"Walking on the Edge" from Castlevania on the Nintendo Entertainment System (1986)
Composer: Kinuyo Yamashita (James Banana)
Album: Demon Castle Dracula Best
Label: Konami
Developer: Konami
The Pokémon track I used last week gave me the idea to use this song from the first Castlevania, partly because I feel that it's an underplayed track from the game (not being either "Vampire Killer" or "Wicked Child"), but also because as was the case with last weeks song, this one too contains sound effects from the game, but only during the second playthrough. And what's great about the sound effects in the background, is that they're in stereo! The whip sound is in the right speaker with the item pick up in the left. It's like Simon Belmont swinging a whip through my brain when I listen to it with headphones.
This track is used in the underground stages in the game, of which there are not too many. In Stage 4, you hear only about 45ish seconds of the song (if you're good at the game) is almost enough time to listen to the song in it's entirety before moving above ground and onto the song, "Stalker." The point is, is that often times the musical themes had to be so condensed that the player could go through an area and still hear the entire song (at least in the beginning of Stage 4).
And now after seeing Kinuyo Yamashita's discography, I think I'll go listen to some of her other scores from her 14 years composing.
~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
P.S. A final side note, the music that Kinuyo wrote for Castlevania was the first music she wrote for a video game.
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