30 hours of total power-on time.
25 hours of total play time.
10 hours, 44 minutes of game clear time.
Rank: MASTER NINJA
As far as I recall, it's been years since I've last thrown so many dirty words at a game for such an extended play period. There are some games where I get upset from constantly dying, but I usually conquer the troublesome areas in a timely fashion. The last time I was this livid at a game's challenges might have been in Viewtiful Joe's heyday... 2002 maybe?
There are so many parts of this game that are brutally difficult. I'm a little sad to say, but sometimes it's because of the poor camera that boss fights often end in a Game Over many times over. When the camera isn't screwing me up, the bosses are generally unpredictable and do not clearly show weaknesses. I think of this as both a good and bad design decision. I believe that players should be assisted visually or aurally during boss fights, even if the aid lasts for a few frames of animation. Because there are no aids, the fight seems to be more realistic; that's a positive thing. My main issue with the realism is that there's no reliable weak spot in these bosses. What works one time may not work in the same circumstance a second time, because the boss state changes very, very quickly.
Other than that, my only other gripe is that at the end, you're really tested in your endurance and are not allowed any respite from the middle of Chapter 15 to the end (Chapter 16). You are allowed to restock on items at the start of Chapter 15, but with the amount of boss battles (six, to be exact) it's really tough to complete one-way. You could go back Muramasa after defeating the first three bosses, but as a consequence you'd have to repeat all the fights leading up to save point you're abandoning, possibly dying on the way down or back up the final tower. I chose to just stick it out and wound up facing the final boss with a single life bar. About 2 1/2 hours of attempts resulted in victory, which is just plain shameful; the final bout lasts about 5 minutes at most when played cautiously.
Next up is something a bit less difficult: God of War 2!