The eShop is getting so many new games every week it’s starting to get hard to pay attention to everything being released at that storefront. I can’t recall what made me pay attention to Mitsurugi Kamui Hikae. Maybe it was the sheer absurdity of its premise. Maybe it was the pricetag. Whichever reason it was, I was actually thinking this was going to be yet another mobile game being ported to the Switch, just like pretty much half of the games released weekly for it nowadays. I have to admit I was wrong and the game was better than expected. With that being said, if I’m being generous, this is an average game at best.

Defining what Mitsurugi Kamui Hikae is all about is very easy. Think of your favorite Platinum hack and slash game. Replace the main character with your stereotypical Japanese high school girl wielding a katana. Remove the great level design and replace it with just wave after wave after wave of enemies being thrown at you until the game thinks it’s time for you to fight a boss. Replace the neat locales and awesome soundtrack with enclosed arenas completely devoid of variety, as well as short and repetitive music loops. Weirdly enough, it does feature some mildly interesting voice acting, making this game a bit more “complete” than the wide amount of budget games available for the Switch.

Even with all of these underwhelming aspects, Mitsurugi Kamui Hikae isn’t all bad, and that’s mostly due to its gameplay. In this area it does well, as it borrows what made Platinum titles special in the first place: fast-paced and responsive hack and slash mechanics coupled with lots of combos and unlockable moves. Killing enemies can be extremely repetitive, granted, but it’s still midly satisfying. The main issue here however, is that the camera controls are terrible. There aren’t lock-on mechanics nor fixed angles that allow you to look at all enemies at once. You’ll constantly rotate the camera in order to look for more enemies and in doing so, you’ll be frequently backstabbed.

As a game itself, this is very underwhelming. What made me like Mitsurugi Kamui Hikae was the fact I could play it for really short bursts at a time, like a budget version of a Platinum game on a portable system. I couldn’t be bothered to play the game for more than the duration of a song at any given time, but it provided me with just enough entertainment while doing so to occasionally go back to it. Let me also point out that, while the game does have a story, I can’t remember a single thing from it. I’m here purely and simply for the dumb fun this game’s combat system provides.

I thought Mitsurugi Kamui Hikae was going to be yet another abysmal port of a random mobile game, and while I was glad I was wrong, this is not exactly a very fun or engaging game. It’s just a very shallow hack and slash game with some decent controls and gameplay, although not much else. It’s short and repetitive. I would have probably disliked it a lot more if I had played in other platforms, but the Switch’s portable nature turned the game into a simple past-time of sorts. A game that can provide me with passable dumb fun for about five to ten minutes while I’m waiting in line for a movie or at the bank.

 

Graphics: 5.5 While the graphics aren’t that bad and the framerate is decent, the sheer lack of visual variety is downright irritating.	Gameplay: 7.5 The combat system is more fun than anticipated. The controls are responsive and the combos are easy to pull off. The camera controls are a completely different story, though.
Sound: 5.5 There is some average voice acting in here as well as a soundtrack that lacks in variety just as much as the visuals.	Fun Factor: 6.0 You can have fun in short bursts with this game thanks to its decent gameplay, but it gets repetitive very quickly.
Final Verdict: 6.0

Reviewed on Switch.
Mitsurugi Kamui Hikae is available now on PS4, Xbox One, PC, Switch.