Musashi is a decent follow up, but still felt rushed.
Musashi wasn't to bad, but it wasn't great either. This game could of been alot better if it had a more fully developed story, and about 3 more dungeons. I liked the graphical style alot though, but the controls were a little frustrating and the lack of save spots was annoying. This isn't as good as the original, but even that game disappointed me when I first played it, so take that with what you will.
This game in alot of ways reminds me of Megaman X: Command Mission. The characters are artfully cel-shaded, the game is split in chapters, you always report back to one town, the music is similar, short quest and each chapter follows the same storyline pattern.
----------Battle System----------
Musashi Samurai Legend is a Action / Adventure / RPG quite similar to Kingdom Hearts. You hack and slash your way through a hord of enemies until you reach your goal. The enemies are either predeterminedly place or randomly regenerate. The boss fights are huge, and can last a long time. Each one has a different pattern to killing them, so they throw some variety at you. I hear people on this site saying the boss fights were easy, but that's only true if you stock up with a ton of health items, if you really want a challenge you try to beat one of these suckers without restoring your life. If you die during a boss fight you aren't penalized at all, actually I think you are rewarded with full health and magic and all the items you used are restored.
Musashi can equip 2 swords and an accessory, the accessory can give his various ability boosts, while the first sword is your main way of attack, which can be upgrade a few times. The 2nd sword is your final blow in a combo attack, or you can use the triangle button to just swing it, but it’s a slower attack. The 2nd sword also has a special magic attack that comes with it. These attacks help you defeat bosses in their strategies, or bypass blockades in the dungeons that once prevented you from advancing in the game. Musashi will also gain a few items that will also advance him in the game, for example one item that will make him double jump, or another that allows him to climb on certain walls.
The major selling point to the original Musashi was he could learn the enemies attacks. This time around however he can learn them for good, but it’s a little harder to get them. To learn the enemies attacks you need to lock on them and wait for your meter to reach the end, then wait for them to attack you, then you have to hit the square button, then actually perform the move before you actually have it saved.
Atleast in every chapter you have to save a Maiden, and for some reason they're all to lazy to walk, so Musashi has to carry them out of the dungeon. Since he's holding a Maiden while trying to escape, he obviously can't use his sword, so what does he do? Uses the Maiden as a weapon, yep. He can however throw the Maiden in the air and use a spin attack with his sword, but he would rather use the Maiden, that can't even walk, was trapped in a pod for who knows how long, as a weapon.
The dungeons feel like scrap left over from a Kingdom Hearts game, except they're a little longer and have more puzzle solving elements to them. They're kinda long, but you always end up backing to them a few times. Backing once is alright if you unlock new areas like this game does, but you have to backtrack for stupid reasons a few times without doing much new other than to collect something and run back.
Another familiarity from the original is you have to find all the towns people. The thing that annoys me about it in this one is they're WAY to easy to find, and there's only 28 of them. Everyone is important though, but that's no excuse to make it this easy. The best part about the original was figuring out how to find the towns people.
----------Characters / Story----------
Musashi is a 'hip' 'cool' bellyshirt wearing teenager with hands the size of Donkey Kong. He was summoned by the Princess to rescue the kidnaped Maidens and get the 5 swords needed to revive their town and put a stop to some bad guys. This is pretty similar, if not the same to the original Musashi. There's one princess you have to save atleast 3 times. The story is oddly paced, the dialog is embarrassing and the game follows a generic pattern that gets old after the 2nd time you do it.
----------Graphics----------
The characters and enemies are cel-shaded in a very strange way, but I love it alot. My only complaint with the characters style is Musashi looks stupid in a bellyshirt, and no ones mouth moves at all. The dungeons and town are fully CGI, there's really nothing BAD about the graphics, but there's nothing great either. The dungeons have a decent amount of length to them, but there's only a few in the game. The game opens with a flashy anime cutscene, but that's the only one you'll see in the game.
----------Sound----------
Only about 1/4 of the dialog is voiced out, maybe even less than that. Musashi's voice is really grating and so is most of the other characters, some of the worst voice acting I've heard in a game in a long time. The music is decent, laid back keyboard / ambience driven music similar to the stuff I heard in Megaman X: Command Mission. There's also some surf music to be found aswell.
----------World Map----------
The world map is a linear straight line where you connect the dots to advance much like Super Mario 3 or more closely Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles. To open the world map you have to talk to the mayor of the 'town' and it will open where you guide a giant whale to the destination you want to visit. There's only a few places to go, and you basically open one new area a chapter. There's only one 'town' but its more like a 3 story Mall. Where do these people sleep? I don't know. You can only save in town and no where else. There are checkpoints in the dungeons but they can get long where you might need to save, so you better play this game if are fully prepared to give up an hour of your day straight.
----------Time to Complete Game (last save after credits)----------
15:05
After the game is done with you save it, and restart the game. I'm not sure if it’s a new game plus or not, but there might be some new secrets with it.
