This week we are headed back in time to the early days of the Famicom Disk System in Japan with the 1986 release of Nazo no Murasame-jo, which Roughly translated is The Riddle of Murasame Castle. Coming on the heels of The Legend of Zelda, Murasame Castle, much like Kid Icarus is to Metroid, took the same style of play (top down overworld adventuring) but instead of having total freedom to move through the overworld switched to a linear format in which players had to defeat 4 castle bosses before the final showdown.

While Murasame Castle has not seen a release in the United States, the music is actually quite fantastic and often goes overlooked. Created by Koji Kondo, sound designer behind almost every recognizable Nintendo melody, the soundtrack has a very Japanese feel by melding the sounds of the Edo period (which is the time period that it is based in) and the classic Famicom/NES sound. The title theme and the castle theme in particular are glowing examples of Kondo’s masterful skill in the creation of timeless themes that are often remembered with gushing amounts of nostalgia.

Murasame Castle from ‘The Riddle of Murasame Castle’

Despite being similar to The Legend of Zelda in both looks and gameplay, the high level of difficulty and lackluster sales is the probable cause of Murasame Castle’s continued lack of localization. An orchestral version of the theme however found its way to vinyl in Japan for a dual Zelda/Murasame Castle soundtrack that is incredibly amazing, mostly due to the fact that it is piece of orchestrated video game music from the 1980’s and definitely sounds the part.

Inside the Castle from ‘The Riddle of Murasame Castle’

Sure there isn’t a lot to say about both the game or the soundtrack, but it is one I felt was worth mentioning for both the great compositions and the relative ease at which it is missed by so many gamers. So anyone out there that truly fancy themselves as game music connoisseurs should import this soundtrack (The 20th Anniversary Famicom Collection), as it is truly top notch, and the rest of the compilation won’t let you down.

-Eric Wall

Tags: Famicom, Koji Kondo, Music Monday, The Legend of Zelda, The Riddle of Murasame Castle

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