Since i did already cover The Initial and the “sequel” hasn’t yet gone on sale on Steam, i feel it’s time to revisit (so yeah, it’s technically a rewrite in the sense that some of my opinions didn’t change over time, but it’s also a revision i wrote from scratch) another Oneechanbara adjacent title from the indie tier of Steam “famous” japanese hack n slash games heavy on the “school uniform cum swords” anime-derived aesthetic, the kind where you’d expect the dutch wives looking characters to randomly start fucking in a robotic, unappealing fashion, if you didn’t already know this was just a fan service-y hack n slash.
This was actually a fairly popular release, as in it was a smash hit when released during Comiketto 84 (AKA the 2013 august edition of Comic Market, that huge japanese only event) by his developer-creator Zenith Blue, and in March of 2014 PLAYISM picked it up to distribute and localize it in English for a worlwide Steam release.
It received a limited physical PS4 release via Limited Run Games and it’s also available digital on PSN and X-Box systems, FIY, but i got it in a bundle playable via Steam years ago, so i’m reviewing the Steam release alone, sold at a MSRP of 10 bucks.
The premise of Mitsurugi Kamui Hikae is fairly tipical anime slop, with the protagonist, Misa, being a Blade Templar tasked to kill demons and on the pursuit of a parasitic blade that consumes those who wield it, and has fallen in the hand of Suzuka, a friend of Misa, as she has to hunt down, and – if needs be – kill her. Obviously they are both japanese high school girls, of course they are.
This is mostly told via the opening and closing cutscene, which is to be expected since it’s a budget game, but surprisingly no final sequel tease or any bullshit, it just ends.
Not much else to say about the premise or characters, and presentation is overall exactly what one would expect for such an indie production sold for 10 bucks as MSRP.
FIY, there are keyboard controls, but this game supported since then X-Box 360 pad, and now also can be used with the PS4 or others, and the game itself recommends using a gamepad, since it’s an action game of this kind, so i’m gonna assume the intended experience is gamepad centric, fine by me, i prefer using my old 360 wireless pad anyway.
One thing i can’t take away is this “purity” the game has to its idea of combat and progression, as in it’s a straight up hack n slash built on an arena format, instead of trying to have some pretense exploration to make you feel like you’re actually moving through a location, the game is all fightin in the arenas that otherwise you’ll be forced into by having the game raise magical barriers or equivalents after moving a bit, so in a way it cut to the chase, it skips the “bullshit” to go straigh for the japanese schoolgirl katana und pantsu action.
And it surprised many in how deep the combat system is, i mean, i’ve seen notably worse and less well thought combat system in games made by developers working in a studio with dozens-hundreds of people, publisher backing and all the shizzle, only to be upstaged by something done with little budget by a handful of people for the Comiket.
You fight using a combination of hand-to hand attacks, sword attacks, special charged attacks, and once you damaged an enemy enough, it starts glowing red, meaning you can perform an unsheating sword move called Zanshin that hits glowing enemies, inflicting bleeding status on top of extra damage and recovering your sword gauge (while also pulling in exp and health orbs).
Zanshin is also tied to the combo system, as you manage to keep chaining combos without getting hit you’ll gather up to 3 rings on your sword, and the more rings you have also means the more powerful and easier to inflict bleeding is for the Zanshin manouver.
Yeah, you have a “sword gauge/bar” but fear not, it’s usage it’s actually reasonable and a good way to incentivize mixing up hand to hand combat and sword techniques, plus even at the start you’ll never realistically and frustratingly run out of “sword juice” in the middle of the fight, this isn’t the beat em up equivalent of Contra Rogue Corps overheating guns bullshit, far from it.
There’s also the classic defensive options of dodging, parrying, and timing the parry to a perfect parry, which can also be pulled with the charged attack (called Holy Technique here) but requires incredibly precise timing, and some options for following those up with counters and follow ups, and it’s actually incredibly solid, since you can pretty much parry everything with the right timing, controls are really tight so it’s never an issue of lag or hit detection.
There is an issue as the dodge is very short and devoid of any invulnerability frames, which is especially notable in what are otherwise the best part of the game, the boss fights, because it leads to you getting hit by some attacks you should have avoided or deflected, while in some rare occasions these attacks just miss you when 90% of the times would hit, especially long range and multiple consecutive ones.
Also, since you can technically parry/block everything, the developers maybe didn’t realize to telegraph in different ways attacks that can be parried normally from those that require a perfect parry, which can lead to some frustrating moment, especially against bosses, as they all have some sort of projectile or long ranged attack that would need to be parried multiple times in a matter of seconds.
It’s a niggle but frustrating because otherwise all the systems in place are responsive and tight as the gameplay design wants, it’s so close, but it’s still solid, fun, runs at 60 fps even on old rigs like mine, and honestly impressive for such a small team.
We talked bosses, but they appear at the end of every stage/location (and are admittely a bit spongy), and the core of the game is fighting dozens of enemies in waves inside of a circular arena, and while some despite the format, and most people would have preferred it to be like The Initial or most 3D beat em up games, with you moving through locations and going somewhere, accomplishing something…. i wouldn’t consider this an issue as more of a precise and realistic design choice, most likely “informed” by budget and scope of the project, as the team preferred to focus on just the core gameplay of a beat em up.
Straight to the point, for best or worst, but clearly borne of a precise design decision.
This of course doesn’t fix the long standing issue of repetitivity found in most games of the genre, since the structure of the game remains identical from start to finish, with just the change in location and some new enemy types signifying the progression from a stage to the next.
The enemy variety is decent, like there are some cheap cop-outs like the base enemies of the suited masked business with swords now coming in a different color but with different attack patterns and moves, but they structured it well enough to drip in some new enemy variant or type to spice things up, and the experience improves as you spend the accrued orbs for the expected health and offense upgrades, but mostly learn new moves and abilities that are actually useful and expand your choices and options, and you can access the shop anytime from the pause menu.
Only thing that seems amiss is a mini-map to detect enemies, since the camera isn’t perfect, and there aren’t that many enemy types, but then again the game will take about 3 hours to finish on Normal, so it doesn’t overstays its welcome, and in terms of replay value there are harder difficulty settings to test your chanbara ability (and if you desire, the extensive tutorial does offer a free play mode to test out combos, nice to have), will get some good use out of the upgraded abilities left to unlock or improve, there are some extra costumes that will require a lot of orbs to obtain, and ultimately there are both in-game and Steam achievements.
Considered this still an impressive little indie beat em up from sometime ago that fans of the genre will enjoy and be surprised how a team of below 10 people made a game for Comiket that honestly its far better and more refined that a lot of the budget crap that did get a full boxed release on consoles and PC (it’s far better than the first 2 Oneechanbara titles), it’s odd to report how the developer, Zenith Blue, never actually followed this up with a better, longer, harder, faster, stronger game in the genre. Leaving Mitsurugi Kamui Hikae as a little gem in the rough for your Steam (and later everything, as on Switch as well as PS4, X-Box One, and GOG)’s library.
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