MIDI Week Singles: "Bogarda's Cave" - Willow (NES)

"Bogarda's Cave" from Willow on the Nintendo Entertainment System (19889)

Composer: Harumi Fujita

Album: No Official Release

Developer: Capcom

There are plenty of more melodic songs from Willow that I could have chosen, so why did I land on "Bogarda's Cave" (which is later used as the default cave music from that point on in the game)?  For me, it's all about what feeling this song conjures up, and that feeling is typically one based around anxiety at running into one of those annoying Zombies.  Zombies are the Eggplant Wizard equivalent in Willow, except instead of turning your character into an eggplant, they turn you into a pig (a la Bavmorda style magic, but faster) for a limited amount of time, but during that time you cannot leave the current screen, all while being shot at by said Zombie with spheres of magical energy (or it could just simply be fire).  There're plenty of hazard to run into in caves, (the Ghosts can be annoying too), but overall, I just find it to be a good "cave theme."

And I do genuinely like this song it all of its 8-bit glory.  Although if you prefer, one Josh Tobin arranged a version of this song which is featured on the arranged album, "The Wonderful World of Willow."

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Instrumental

P.S.If you liked this song, I covered a handful of other songs that Japanese composer Harumi Fujita wrote on our other site a few years back in a Game Scores article.