How Muramasa Rebirth’s Four Vita-Only DLC Characters Play

Muramasa Rebirth is an enhanced version of the Wii game, Muramasa: The Demon Blade, for PlayStation Vita. You have Kisuke and Momohime’s stories to play through with a brand new localization plus four downloadable characters that each have their own storyline. Siliconera met with producer Yoshifumi Hashimoto from Marvelous AQL who explained what these new characters are like.

The Nekomata will be the first downloadable character for Muramasa Rebirth. She’s a half-cat, half-human creature with two tails. Unlike Kisuke and Momohime she doesn’t use swords, the Nekomata attacks enemies with her claws. The country bumpkin character was inspired by another game Hashimoto worked on, Harvest Moon. He attacks enemies with a hoe.

The third character Arashimaru is a ninja, but doesn’t use a sword like Kisuke. He attacks enemies with with ninjutsu attacks and can throw shuriken. The fourth character is an Oni-musume or a "she devil" she has special that Hashimoto compared to Lum-chan from the anime series Urusei Yatsura (pictured). I asked Hashimoto to explain a little more and he said one power is she can throw objects much larger than herself.

All four downloadable characters are quite different from Kisuke and Momohime’s stories in Muramasa: Rebirth. You don’t have to worry about the Nekomata chipping a nail or the farmer’s hoe falling apart like the 108 cursed blades. The downloadable scenarios all have other weapons instead of swords.

Marvelous AQL made new bosses and new storylines for the downloadable scenarios. Hashimoto wouldn’t say which youkai the bosses were based on, but said we will see some beautifully drawn characters.

How long is each DLC scenario? About two stages in Muramasa Rebirth, so all together you have eight extra stages if you purchase the DLC content. Hashimoto said the Nekomata character is his favorite right now because he’s working on that scenario now.

Muramasa Rebirth is slated for release in North America this summer. The DLC scenarios will also come to the West after the game launches.