Known in its native Japan as Nazo no Murasame Jō, The Mysterious Murasame Castle is an action adventure released by Nintendo for the FDS in 1986.

It came not long after the first Zelda (also released on the Famicom Disk System) and uses many Zelda gameplay elements in its design, except with a ‘Feudal Japan’ style setting.

Unfortunately the game was never released on the NES outside of Japan. An English fan translation does exist, though, and that’s the one I’ve featured here. For some reason it is called “Riddle of Murasame Castle” on the title screen.

The Mysterious Murasame Castle is a challenging action/maze game with pleasant graphics and atmospheric music. At times the game can be unforgiving, but – like all Nintendo games – there is more to The Mysterious Murasame Castle than at first meets the eye.

More: The Mysterious Murasame Castle on Wikipedia