Inuyasha: The Secret of the Cursed Mask

"In-Your-Asha"

Inuyasha at one point was my favorite t.v. show because it was pretty awesome. When I heard that they were making an Inuyasha RPG, my head nearly exploded. It could've been a cool concept that would've gone together like bread and butter but Bandai found away to screw it up.

The game revolves as either a boy or a girl who somehow finds a mysterous mask that takes you back in time to the feudal era. One of the first things I recall the main character saying something like "This is the era where guns were introduced to Japan" and I thought it would've been cool if the character used a gun...but no lets make up some stupid magic attack that's lame. The story was pretty forgettable and cliche.

The game has all the classic characters from the show and the battle system is innovative but for RPGs such as EarthBound and Chrono Trigger, you can fly through battles within seconds but it seems regular enemy fights in this game are just strung out and obnoxiously slow. Also fights are at complete random like in Final Fantasy and you don't get like one or two enemies to fight, you get like 3-5 Enemies that no matter what part in the game you're in, their tough and it takes forever. So if you're like me and you get to the point of you wanna get to the save point or the boss and enemies are attacking you...you pretty much gotta take it. You get all the cool attacks from the show like the Backlash Wave and the Wind Tunnel and later on in the game, some are utilized into duo attacks that deal more damage like in Chrono Trigger. With that being said, that's the only thing that really sticks out in this game.

The graphics are a complete eyesore and that's kind of inexcusable for a game released in 2004. I mean they put the absolute least amount of work into the graphics. What comes with bad graphics come pure frustration in the game like walking down what you think is a path but it just ends up being an off-screen dead end and with random slow battles, it builds frustration and when it's somewhere with a distance, you think you walk to the end but you just hit a dead end. The bad graphics give the game more dead ends than a rich neighborhood
Overall here's my breakdown of Inuyasha, Secret of the Cursed Mask

Concept 3/5 - Take a small town girl livin' in a lonely world or a city boy born and raised in south Detroit and let them take the midnight mask going to Feudal Japan

Graphics 1/5- As said before, Terrible

Sound and Music 2/5- The music is very similar to the show but the voice-overs are just obnoxious

Control 5/5- Easy to pick up

Replay 2/5- If you're a die hard fan, you'll pick it up. If you aren't, you might wanna find a better RPG and trust me, it won't be hard.

Overall 4/10

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 05/04/09

Game Release: Inuyasha: The Secret of the Cursed Mask (US, 11/02/04)