I think it goes to show how good that game was, as this new remaster has lost none of its appeal, and it still has arguably the nicest-looking food in any game ever.

Muramasa: Revenant Blades will be released for PlayStation 5, Switch 2, Switch, and PC via Steam on February 4.

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