Welcome to the support thread for Nintendo’s oldest samurai and one of its oldest protagonists! We hope that your curiosity leads to you learning something fun about one of Nintendo’s “Most Known Unknowns”. You’ve caught us at a pretty cool time where we’re anticipating his inclusion in Smash 4 and as such have begun doing some renovations for the thread. We’re about to begin taking questions, starting with yours:
Takamaru is the protagonist of the Japanese Family Computer or “Famicom” (NES equivalent) title “The Mysterious Murasame Castle” (lit. Nazo no Murasame Jō). As an apprentice samurai, Takamaru is given the duty of preventing a strange otherworldly deity from conquering Edo Japan after its initial descent and consequent possession of the lords of four neighboring castle towns. Armed with little more than a reliable katana and his own wit initially, he sets off on the journey that would have him visit these four castles freeing the inhabitants of the castle from this being’s influence before reaching his final destination, the titular Murasame Castle, wherein he would confront the strange deity for the sake of all involved.
For all that can be said of this story however, the character is a bit of a blank slate in terms of what can be done with his personality. While defined by the noble and honor first way of the samurai, Takamaru has also seen interesting characterization from his appearance in another game. Captain Rainbow’s interpretation of the character retains the same duty bound, humble and personable attitude while also introducing the “quirk” that the young samurai has a hard time around women.
“What is this “Mysterious Murasame Castle” game like? Is it a Puzzle game? Action-Adventure? Platformer?“
In some senses, The Mysterious Murasame Castle is both an action-adventure title and one of the earliest progenitors of the modern day “stylish action” or “twitch action” game genres. Even in its now basic gameplay design, Takamaru is a character that is nimble, responsive and, through the acquisition of varied offensive and support power ups, given a number of ways to deal with the challenges that arose in the game’s “screen by screen” design.
Players encounter nimble enemies ranging from ninja foot soldiers to possessed lords with large AoE weaponry to various supernatural phenomena darting all about and generating mass pandemonium. The game demanded the absolute best of your ability to navigate its grid based design while making your way from one zone to the next avoiding or engaging the obstacles it would put in your way. As combat is a big component to the game, Takamaru (as the player character) was given a mixed move set consisting of long ranged projectile items such as enchanted “will-o-wisp” flames, throwing knives and stars, support items such as a magic cloak that would turn the character completely invisible and thus impossible to damage, and a short range katana drawn from the sheath should you find an opponent stumbling into your strike zone.
“So you roam about a map beating foes while collecting crazy items? Oh, but that just sounds like a Zelda game!”
Not quite. Zelda is focused more on exploration, puzzles and discovery while The Mysterious Murasame Castle is skewed more towards combat, navigation and survival. You have brought up a pretty interesting observation however…
“When was this game created? What significance do Takamaru and Mysterious Murasame Castle have to Nintendo’s history?”
The Mysterious Murasame Castle was created and released in 1986. Avid video game historians and enthusiasts will be quick to tell you that this was also the “birth year” of three other notable Nintendo franchises that currently enjoy a strong popularity in the Nintendo-verse. These franchises are The Legend of Zelda, Metroid and Kid Icarus. People in the know will also be quick to inform you that Metroid and Kid Icarus share a bond by being created by the same team. Instead of opting to design a wholly new franchise with new technologies or approaches after Metroid, the team decided to play with the engine and initial design of the game, eschewing the labyrinthine side scrolling nature for a faster paced experimental platformer/shooter hybrid. With the creation of a few new assets, a new story and a new protagonist in the form of Pit, the birth of the first Kid Icarus title was complete. But you knew that already, right?
Now what if I told you that The Legend of Zelda and The Mysterious Murasame Castle share a similar relationship with one another? After the breakout success of the first Zelda title, developers within Nintendo opted to play with the basic design and attributes of the first Zelda in the desire of making a faster paced action oriented title. The result was The Mysterious Murasame Castle. Sadly, due to the timing of the game’s release versus Zelda and Metroid, the game didn’t reach the same stratosphere of sales as those two franchises and due to the intrinsically Japanese flavor of the game, it was also passed over for a chance to find an audience in the West as at the time, Nintendo of America believed the game to be too niche and region centric versus the universal entities of the other big Nintendo games. This left the game caught between a rock and a hard place. The game and Takamaru have continued to persist through the ages however both by being remembered fondly by Japanese gamers who enjoyed its gameplay and being frequently referenced, especially in more modern Nintendo made or published titles. (See next question)
Takamaru's inclusion in the roster creates a very interesting “family (Famicom?) reunion” of franchises and characters that were all born in the same early era of Nintendo each of which has a strong history of circumstance and relation to one another. It also gives a character that was once bottlenecked by circumstance a second chance to find a real audience among the Nintendo All-Stars.
“Where does his support come from? More specifically, how has he managed to remain visible for such a long time?”
The character and game have always seen a stable and somewhat loud bit of support from Japanese players enamored with the game. At times it has been described as the East’s “Punch-Out!!” referencing how the series is revered in one hemisphere but registers a complete blank in another due to either never seeing a release there or coming out to a (sadly) muted response from the opposite hemisphere’s gaming audience. Contrary to a large majority of Nintendo franchises that have come and gone into the back of the Nintendo Vault™ over the years, Takamaru and The Mysterious Murasame Castle have continued to receive small nods of recognition in a few Nintendo games released since. Pikmin 2 is the earliest modern reference with one of its objectives involving retrieving a copy of the Famicom game disk. Other homages and references include the inclusion of Douchuumen or the Castle Town theme and main musical theme of the journey heard from the start of the game in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, the inclusion of an entire mode retelling the events of Mysterious Murasame Castle with a more realistic slant within the release of Samurai Warriors 3 for the Wii, his inclusion alongside other notable but “lost in time” Nintendo characters aiming for the spotlight again in Captain Rainbow, and a particularly surprising game mode themed after his franchise in 2012’s NintendoLand release.
While it is hard to pinpoint when exactly Takamaru became a figure in Western want lists and well wishes, the combination of allure for another character to break out while bringing a fresh side of Nintendo to the mainstream in a manner similar to the inclusion of the Fire Emblem duo Marth and Roy in Super Smash Bros. Melee, the heightened awareness of him and his game thanks to cameos made in the previously mentioned titles, and the desire for a wildly different take on swordsmanship is enough to get anyone moderately intrigued.
There is also the issue of one Hideki Kamiya of Twitter Devil May Cry, Resident Evil 2, Okami and The Wonderful 101 fame stepping in and mentioning that of the Nintendo franchises he'd love to have a hand in reviving or developing for, The Mysterious Murasame Castle sits at the top of the batch next to a Star Fox revival...
“Why is he such a great candidate for the roster? What does he bring in terms of aesthetic versus the other all-stars already present?”
Takamaru and the Mysterious Murasame Castle bring Japanese visual design and culture to the forefront through the combination of character and setting potential. Takamaru is not only one of those Japan only characters akin to Marth or Lucas before Smash propelled them to superstar level, but he is also literally a character from a stylized version of Japan’s Edo era. This means that a bit of Japanese culture will take influence on the character and the setting.
Now you might be saying "Why would Japanese culture be a big deal?" Well aesthetically, Japanese related content tends to have a notable style that expresses emotion by mixing environments and movements to make almost a poetic expression. For example:
Murasame Castle could be a beautiful place with sakura blowing in the wind, some chimes gently ringing, and a small river flowing underneath a bridge. A very soothing feeling at first, but then the sky could turn a blood red with all of the sakura wilting away and the river drying up, with mysterious figures stalking in the background and the mysterious alien deity that took over Murasame Castle watching anonymously around the castle itself. It would cycle between the peace and the chaos, like a never ending battle of good vs. evil.
Classic Japanese architecture will also lead to very interesting stages as players could either
participate on stages made from the building’s exterior or play on stages with
very ornate landscapes in the distance framing the action. (Footage taken from the anime Katanagatari and the game Muramasa: The Demon Blade for Wii)
The use of sumi-e styled background elements and filters
(a la Okami) is yet another way to diversify from the cast and highlight the strengths of Japanese visual design.
How would Takamaru play optimally? Do you have move set examples?
(Shoutouts to Rurouni Kenshin)
“Pause. I just realized he uses a sword. We don’t
need any more sword people.”
“Won’t he just be another blue haired swordsman?”
“Sakurai said X wouldn’t be a good inclusion for being ‘just another swordsman‘… What exempts Takamaru from this criticism?”
First things first, Taka’s black haired. First art is canon.
Now then, walk with me for a little bit. Just as there are a limitless number of ways to fight with fists and feet, use magic, generate energy, etc, while also being visually distinct, so too are there ways of using a sword. Before we talk about Takamaru any further though, let’s take a brief look at the current reality of swordsmen in Smash:
Knights (Sword & Shield style): Link, Young Link & Toon Link
Right off the bat, you should notice something strange with this. The series has gone through three entries with the fourth one rapidly approaching and this archetype is only made up of variants of the same character. Sure this is mitigated in play style by giving different properties to similar looking attacks, but with so little else being done in how this style is implemented, it comes across as being excessively same-y.
Fencers (fighting style based off of the European style of Fencing): Marth, Roy, and the newcomer Lucina
Yet again, we see another situation where in three games (soon to be four), there is only one style being represented between multiple characters with little in the way of variance besides move property changes.
Heavy Swordsperson: Ike
Ike represents the first true divergence from either of the two styles mentioned above. By supplementing his raw power with the impressive reach of Ragnell, he was able to have a mixed style wherein scrappy physicality and powerful swings melded together to make something true to the character and truly divergent from the previously established swordsman mold. It took us until Brawl, the third game in the franchise
9 years after it started for one extra “swordsman” mold to be created. To put this in further context, it took the Smash franchise three games to officially have a third sword fighting style represented
out of a cast of 39 characters as per Brawl. That’s not so good…
Hybrids (characters that use a bladed weapon but do not specialize or identify by this specifically): Pit and newcomer Robin
Pit’s redesigned weapon, Palutena’s Bow, was first displayed as a set of knives that joined together to create a pseudo bladed staff/bow hybrid. While I include him here for the sake of objectivity, I hesitate to consider him a “swordsperson” specifically because of his “jack of all trades” focus. Even so, if we count this, Pit makes for the fourth variance in swordsman/bladed combat styles over a three game and near decade long period of time in the franchise. Robin is another such character that falls into this mold. While the character possesses a sword, the sword runs completely secondary to the character’s mastery over magic. Even in the limited footage we have, there is a noticeable lack of finesse with the sword that the other swordsmen characters possess whereas his abilities with the tomes are varied and impressive. In that case, we can say that the sword is a supplement to Robin’s more magic oriented play style.
Hyper Offensive/High Octane/”Death by a million Cartoony Cuts”: Metaknight, potentially newcomer Mii Swordfighter
Metaknight was silly. While not adhering to any specific style of swordsmanship, his transcendental attacking speed and “whirling death” style is unique in its own right and deserves a mention. As such this is the fifth variance in swordsmen included as playable characters in every Smash roster from the first through Brawl. Mii Swordfighter ramps things up by bringing a broadsword to the battle but also bringing a distinctly chaotic nature to it as well.
Putting this all into perspective, this means that:
- In Smash 64, there was only one swordsman of one fighting style niche in Link
- In Melee, there were only four swordsmen out of a twenty six character roster. Out of those four, only two fighting styles were represented, fencers (Marth & Roy) and knights (Link & Young Link).
- In Brawl, there were six swordsmen and four styles represented (Marth, Ike, Pit, Metaknight, Link & Toon Link) out of a cast of
39.
- Speaking on characters confirmed as of this post, Smash 4 has fencers (Marth, Lucina), heavy swordsmen (Ike), Hybrids (Pit, Robin), and High Octane (Mii Swordfighters) covered.
So the issue isn’t that there are too many swords people. It’s that there are too many swords people riding the coattails of another established swordsman with not enough variety being shown in between to warrant a casual player’s interest.
Coming back to Takamaru now, we don’t have to look far to see how he can offer a satisfying and distinct new take on the surprisingly
underserved swordsman flavor in the Smash rosters to date. The “draw and sheathe” style of sword fighting (via either Iaido or Battoujutsu) is a niche that has yet to be capitalized on within the playable Smash cast. With Lyn continuing to resume her role as an Assist Trophy character, Takamaru is the best, if not only, character in Nintendo's stable that is able to take this style and run with it by virtue of being Nintendo's oldest samurai protagonist and a character with some decent Nintendo history behind himself.
In this style of sword combat, the sword remains sheathed at all times until an attack is launched wherein the opponent draws their sword in a lightning fast manner simultaneously attacking them out of this draw before once again sheathing their blade. Even in the 1986 title, one could see that Takamaru was a character who only ever used his blade in close quarters lending more credibility to the idea that he could be a practitioner of iaido. The idea behind the style is in displaying a cool composition of the mind as well as swiftness of the body so as to be aware of openings and make quick lethal strikes once the practitioner was in a certain range.
What's more, Takamaru also brings with him numerous other toys in the form of Will-O-Wisp fireballs that explode on contact, the ability to call down screen clearing lightning, the ability to turn intangible/invisible, varied throwing knives/stars, projectile deflection with his sword, and of course his agility and twitch based gameplay. All of these aren't even stretches of what he was capable of doing, each of these abilities and subtleties were born with the character in the 1986 Famicom game. In developing a style that highlights both his close and long range attributes, it is possible to make a swordsman character unlike any other present in the roster and one who would be satisfying to use. Below are some examples from regulars in the thread:
I only have one more question… How do I support this character? I’m very intrigued now.
This part is easy. Simply ask to be added to our growing list of supporters and we’ll handle the rest. If you would like, you can also add one of the following icons to your signature:
They will link back to the thread’s first post so others might get a look at what Takamaru’s all about. Once that’s done, just kick back and have a blast with us as we get our samurai on. :D
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