Castle Morihisa

Castle Morihisa is a roguelike deckbuilder game set in a fantasy rendition of feudal Japan, where players engage in turn-based tactical combat using a customizable deck of collectible cards. The gameplay involves ascending a spire through strategic card-based battles, drawing inspiration from titles like Slay the Spire but with a distinct Japanese aesthetic and setting rooted in ancient or medieval themes.

Castle Morihisa: A Folktale Forged in the Shadow of a Giant

Introduction: The Allure of the Familiar, Wrapped in silk

In the bustling ecosystem of the roguelike deckbuilder, a genre practically monoclonal in its devotion to Slay the Spire, a new contender emerges not with a revolution, but with a meticulous, if uneven, act of cultural translation. Castle Morihisa, the debut title from the Shanghai-based Smokingbear Studio and published by Thermite Games, is a game that wears its inspirations as boldly as a men-yoroi mask. Released in February 2022 for Windows and Nintendo Switch, this tactical roguelite invites players into a meticulously crafted dark fantasy rendition of feudal Japan, tasking them with navigating a spiraling castle keep fraught with yokai and political intrigue. Its thesis is simple yet compelling: what if the tight, agonizingly satisfying card-combat loops of Slay the Spire were filtered through the lens of Kojiki myths and Edo-period paranoia? The result is a game that is both comfortingly familiar and frustratingly derivative, a title that proves the potent allure of a strong aesthetic but also the perils of building a house on another’s perfectly laid foundation. This review will argue that Castle Morihisa is a significant, if flawed, entry in the genre’s canon—a game whose artistic vision and mechanical ambitions are consistently undermined by a derivative core and a lack of the iterative polish that defines its predecessors.

Development History & Context: A Studio’s First Siege

Smokingbear Studio, as documented on MobyGames and their official channels, was a nascent indie developer when Castle Morihisa launched. The game represents their first major release, a fact evident in both its audacious scope and its rough edges. Developed in the widely accessible Unity engine, the project speaks to a common indie strategy of the late 2010s/early 2020s: leveraging a proven, popular gameplay template (Slay the Spire’s ascent to indie darling status began in 2019) while attempting to distinguish it through strong thematic and artistic direction. The choice of publisher, Thermite Games, known for bringing Asian-market indie titles to a global audience, further contextualizes the game as part of a wave of localized Japanese-inspired indies.

The technological constraints were those of a mid-budget 2D indie title: a focus on hand-drawn, paper-doll style animation over complex 3D, a fixed/flip-screen perspective for battles, and a turn-based system that prioritizes UI clarity over graphical spectacle. The gaming landscape of early 2022 was saturated with Slay the Spire clones (Monster Train, Rise of the Slime) and spiritual successors (SteamWorld Quest). Castle Morihisa entered this crowded field not by re-inventing the wheel, but by offering a very specific and traditionally underserved flavor: a serious, lore-heavy take on Japanese folklore, moving away from the generalized Western fantasy of its inspiration. Its release on both PC and Nintendo Switch simultaneously was a savvy move, targeting both the core deckbuilder audience on Steam and the portable-friendly roguelike audience on Nintendo’s hybrid console.

Narrative & Thematic Deep Dive: Spies, Spirits, and a Silent Castle

The official narrative framing, present across the Steam store page and MobyGames description, is a brooding historical-political thriller. Following the shogun Tokugawa’s “Laws for the Military Houses,” emissaries to the Ishikawa clan at Castle Morihisa have vanished. The great metsuke (inspector) Yagyū Munenori dispatches a spy—the player—to infiltrate the sealed castle and discern the truth: is Lord Ishikawa Shinjuku plotting a usurpation, or is a more supernatural malevolence at play?

This setup is a masterstroke of thematic efficiency. It immediately grounds the game in the tense, surveillance-heavy reality of the Edo period while leaving narrative room for the fantastical. The journey to the castle is not a simple march; it is a descent into a region where “mysterious unease” has spawned demons, ghosts, and corrupted beings from Japanese folklore. The narrative is delivered sparingly through text-based event encounters, boss introductions, and the overarching goal of reaching the central spire. It lacks the character-driven arcs of Slay the Spire‘s NPCs but makes up for it with a pervasive, atmospheric dread. Each enemy type—from zombie townsfolk to fire-breathing karakasa (umbrella spirits)—is a piece of this corrupted world, a direct result of the Ishikawas’ alleged rebellion or the spiritual blight accompanying it.

The four playable classes are not mere combat archetypes but narrative personas deeply tied to the setting:
* The Monk: Represents the disciplined, spiritual counter to chaos, using Meditation and Mantras—a direct echo of Buddhist practice—to defend and purify.
* The Samurai: Embodies the bushido ideal, a figure of extreme, lethal precision (“to kill in one blow”) wrapped in the melancholy beauty of falling Sakura petals. His mechanics of Sakura and Retaliate turn him into a high-risk, high-reward killing machine.
* The Onmyoji: The most explicitly mythological, a practitioner of yin-yang magic who summons Shikigami (spiritual familiars) fueled by their own blood—a dark twist on the historical onmyōji‘s role. Their focus on Leech mechanics ties their power directly to a vampiric, self-sacrificial relationship with the spirit world.
* The Ninja: The master of subterfuge and shadow, utilizing 9 Mantra Signs, Kunai, and Shuriken. His complexity mirrors the historical/legendary ninja’s role as a specialist operative, requiring deep system mastery to unleash endless combo potential.

The “Fallen Heroes” mechanic, allowing players to channel legendary Sengoku-period figures for a one-time powerful ability, further roots the conflict in a specific historical-mythological continuum. It suggests that even the great warriors of Japan’s past are needed to combat this modern (Edo-period) spiritual crisis. The narrative, therefore, is not a linear story but an emergent one, built through the player’s repeated attempts to breach the castle, piecing together the truth from the folklore they slaughter and the events they survive.

Gameplay Mechanics & Systems: The Architecture of a Clone, For Better and Worse

At its circulatory system, Castle Morihisa operates on the Slay the Spire blueprint with surgical precision, making its deviations all the more glaring.

Core Loop & Combat: Players navigate a procedurally generated overworld map, represented as an ancient Japanese scroll, choosing between nodes of Combat, Treasure, Event (Camping/Happening), and Elite encounters. Each combat is a turn-based card duel. Players draw a hand from their deck, spend a regenerating resource (Action Points) to play cards classified as Attack, Defense, Skill, or Tactic. Tactics are persistent, turn-long buffs/debuffs. The core strategic loop is deceptively simple: manage your hand, your HP, your Action Points, and your deck’s composition against an enemy with telegraphed intents. Victory yields gold and a new card to add to your deck, fueling the classic deckbuilder ascent.

Class Differentiation & Synergy: The four classes provide the strongest layer of differentiation. Their starting decks and unique mechanics are well-realized:
* The Monk’s Meditation (a stacking defensive buff) and Mantra (offensive scaling) create a beautiful, cyclical risk-reward dynamic.
* The Samurai’s Sakura (a stacking damage buff on kill) and Retaliate (automatic counter damage) directly reward aggressive, surgical play.
* The Onmyoji’s Shikigami summons (with their own HP and actions) and Leech (healing via damage) create a board-state management puzzle.
* The Ninja’s complex interplay of 9 Mantra Signs (a resource system), Shuriken, and Kunai offers the highest potential for intricate, multi-turn setups.

However, as noted in the eShopperReviews and WayTooManyGames critiques, the synergy depth often feels less “neat” than in Slay the Spire. A planned Ninja discard synergy can be undermined by a key Tactic card that forces discards before other card-play bonuses trigger, creating a frustrating internal contradiction. The game’s 300+ cards offer breadth, but the paths to powerful, coherent synergy can be more winding and dependent on specific, rare pulls.

The Talent Wheel & Progression: This is Castle Morihisa‘s most significant mechanical divergence and, per consensus, its most troubled. The concentric “skill wheel” is a permanent, run-independent progression system. Talents are purchased with a currency (Trait Points) earned from exploring map nodes. The problem, painstakingly detailed by WayTooManyGames, is its gated, non-synergistic structure. The most powerful talents reside on the outer ring, but require players to spend points on prerequisite, often situational or useless talents to connect to them. This forces suboptimal builds and creates a “checklist” grind that actively works against the player’s desired deck strategy, unlike the more integrated relic/upgrade system of Slay the Spire. It is a well-intentioned idea—permanent progression across runs—executed with a frustrating, almost MMO-like talent tree topology that disrespects player agency.

Other Systems:
* Shop: The always-available shop is a convenient quality-of-life feature, allowing card purchases and one-run consumables anytime. However, the need to pay gold to refresh stock can feel punitive when funds are low.
* Quests: Elite enemies and events offer scroll-based quests with delayed rewards (e.g., “deal X Attack-type damage,” “win in 4 turns”). The ability to bank completed quests for strategic timing is a clever twist, adding a layer of long-term planning within a run.
* Fallen Heroes: The three limited-use super-moves per run are a fantastic “ace-in-the-hole” mechanic, directly lifting tension from Final Fantasy‘s “Limit Break” or “Summon” systems and fitting the theme perfectly.
* Meta-Progression: Here lies another major criticism. As Third Coast Review and WayTooManyGames stress, there is essentially none beyond unlocking the Samurai and Ninja classes by beating the game. No new cards are added to the general pool, no ascension-style difficulty levels, no persistent currency. A failed run feels utterly unrewarding beyond the memory of a good combo, contributing to the game’s “unfair” and grinding feel.

Flaws & Instability: The most severe criticisms from WayTooManyGames‘ pre-launch review were game-breaking bugs: a freezing card effect for the Onmyoji that created an unwinnable state, and crashes for the Monk based on enemy defeat order. While a patch (1.0.5.8) reportedly fixed the Onmyoji issue at launch, the perception of instability was already cemented. This technical shakiness, combined with the punishing RNG of card draws and map generation, fueled the widespread critique of unbalanced, “punishing for RNG’s sake” difficulty that feels less like a challenge and more like a design failure.

World-Building, Art & Sound: Where the Game Truly Shines

If the mechanics are a house of cards (pun intended), the presentation is the beautiful, sturdy table it rests upon. Castle Morihisa‘s greatest and most undisputed strength is its cohesive, compelling aesthetic.

Visual Direction: The game fully commits to its “Japanese ink painting meets dark fantasy” vision. Character portraits and enemy sprites are rendered in a striking style with thick, expressive outlines and a muted, earthy palette with dramatic splashes of red and gold (the Samurai’s Sakura petals, the Onmyoji’s blood magic). This is not the soft watercolor of Slay the Spire but a grittier, more illustrative look, reminiscent of modern Ukiyo-e reinterpretations or the art of Darkest Dungeon. The overworld map is a genius touch—a scrolling, traditional-style scroll map with icons for encounters, making navigation feel like charting a dangerous pilgrimage. Each enemy type, from the stitched-up amphibian to the animated karakasa, tells a mini-story of folklore corruption. The card art is consistently excellent, reinforcing the thematic identity of every skill and attack.

Sound Design & Music: The soundtrack heavily utilizes traditional Japanese instruments—koto, shamisen, taiko drums, and shakuhachi flute—creating a tense, atmospheric, and culturally resonant backdrop. It avoids being mere “eastern” pastiche by matching its tone to the game’s dark fantasy: the music is often somber, percussive, and eerie, perfectly accompanying a silent march towards a haunted castle. Sound effects for card plays, attacks, and abilities are crisp and satisfying, with distinct audio cues for class-specific mechanics (the chant of a Mantra, the whisper of a Shuriken).

This audiovisual package does the heavy lifting of world-building. It makes every encounter feel like a step through a haunted mukashi-banashi (old tale). The presentation doesn’t just decorate the mechanics; it elevates them, making the player believe they are a Monk purifying demons or a Ninja striking from shadows, even when the underlying system feels copied.

Reception & Legacy: A Cult Curiosity, Not a Pioneer

Upon launch, Castle Morihisa received a mixed-to-average critical reception, reflected in its MobyGames average score of 68% from four critics. The consensus, as synthesized from TechRaptor (7/10), Phenixx Gaming (7/10), Twinfinite (3.5/5), and Third Coast Review (2.5/4), was remarkably consistent:

1. Praised for: Its unique and attractive Japanese folklore aesthetic, the conceptual depth of its four distinct classes, the engaging tableau of its overworld map, and the intriguing ideas of the Talent Wheel and Fallen Heroes.
2. Criticized for: Being an overly derivative clone of Slay the Spire without its predecessor’s polish and tight synergies. The Talent Wheel was almost universally panned as clumsy and frustrating. The lack of meta-progression was a major red flag for roguelike fans. Technical issues (bugs, crashes) at launch damaged trust. Most damningly, the game’s balance and RNG were frequently described as “unfair” or “unforgiving” in a way that felt punitive rather than skill-based.

User reviews on Steam (66% positive from 340 reviews) and Metacritic (User Score 7.8) show a more polarized but still cautiously positive split. Some players, like a Metacritic user who claimed to enjoy it more than Elden Ring, found deep satisfaction in overcoming its challenges. Others echoed the critics’ frustrations about balance and lack of reward.

Its legacy is thus likely to be that of a cult curiosity rather than an influential milestone. It did not significantly impact the genre’s evolution; Slay the Spire and later, more innovative titles like Balatro (which redefined the genre’s presentation) or Inscryption (which subverted its narrative) hold that claim. Instead, Castle Morihisa will be remembered as a passionate, culturally specific fork in the road that demonstrated the genre’s potential for rich theming but also the immense difficulty of matching the foundational design of a masterpiece. For a brief moment, it offered fans of the genre a very specific fantasy: not just any deckbuilder, but a Japanese deckbuilder. That specific fantasy, while beautifully realized artistically, was ultimately not enough to overcome the gravitational pull of its model.

Conclusion: A Flawed Relic Worthy of a Shrine

Castle Morihisa is a game of profound contradictions. It is a technically competent but mechanically conservative clone, wrapped in one of the most thematically coherent and visually striking packages in the roguelike deckbuilder space. Its heart is in the right place—the love for Japanese folklore is authentic and deeply integrated into every class, card, and enemy design. Yet, its mind is elsewhere, cribbing structural notes from a superior playbook without mastering the composition.

The verdict must be bifurcated. As a pure gameplay machine, it is a B- at best. The Talent Wheel is a flawed mechanic that actively harms build variety, the balance is often cruel rather than challenging, the lack of meta-progression is a cardinal sin in the roguelite genre, and the launch bugs left a stain on its reputation. It does not stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Slay the Spire.

However, as a thematic and atmospheric experience, it is an A-. For the player who adores yokai, the ambiance of Feudal Japan, and the thrill of building a Samurai deck that feels like a katana slicing through silk, Castle Morihisa delivers moments of pure, unadulterated niche joy. The act of playing as the Onmyoji, summoning a Shikigami while bleeding for power, feels more unique and narratively potent than almost any card in Slay the Spire.

Therefore, its definitive place in video game history is not as a pioneer, but as a significant case study. It is a testament to the power of setting to elevate even the most derivative mechanics, and a cautionary tale about how even brilliant aesthetics cannot compensate for unbalanced progression systems and a lack of iterative design wisdom. It is a beautiful, haunted castle with elegant halls and confusing, trap-filled wings. For the dedicated historian of the deckbuilder genre, or for a player desperately seeking a Japanese mythology fix, the journey through Castle Morihisa is worth the frustration. For everyone else, the path is already paved by a giant, and that giant’s shadow is far more forgiving.