SNES Game Review - Muysa

Muysa was released in 1992 by SETA USA Inc. The game is essentially a Castlevania clone, set in what appears to be the gate to the Japanese underworld. The player controls Imoto, a spear wielding soldier who has very little energy left to do more than stab and hop.

Mighty Imoto has just finished a grand battle as the sole survivor. Exhausted, he makes his way to a village for shelter, poor Imoto collapses just before the village only to awaken surrounded by the villagers and the mayor. He is convinced that he survived the battle in order to save a village maiden who has recently been stolen. Imoto begins the game in a cave with nothing more than his spear and good looks against unholy undead minions of all shapes and sizes. At the end of the first cave, Imoto is confronted by a woman who asks for help, only to turn into a gigantic sake bottle throwing, fire breathing, beast.

Graphically, Muysa was quite a marvel. The background is eerily lit by burning torches set in front of as well as behind the characters on screen. All manner of beasties fly, crawl, and fall on Imoto. The overall theme is that of Japanese folklore complete with floating ghouls, random flames, spirits, crawling skulls, and even anamorphic blobs with sharp spines.

The developers seemed far too interested with making pretty graphics to work on a killer soundtrack, or even decent sound effects. Imoto makes slash noises with his spear, oww noises when monsters get too close, and the noises are muted. Unlike the music which is repetitive, and much louder than the SFX which they could have recorded at a higher quality.

"Its like pushing a statue." Imoto moves slower than a politician. Imoto stabs at an even slower rate, his few attacks are borderline useless because of a severely restricted control scheme. I found myself being hit by enemies simply because Imoto's heavy armor wouldn't let him get out of the way fast enough. Also, the first boss battle was ridiculous because you actually have to jump over the beastie, but alas you just don't jump that high. Terrible control.

This game is one of the few SNES games that goes beyond fair, Muysa is a gauntlet of abusive enemies with an ill equipped hero. This game was probably marketed toward teenagers, but I doubt even adults could get too far in this near impossible game.

I found Muysa to be forgettable. The story wasnt interesting enough to keep me coming back, the characters were few and equally dull. The gameplay was terrible. The artwork was actually the best part. I was looking forward to seeing what the programmers had in store for me. This game gets 2 spear thrusts out of 5.