Ollie Barder Reflects on FromSoftware's Murakumo in New Retrospective
The piece offers a rare English-language retrospective on a cult FromSoftware title, framed through Barder's personal history and his broader perspective on mech game design.
Reporting from 1 sources: Game Spark.
In a column for Game Spark, Ollie Barder revisits FromSoftware's original Xbox mech game Murakumo, discussing its emphasis on high-speed pursuit, its mixed reception overseas, and his own decision to write the only English strategy guide for it.
Ollie Barder, the journalist and game creator known among Japanese fans for his deep knowledge of Armored Core, has written a retrospective on FromSoftware's original Xbox title Murakumo for Game Spark. The column, part of his ongoing series on mech games, examines the game's focus on high-speed pursuit of enemy mechs through city environments and notes that its emphasis on flight combat over ground action could make missions feel repetitive.
Barder also recounts the game's release timing: in Japan it launched near the Xbox debut alongside Halo, while Ubisoft published it overseas the following year as Murakumo: Renegade Mech Pursuit. He argues the game was poorly understood abroad, often compared to shooters without the cultural context of the mecha anime that inspired it. Barder adds that he wrote the only unofficial English strategy guide for the game on GameFAQs, a task he has never repeated for any other title.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.