MIDI Week Singles: "Simon Belmont's Theme" - Super Castlevania IV (SNES)

 

"Simon Belmont's Theme" from Super Castlevania IV on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System
Composer: Konami Kukeiha Club
Album: Super Castlevania IV Original Game Soundtrack & Akumajo Dracula Best 2
Label: Mondo & Konami
Publisher: Konami
Developer: Konami

I almost wanted to not use this track because of how much I love this song, but I decided to ultimately feature it because it is just that damn good.  I writes good.

Super Castlevania IV was the eighth game in the series to be released (including the arcade's Haunted Castle and the MSX Vampire Killer) and this would be the fifth game to feature Simon Belmont as a playable character (after Castlevania, Castlevania II: Simon's Quest and the aforementioned games) so it would have been easy for Konami to want to use a previously composed musical number for both the opening level theme and/or for Simon Belmont's theme.  Instead, Konami Kukeiha Club (this time being comprised of Masanori Adachi and Taro Kudo) composed an entirely new theme.

Any song that features an organ as the primary carrier of the melody with a bass line that is that awesome is going to be.

Also, the structure of this song is a little odd.  Maybe.  There's the main melody (A) that repeats twice, there's the keyboard and bass vamp (B) that repeats twice, followed by another sub-melody on the organ (C), followed up by the organ fanfare  (D) that plays once, then the second bass and keyboard vamp with organ towards the end (E) then ends with the main melody playing twice.  So AABBCDEAA, which is why the main melody plays four times when you listen to the song being looped.  Maybe it is not odd and there is probably a musical definition for that somewhere.  Conklederp?

I do not know what I am actually trying to say with all of this.  This is a great song and what a way to help to make a formulaic game (because in 1991, this would be the seventh time you go out to kill Dracula in the last five years) so engaging.  This music is awesome.

Music is awesome.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
Welcome To The Land Of Questions

P.S.

And maybe it is just me, because I do not have any evidence to back it up, but after the song repeats and begins looping again, at 1:39 when the melody is repeated for a second time during this second playthrough and each time after that (for a total of four times), it just seems louder to me.  This is something that I have heard since I first played the game some decades ago and until I look at the song in something like Audacity, I will always have that second iteration of the melody just a little bit louder.  Because that is the way my brain hears it.