Gaming Bits Quickie: Nazo no Murasame-Jou

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Cham Chambara! Chambara! Chambara Bara! Chambara! NAZO NO MURASAME-JOU!!!!! In 1986 the Famicom Disk System Was Released, It was launched with Mystery of Murasame Castle. It became a success, It was released on the NES as "Quest to Murasame Castle". It spawned a franchise that still goes on to this day up to this day, to the Wii U and 3DS, or that's what I would say if this game had been a success, What happened?








Nazo no Murasame-Jou/Mystery of Murasame Castle was released as one of The Famicom Disk System's flagship titles. It played like a more linear level based Legend of Zelda. It had the swordplay and top down perspective of Zelda with the power up system of mario, but it was much more harder. You could use shurikens, fireballs, and other power ups, You battled lots of ninjas, demons, aliens, among others. You could save maidens, defeat the warlords of the castles. This game was really unforgiving, and it wasn't that much of a success. It only came out in Japan, and wasn't that much of a success there, it had a TV Drama, but it wasn't enough save it. there are many theories why it stayed in japan for years. From it's difficulty, to it's deep japanese lore. While it wasn't initially a success, it did gain a following and was referenced in several games...



The game was released on the Game Boy Advance in 2004 as part of the Famicom Classics, but still in Japan... Between then and when the first game was released, this game wasn't referenced that much, Takamaru (the game's protagonist) was even planned to be a fighter in Super Smash Bros Melee, but it never materialized, yet the Ice Climbers did, yeah...



Over the next decade it would be constantly referenced in many nintendo games. Pikmin 2 had the game disk as a treasure. Takamaru would later appear as a sticker in Smash Bros Brawl, as well as having a song in the game. He had an appearance in Captain Rainbow, which referenced from hell and back obscure Nintendo franchises/games. In the japanese version of Warioware D.I.Y. one of the microgames was based off Murasamejou, but was replaced by a Pikmin game outside of Japan. Samurai Warriors 3 had Takamaru as a playable character, which was sadly the closest thing to a sequel we got to the original. In nintendo land there was a minigame based off this game called Takamaru's Ninja Castle, and Finally he was considered to bee a fighter again in smash 4, but got downgraded to assist trophy and later a costume for the Mii Fighters...



As far as actual releases, there's been the virtual console releases, with the 3DS one getting a release outside of Japan. and Platinum games considered to make a modern version of the game, I wish they'd follow through with it, maybe make a sort of hack and slash game with super powers, much like bayonetta, but more Feudal Japan like. Maybe they can release it on the Nintendo Switch, Just saying...



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See Y'all in December...