The Heavens themselves are cleaved in twain by a bolt of lightning. A time of historical opportunity is at hand! All the stagnant evils of the world have rallied together and exposed themselves, emboldened in their hubris. A lifetime spent preparing for this festering inevitability of a decisive confrontation has provided you with the resolve in which to challenge them. To purge these malignant lords while sanctioned through an irrefutable casus belli. Before they can slither to shroud their insidious machinations away once more. The infinite potential of the future rests upon your ability to rise and meet this pivotal moment.

It is all too much stacked against you. The roots in which your adversities are entrenched lie bunkered deep. The extent of their influence overwhelmingly oppressive in its reach. An infinite retinue of willingly self-immolating serfs have crawled out from every crevice to harm you. And you do not have the luxury to let them even slow you down. Time and energy much too limiting to expend on petty skirmishes! You have learnt that only a few selective victories are meaningfully significant. Reprieve can only be found through striking down evil’s core. And so, your instinctive reaction is to fixate your exertions upon a surgical regicide. You rush directly towards the throne.

You find your charge impaled upon the palisade. Revolution is rarely found to be so idealistically swift. Your adversities paranoidly concerned of their own mortality, have inoculated themselves against such a frontal assault. To succeed, you must adapt from this pyrrhic approach. To learn to value your survival. To realise the moment is not so desperately transient. That this world’s transition is perpetuated through each and every one of your breaths.

Change is not spontaneous. It is momentum. A steady and persistent showing of one’s found conviction. Through the act of siege castles can be made to fall. And you will win this battle of attrition simply through forming a greater desire to persist within it.

Through a flurry of blades and a symphony, you eventually herald the end of this decrepid era. Yet the spilled blood of battle precipitates into a thick vapour, condensing in the skies above. The thunder clouds begin to form once more.

(So I couldn’t find anything to corroborate with this idea but this game surely is inspired by Sakamoto Ryoma and the advocacy to end Japanese feudalism? Admittedly my basis for this interpretation is mostly on the closing card’s conspicuously western ‘Ode to Joy’ which diegetically contrasts against the otherwise eastern soundtrack. Although my understanding of Japanese history is quite limited.

Regardless, ‘The Mysterious Murasame Castle’ is a game that speaks through its mechanical systems. Unusual for a game of this era, it generously checkpoints you. Storing your progress after passing each individual screen. Basic enemies infinitely respawn and offer little incentive in defeating them. This initially may seem to encourage a particular playstyle. To have you recklessly rush towards the objective. And although you may find some initial success with such stratagem, the game swiftly rebukes this approach in its scaling difficulty. Although you may not lose your ‘progress’ for falling, the consequences are still severe. The substantial powerups you have accrued are lost, without which the challenges you face are multiplicatively more formidable. Instead, the game will silently insist that you slow yourself down. As the stronger foes do not respawn, you should allocate time and effort to find and memorise the respawning hidden caches of powerups scattered throughout each level. And through this knowledge rejuvenate yourself as necessary as you make a more carefully considered approach. The game imparts upon you that sometimes the best way forward is to counterintuitively first take a step back. I recommend this game to all those thrilled by difficult arcade type experiences. Its unique design philosophies distinguishes itself among contemporaries.)