The game world has scrolls scattered throughout the castles for Takamaru to collect, and special raccoon suits may reveal power-ups.

Hearing of these strange occurrences, the shogunate led by Tokugawa Ietsuna sends Takamaru, a samurai apprentice, on a secret mission to investigate the castle.

The special featured a plot loosely based around that of the game, and starred Masaki Kyomoto alongside members of the all-girl J-Pop group Onyanko Club.

[2][3] The Mysterious Murasame Castle was ported to Game Boy Advance on August 10, 2004, as part of the Famicom Mini Series in Japan.

[4] The game was released outside Japan for the first time on the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console in Europe and Australia in May 2014[5][6] and in North America in August.

[9] Nintendo Life's Marcel van Duyn gave the 3DS Virtual Console re-release of The Mysterious Murasame Castle a rating of 8/10, noting its fast-paced gameplay and high degree of difficulty.

[10] Den of Geek rated The Mysterious Murasame Castle 3.5/5 for the release of the 3DS Virtual Console version in North America.

[11] While The Mysterious Murasame Castle was never officially released outside Japan in its original form, homages to it have appeared in other media by Nintendo.

[citation needed] Takamaru (voiced by Hiroshi Okamoto in Japanese and Darrel Guilbeau in English) appears in Samurai Warriors 3 as a bonus character in the "Murasame Castle" mode; it is exclusive to the Wii release which was published worldwide by Nintendo.

[citation needed] Goichi Suda, a former employee of developer Human Entertainment, expressed interest to remake the game for modern times.

[citation needed] In Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, Takamaru appears as an Assist Trophy and is voiced by Tomokazu Sugita; when summoned, he uses his signature Multidirectional Pinwheel Knife Rook Attack.