When we started the Matron Maestras articles back a few years ago, I had made it a bit of a challenge of mine to track down a particular composer who I knew very little about outside a particular game series. Satoe Terashima’s legacy in game composing is somewhat of a mystery, and while I could not track down any leads as to what she might have done beyond her days with Konami (or even any photos of her), I nonetheless felt that her body of work was enough to still warrant her a spotlight on the series.
You could call her a “Lost Matron Maestra”. Hopefully this will help her work be a little less lost to the vast annals of game music history.
Here at Original Sound Version, we truly ask the burning questions that any true fan of video game music has discussed at one point in their lives or another. Michael started the question of what favorite versions of some of the most popular and heavily remixed tunes from iconic gaming franchises are your own, starting with Donkey Kong Country‘s “Aquatic Ambiance“. Now it’s my turn to pick your brain about arguably the most well-known and therefore remixed track from the Castlevania franchise – the original Castlevania‘s iconic stage 1 music, “Vampire Killer”.
It was hard for me to choose which Castlevania track I wanted to use for this question, as “Vampire Killer”, Castlevania 2‘s “Bloody Tears, and Castlevania 3‘s “Beginning” (Or the “Big 3” as I call them.) are almost equally arranged in proportion across both the Castlevania franchise itself, as well as within the remixing community. However, it feels right to start at the very beginning (No pun intended) with “Vampire Killer”, which was composed by the duo of Kinuyo Yamashita and Satoe Terashima in 1986.
“Vampire Killer” – Castlevania
The tune is catchy and full of determination, which made it perfect for first-time players and veterans alike to start off their journey to Dracula with. It’s had several iterations within the Castlevania franchise over the years, showing up arranged in later games such as Dracula’s Curse (As castle track “Deja Vu”), Super Castlevania 4, Rondo of Blood, Legends, Dawn of Sorrow and more. It serves as that constant reminder of the series’s ties to one another and of that first faithful trek we took as Simon Belmont. If I had to choose my favorite iteration of the track from within the series, I’ve grown to truly love Castlevania: The Arcade‘s part-organ, part-rock synth version played during the first boss fight.
Video credit of Nyx Cyan
The track has also been remixed by the fan community in just about every style imaginable, from the jazzy swing of Nostalvania to the electric grooves of Zircon and everywhere in between, to the point of near-exhaustion. Yet “Vampire Killer” persists as one of the most recognized video game tracks in gaming history, and still manages to inspire creativity and energy from musical vampire hunters to this day.
So what is your favorite version or arrangement of “Vampire Killer”? Do you have several? Let us know in the comments!
Welcome to another entry in Arrangement of the Week. This week’s selection comes from a series that’s been on many people’s minds recently. With the success of Koji Igarashi’s Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night on Kickstarter, it’s clear that there’s still a great amount of love for classic 2d action games like Castlevania. Even if you’ve never played the Castlevania series, you’ve probably at least heard the piece “Vampire Killer.” The arrangement we’re featuring today comes from artist Nostalvania, who puts an interesting twist on this classic game tune.
This arrangement is titled “Swing When You’re Killing” and is a catchy jazz ensemble interpretation. Consisting of an upright bass, piano, guitar, and vibraphone the mix was quite a pleasant surprise to my ears. I’m used to hearing rock or orchestral rock versions of this piece, so this really felt like a refreshing and unique take.
The piano and upright bass take a majority of the spotlight for this track, with the piano in particular providing some interesting variations on the main theme. Around the 2’41” mark the vibraphone and electric guitar take over for an improvisation section. It’s an enjoyable change up, giving us some new material before returning to the original theme with the full ensemble.
I like that his arrangement steers itself towards being its own thing, rather than trying to represent a track that could be heard in any of the games. It did however conjure up an amusing image in my head of Simon Belmont and Dracula chilling out at a jazz club. With all of that said, “Swing When You’re Killing” was an enjoyable and interesting find, and I hope to see more unique arrangements like this.
Did you discovered any interesting game music arrangements, remixes, or covers this week? Let us know in the comments below. You can listen to and download Nostalvania’s “Swing When You’re Killing” on OC ReMix.
Well, PAX East 2010 is over. I wish I could have been there, as there were some awesome guests in attendance, including Metroid Metal and Shota’s own Video Game Orchestra. On the topic of the VGO, Shota passed along this YouTube clip of their “Vampire Killer” performance from Castlevania, and it’s not what you’d expect.
It definitely sounds more like a rock band take on the theme as opposed to an orchestra. My only complaint would be the terrible recording here in this video. Hopefully we can get a better recording from Shota himself when he has time (they’re playing Anime Boston next week, so he’s quite the busy man). I’d like to hear how the rest of the evening’s performances went with this rockin’ rendition of “Vampire Killer” in the mix.
What do you think of the performance? Would you like to hear more heavy metal music from the VGO?
So I just went back to our Contra ReBirthreview and realized that I had predicted the future! I noted that while there wasn’t enough music in Contra ReBirth to warrant a soundtrack, perhaps we’d see them bundle it with the Castlevania: The Adventure ReBirth soundtrack, and that’s exactly what they’re doing! Castlevania: The Adventure ReBirth doesn’t have a whole lot of music either, but I like what’s here, probably more so than I did the Contra ReBirth stuff.
Manabu Namiki returns once again (credited as a Basiscape composer, with the Basiscape logo even in the credits!), providing mainly reworked tunes from Castlevania’s past. There’s a good variety, and several of the tracks are catchy and nail the Castlevania mood perfectly. The game is a lot of fun, too, and pretty damn challenging!
More about that and the game’s soundtrack in our review after the jump. (more…)
Covering and promoting discussion of composers and music with a focus on video games and other contemporary media entertainment
