Persona 4 and Muramasa Rebirth

As a gamer, I stick mostly with PC games, which means I don't usually get to play games from Japan. My boyfriend, on the other hand, plays more console and portable games than I do. He recently lent me his PS Vita, and with it a lot of games. Two games of particular note are Persona 4 and Muramasa Rebirth.

As mentioned in a previous blog post by a classmate, Persona 4 has a lot of superstition and fortunte-telling in some fun and unique ways. I'm very familiar with this system because of Persona 3, a personal favorite of mine. In Persona 3, the creatures that assist you, called "Persona," were often based off of mythology. I haven't started up P4 yet, but while I am playing it, I will be seeing how Japanese religion/mythology play into the Persona and the story.

I know next to nothing of Muramasa Rebirth other than it is historical, fantastical, and plays with a lot of religion/mythology. The website lists the story, which gives what time period this takes place: the Genroku era (1688-1704), which falls into the Tokugawa Period. According to the wiki page, the Genroku era are considered the "Golden Age" of the Tokugawa/Edo period. I did a little bit of background research to see why the game itself was called "Muramasa Rebirth" and found that there is a real many named Muramasa Sengo who lived during the Muromachi period (14th-16th centuries). His work fell out of favor with the Tokugawa shoguns and contributed to this rumor that his blades were cursed and required blood before they are able to be placed into the scabbard again. And it was rumored that his madness and violence passed into his blades, which contributes to this rumor. I still have no idea what to expect, but this sounds like a very interesting game. 

I'll be talking a lot about these two games in the next month! Look forward to more!