Vanillaware’s Muramasa: The Demon Blade, a Wii-exclusive successor to the PS2’s Odin Sphere, lost its publisher, but that’s alright, because it got another one less than a day later.
Muramasa: The Demon Blade was recently released in Japan to solid sales and critical acclaim, but for a second yesterday we were afraid that it’d never see the light of day in the US. Seemingly out of nowhere, US publisher XSeed decided to drop the game from their release schedule. “We firmly believe in the product and will look forward to seeing it release in North America,” XSeed said in a statement.
Not long afterward, however, Ignition Entertainment announced that they’d picked up Muramasa and are planning to release it this September. Ignition’s other big name game for the year, The King of Fighters XII, is another game that utilizes extremely intricate 2D art – seems that Ignition’s got something of a fetish here. “Ignition Entertainment is immensely proud for the opportunity to bring Muramasa: The Demon Blade to the legions of North American gamers yearning for top-quality, original action games on Wii,” Ignition business development director Shane Bettenhausen said.
Fans of the PS2’s gorgeously 2D action-RPG Odin Sphere might want to keep an eye on the title, as it acts as something of a spiritual successor to that game. Muramasa‘s got the same detailed art style, but seems to feature more straight up action that uses the Wii Remote for motion controls as well as more traditional GameCube and Classic Controller setups.
“We developed Muramasa: The Demon Blade in the same way as we did Odin Sphere, so there are bound to be a lot of similarities,” Vanillaware president George Kamitani said. “I want it to be a very fun game for everyone who picks it up.”
