Worth visiting if you're in town, though it is not good enough ( for foreign tourists at least ) to visit town just for this.

Unlike Himeji or Matsumoto which have largely left their interiors unmodified ( bar the museum in Matsumoto on one of the floors ) , Okayama has instead built a museum inside the husk of a castle. That brings several benefits and negatives.

It is less grand and beautiful than either of the other two castles mentioned , but it has several PROS : it is air conditioned throughout the entire building, so it is bearable in summer and winter; it has many exhibits that would be educational and fun for both Japanese kids and adults; there plenty to read and interact with about the region's and the castle history; it is very easy to go around the castle as it has modern stairways and even an elevator ! For contrast , both of the other castles had more authentic stairs, which made it a little slow and tedious to get around.

The CONS: it is not an authentic castle experience that illustrates what a castle looked like or how it functioned ( bar some pictures or demonstrations made for kids ). It has instead used the castle itself as a prop. Also, it is unkind to foreigners in its design , as it is mainly in Japanese, with the title of some exhibits translated to English. Sometimes there's a QR code where you can read in English, Korean or Chinese, though that is very annoying to do manually dozens of times. It would be far better to have full descriptions in at least english as well, and the other two languages where feasible , OR, have a multilingual audio guide that you can use while you walk through the building.

The exterior of the castle is all free and has some nice photo spots. Entrance to the main part of the castle was quite cheap at ¥400.

It's quite disappointing that they've clearly poured money into the reconstruction and maintenance of the castle , but failed on delivering the right experience.

If I were fluent in reading and writing Japanese, this would probably get a 4 star rating, however it is poorly equipped to provide for non-japanese guests.