How Long Is Full Metal Daemon Muramasa? Five Numbers, One Game

HowLongToBeat's entry for Full Metal Daemon Muramasa reports 45 hours 50 minutes for the main story, 48 hours 26 minutes for main plus extras, and 75 hours 57 minutes for a completionist run, with an all-styles figure of 69 hours 52 minutes (stats stamped 3 September 2026). VNDB's entry for Soukou Akki Muramasa reports 73 hours 45 minutes from 636 reader votes. Those two databases are answering different questions, which is why the numbers sit thirty hours apart. Plan on 40 to 58 hours for a first read to one ending, and 70 to 80 hours to reach all four routes, every named ending and the five bad ends.

The five published figures, and what each one is actually counting

| Source and measure | Hours | Sample | The question it answers | |---|---|---|---| | HowLongToBeat, Main Story | 45h 50m | 3 submissions | One path to an ending, scope decided by each submitter | | HowLongToBeat, Main + Extras | 48h 26m | 4 submissions | That path plus whatever the submitter counted as extra | | HowLongToBeat, Completionist | 75h 57m | 21 submissions | Everything the submitter judged to be everything | | HowLongToBeat, All Styles | 69h 52m | 28 submissions | All four categories pooled into one average | | VNDB, length | 73h 45m | 636 votes | How long your read took, whatever you did in it |

The completionist figure is 1.66 times the main-story figure. That is the number worth carrying: whatever your personal reading rate turns out to be, seeing everything costs you about two-thirds again on top of one path.

Notice which of the two databases the crowd actually turned up for. VNDB's length question has 636 answers. HowLongToBeat's main-story box has three.

Why the main-story number rests on three people

Here is the fact that should end the argument. HowLongToBeat's page for Muramasa carries three separate summaries of the same three main-story submissions: a headline of 45 hours 50 minutes, an average of 49 hours 40 minutes, and a median of 42 hours. The reported low is 41 hours 25 minutes and the high is 57 hours 55 minutes. One entry, one pool of three readers, and three different totals depending on which summary the page happens to show you.

The completionist row behaves the same way at larger sample: 75 hours 57 minutes headline, 76 hours 54 minutes average, 75 hours flat as the median, spanning 60 hours 34 minutes to just under 93 hours across 21 submissions. Those three agree closely, which is what twenty-one people buys you and three do not.

This matters because storefronts republish the figures without the sample. GOG's own product page for Muramasa shows main story, main plus extras, completionist and all styles, credited to HowLongToBeat, and no submission counts anywhere near them. A three-person average acquires the authority of a spec sheet by being printed next to a price.

I used to make the same mistake in the opposite trade. Until about 2019 I told customers to compare battery capacity straight across brands, because a milliamp-hour is a milliamp-hour. Then I started actually reading the test conditions on the datasheets and found two cells with identical headline ratings measured at different discharge currents and different cut-off voltages. Both numbers honest, neither comparable. I stopped quoting capacity without the test behind it, and I now do the same with completion databases: read the sample size first, then decide whether the average deserves a sentence.

Reading speed moves this more than route structure does

A visual novel has no fixed play clock. The text volume is constant and the minutes are yours, so two readers on identical hardware, identical version and identical route can finish 15 hours apart without either doing anything unusual.

Three settings account for most of that spread. Voice playback is the big one: if you let each voiced line finish before advancing, you read at the actor's pace rather than your own, and the GOG release lists both English and Japanese audio, so this is a live choice in the English version rather than a Japanese-only concern. Read-text skip is the second. Both the Japanese walkthrough at Seiya's Room and the English one at Otaku Lair mark the airship search sequence and the Evil Demon route's puzzle as skippable once you have seen them, which changes a repeat pass materially. Text speed is the third and the least discussed.

Muramasa carries an in-game playtime counter, so you can measure yourself rather than borrow someone else's measurement. Two cautions on that. The counter keeps running when you leave the game open; the reviewer at Vengi Likes, writing in September 2021, reported roughly 55 hours and flagged that the in-game timer overstated it for exactly that reason. And your own rate is worth sampling on the shared portion of the game, the prologue plus the five numbered chapters every route passes through, since that is the fairest common ground available.

My own first read reached the Hero ending with the counter showing 43 hours, and I close the game when I stop reading, so I trust that figure to within an hour or so. It is a single reader's number and I would not quote it at anybody. It is also, structurally, exactly what HowLongToBeat's main-story figure is made of. Mine would be the fourth submission in a pool of three, and it would move the headline.

One thing I cannot vouch for: whether the English script reads faster or slower than the Japanese original. I have not read it in Japanese and I am not going to guess at translated line length. What I can vouch for is what the two walkthroughs contain, because I went through both and counted.

Four routes, and calling any of them side content is wrong

Muramasa documents four named routes. Seiya's Room, the Japanese guide that most English walkthroughs derive from, labels them 英雄編 (Hero), 復讐編 (Revenge), 魔王編 (Demon King, rendered "Devil Edition" in the English guide) and 悪鬼編 (Evil Demon). English discussion often says three, counting heroines instead: Ichijo, Kanae and Chachamaru. Otaku Lair's guide opens with exactly that framing. Both counts are defensible descriptions of different things, which is how you end up reading "3 routes" and "4 routes" on the same afternoon.

The gating is the part that decides your schedule. On a first playthrough only the Hero route and the Revenge route are open. Clearing both unlocks the Demon King route. Reaching the Muramasa ending inside that route starts the Evil Demon route automatically. Nothing here is a bonus you can decline; the structure holds the ending hostage until you have read three routes to get to it.

Endings depend on who is counting, again. Otaku Lair lists five named endings, ending at "Demons Edition Ending (True end)". Seiya's Room labels six END points, splitting the Evil Demon route into an unlock ending and a true ending. Both guides separately flag five bad ends, kept for CG collection rather than story, and both require ten save slots to sweep the lot. So: five or six endings that carry story, plus five short bad ends, reached across ten saves.

The strongest argument against everything I have written so far is that it is over-specified. Someone deciding whether to buy Muramasa gets the same answer from 45 hours and from 76 hours, which is that this is a long book and they should not start it in a busy month. Granted, and if that is your decision, stop reading here and take the range. The reader I am writing for has already decided to read it and is now scheduling, and at that point the difference between one ending and all of them is thirty hours of their life.

Chapters: five numbered ones, plus a prologue

Seiya's Room breaks the shared portion into a prologue followed by five numbered chapters, each with its own title: 第一編【鮮紅騎】, 第二編【双老騎】, 第三編【逆襲騎】, 第四編【震天騎】 and 第五編【宿星騎】. Branching happens after the fifth.

The confusion has a linguistic source. The original uses the same word, 編, for the numbered chapters and for the route names, so 第一編 and 英雄編 are the same unit type. Count every heading in the guide and you get ten. Count only the numbered ones and you get five. Neither is wrong and neither is a route count, which is why inferring chapters from routes produces nonsense.

Worth knowing before you go looking: the English walkthrough at Otaku Lair contains no chapter headings at all. The words "Chapter", "Part" and "Prologue" appear zero times on that page. If you are reading in English and want the chapter map, you are reading the Japanese guide.

There is no Steam version, and that is the version question that matters

Muramasa is not on Steam and has never been. Valve rejected it in January 2022, and Anime News Network reported on 13 October 2022 that after a fan campaign followed the Chaos;Head Noah approval, Valve told JAST USA it does not re-review previously banned applications. The game sells through the JAST USA store and through GOG. GOG's catalogue records the title's release date as 25 August 2021 and its own store date as 14 January 2022, and lists English and Japanese for both text and audio.

Version and language are the two variables that quietly wreck a borrowed estimate, which is why forum playtimes need both stated before you add them to anything. Someone's 60 hours in Japanese with voices on and no skip is not your 45 hours in English with read-text skip. Even the release date drifts between databases: HowLongToBeat dates the North American release 23 August 2021 while GOG and Wikipedia say the 25th.

I learned that lesson expensively. I once bought a pallet of universal remotes on the strength of one spec line, "learns 6,000 codes", and did not check which firmware revision that line described. They would not learn a single code. I had sold half of them before anybody complained, refunded the lot, and ate the pallet. The spec was real and it belonged to a different version of the product. Playtimes work the same way.

Planning a first read and an all-routes run

For a first read, budget 40 to 58 hours and hold the top of that range if you keep voices on. Take Hero or Revenge, since those are your only options anyway, and leave the counter running.

For everything, budget 70 to 80 hours. That figure is where VNDB's 73 hours 45 minutes and HowLongToBeat's completionist 75 hours 57 minutes converge from two entirely separate crowds, which is the strongest agreement in this whole dataset. Keep ten save slots free from the start. Use read-text skip on the airship search and the Evil Demon route puzzle on repeat passes, and expect the bad ends to cost minutes rather than hours, since each one is a short branch off an existing save.

Frequently asked questions

How many endings does Full Metal Daemon Muramasa have?

Five or six, depending on the guide. The English walkthrough at Otaku Lair lists five named endings, finishing with the true ending. The Japanese guide at Seiya's Room labels six END points, splitting the final route into an unlock ending and a true ending. Both also document five short bad ends kept for CG collection.

How many routes does Full Metal Daemon Muramasa have?

Four named routes: Hero, Revenge, Demon King and Evil Demon. English discussion often says three, because it counts the heroines Ichijo, Kanae and Chachamaru instead of route labels. All four are structurally required. Only Hero and Revenge open on a first playthrough, and the last route unlocks automatically from the third.

How many chapters does Full Metal Daemon Muramasa have?

Five numbered chapters plus a prologue, before the story branches. The Japanese walkthrough at Seiya's Room names them individually. Route names use the same Japanese word as chapter names, so counting every labelled section gives ten instead of five. Do not derive a chapter count from the route count; they are different units.

What order should I read the routes in?

Start with Hero or Revenge, since nothing else is available. Clear both, which unlocks the Demon King route. Reaching the Muramasa ending inside that route starts the Evil Demon route automatically, so the true ending arrives fourth by design. Bad ends and CG recovery are best swept afterwards from saved branch points.

Is Full Metal Daemon Muramasa on Steam?

No. Valve rejected the game in January 2022, and Anime News Network reported in October 2022 that Valve told JAST USA it does not re-review previously banned applications. Buy it from the JAST USA store or from GOG, where it arrived on 14 January 2022 with English and Japanese text and audio.

What counts as finishing Full Metal Daemon Muramasa?

Define it before you quote an hour figure. A first read is one path to one ending, roughly 40 to 58 hours. Route completion means all four routes. All endings adds the five bad ends. A completionist run adds CG and scene recovery, which HowLongToBeat puts at 75 hours 57 minutes across 21 submissions.