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Why Everyone Hates It: By popular opinion, Muramasa: The Demon Blade is more or less the exact same game as Odin Sphere, but with less than half the content, a less appealing theme, and a central mechanic stripped away. The same popular opinion states that Odin Sphere overstayed its welcome as it was.
Legitimate Issues With the Game: The basic gameplay and art style are indeed very similar to Odin Sphere with the gardening mechanic removed, and the case can be made that it can get repetetive at times.
Why I Like It Anyway: First and foremost, no discussion of a Vanillaware game can begin without addressing the art style. All of their games make use of a technique where characters and some background elements are comprised of several lovingly hand drawn sprites, generally with some animation, hinged together like the joins of a paper puppet, allowing the whole assemblage the effectively be a single very large sprite with hundreds of frames of animation. The end result, particularly when seen in motion, makes for absolutely stunning visuals.
In this particular case, those visuals absolutely scream "Japanese" at the top of their lungs. Usually when one says a game is very Japanese, it refers to either a particular flavor of surreal weirdness, with headband wearing octopi throwing moai heads at musclebound gay men, or refers derisively to pandering images of schoolgirls with ridiculously large breasts. Here it refers to that rare third case. The plot, music, and art direction of Muramasa are all strongly rooted in traditional Japanese folklore and culture, with kappa tengu and oni jumping out of backgrounds that resemble animated versions of Heian and Edo period paintings, to be fought off while listening to shamisen and taiko drums in the background.
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More to the point however, the gameplay of Muramasa is far more accessible than that of Odin Sphere. While both games are essentially just side scrolling beat'em'ups against hordes of enemies with experience points tacked on, not unlike the second Zelda game, Muramasa abandons the rigid chapter based structure and looping backgrounds for a huge interconnected open world, like a Metroid game, or one of the portable Castlevanias. Defeated bosses leave behind swords which can cut through the barriers cordoning off different regions of a highly stylized map of feudal Japan, and can open the way to scattered challenges which yield handy new items. Inventory management boils down to a simple cap of 9 items of a given type, rather than Odin Sphere's juggling act of backpacks, and while there is still a mechanic of advancing through a combination of eating meals and collect souls from defeated enemies, they no longer share resources. Souls gather themselves, while meals are either purchased in towns or cooked from the inventory screen using purchased or found ingredients.
Continuing with the theme of convenience it's a much more open game than its immediate predecessor, Muramasa is remarkably friendly and upfront about everything. Maps point out which rooms have hidden treasure to find, which swords are required to get into which areas, and where the next boss is. From the very beginning of the game, a chart is available from the pause screen showing each of the 108 different swords to be obtained, which of the two characters comes across them or has them forged, the costs involved in doing so, any other requirements, the stat requirements to use them, the special move they allow to be used, and any passive bonus they impart. After seeing one of the six endings, a message will even tell you how to get the next, which generally involves alternating between the two characters and equipping new swords before the final battle.
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This brings us to the real heart of the gameplay. Of the many swords available over the course of the game, three are carried into any given battle, in different lengths, and with different special powers and base damage, which may be switched between at will. When a meter fully charges, the act of switching swords becomes an impressive special attack, as a love of feudal Japan goes hand in hand with an unreasonable estimation of the practicality of the quick flashy draw. More importantly, each sword has its own damage meter, decaying both as the cost of using special powers, and every time an attack is blocked. Go too hard on a sword and it will break, severely decreasing its attack power, and making it impossible to block. As this is the sort of game where failing to block attacks leads to a quick death, it becomes very important to establish a rhythm of switching between blades, allowing two to regenerate in their sheathes while the third takes the abuse.
One would think the fairly constant stream of sword collection and attacks by hordes of monsters and mooks would get old quickly, but the pacing is quite brisk. After acquiring a new sword from a boss, one will most likely have a few new ones they can forge for a full set of new weaponry. The quick trip through the newly unlocked area's lushly drawn and animated background allows one to get a nice feel for these, then suddenly it's time for another screen filling boss fight. This grants a new sword with which to repeat the process after a brief cutscene to advance the plot.
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It's actually fairly surprising how straightforward Muramasa is with its story, compared to the intertwining five perspective take of Odin Sphere, or the surprisingly sophisticated infinite time loop of Grim Grimoire. Of the two playable characters, one is your standard amnesiac do-gooder, traveling the country slaying huge monsters to help his girlfriend defeat a demon-possessed ruler. The other is an aging psychopath possessing a spoiled princess after a botched attempt to take over a more fittingly manly body, out to avoid being sent to hell by hopping from body to body eternally, or barring that, to simply fight his way into heaven.
Muramasa: The Demon Blade is officially only the third game to be developed by Vanillaware, although more or less the same team worked on the highly similar Princess Crown for the Saturn. This was followed by the much higher profile Odin Sphere, a vaguely Norse mythology themed game which we've already largely discussed. Their only other game to date is Grim Grimoire, which features the same visual technique they're known for, but in a side-scrolling console RTS. As one might expect, it's far simpler than a solid PC RTS would be, while still requiring the managerial skills to make it difficult to digest for anyone who isn't a genre fan, but for what it is, it's a rather interesting and enjoyable game, with a surprisingly smart story. All four of these games wrap fairly simple, and arguably archaic gameplay in their signature visual style, making for highly enjoyable experiences that cater to a particular niche.
