The Castle

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The Castle

System(s): SG-1000

Publisher: Sega Enterprises, Ltd.

Developer: Sega Enterprises, Ltd.

Licensor: ASCII

Original system(s): JP Home computers

Developer(s) of original games: ASCII

Peripherals supported: 8kB RAM Adapter (TW)

Genre: Action^[1]

Number of players: 1

Release	Date	RRP	Code
JP	1986-09	¥5,0005,000^[1]	G-1046
TW	198x

Non-Sega versions
FM-7 MSX PC-6001 mkII PC-8801 PC-9801 M X1

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The Castle (ザ・キャッスル) is a video game developed by ASCII and released for the SG-1000/SC-3000 in 1986. It is a port of an MSX game of the same name, and is largely identical due to the similar hardware between the two machines. Due to the decline of the SG-1000 and emergence of the Sega Master System, the game was not released in Europe or Australia like many other SG-1000 games.

The game has a fairly standard plot of rescuing a princess from a castle, though the game itself was considered very large for the time. It also contains a map system similar to that of later Metroid and Castlevania games.

History

Because The Castle was released shortly after the launch of the Sega Mark III, its packaging differs from previous SG-1000/SC-3000 cartridges, essentially using the same packaging format as Sega's Gold Cartridge series for the Mark III, but labelled as a "Sega Cartridge" instead (due to the ROM size being only 32KB with 8KB of RAM, below the 1-Megabit requirement for Gold Cartridge releases). The packaging promotes the game as being compatible with all Sega platforms (セガ全製品に共用) available at the time (the SG-1000 series, SC-3000 and Sega Mark III), with the Mark III itself shown at the back of the box. The cartridge itself is white, the same color as early Mark III cartridges. The packaging artwork, drawn by shojo manga artist Maerchen Maker, was reused from the original MSX version.

The Castle was followed by an MSX sequel titled Castle Excellent later in the year, which also saw a release for the Famicom/NES. The MSX version was also brought independently to the SG-1000 in Taiwan.