TOBACCO IS BAD, KIDS! FIND OUT WHY BY PLAYING THIS VIDEO GAME.
Who? H. Kingsley Thurber is an example of a composer lurking in the backgrounds of the video game industry. His output was not prolific, his music was… well, you’ll see – but he did exist and he did produce quite a few soundtracks. I bet you’ve never heard of him! This guy has rubbed elbows with many famous composers over the years. Let’s find out who!
I now present for your evaluation the next focus of this entry into my Composers series: H. Kingsley Thurber.
Welcome to another edition of Lesser-known Video Game Soundtracks. Today, we’ll feature a game that even Konami wants to disappear with a soundtrack written by, well… I’m not even sure.
It’s Sunday and that means it’s time for another Sunday Game Soundtrack! This opening tag sounds cheesier and cheesier every time I write it. Too bad. Today, let’s listen to Capcom’s DuckTales for the Nintendo Famicom/NES.
Before we dive in, I just want to point this out to all you blogger types who are writing incorrect articles: the composer for this game is Hiroshige Tonomura. It is NOT Yoshihiro Sakaguchi. How many sources do you guys check? YouTube? Seriously. Capcom’s official website lists Tonomura. It’s the 3rd result. It’s called Google, people. Please go and change it if you haven’t already.
Let’s dive right in:
Okay, while you listen, let’s chat:
Hiroshige Tonomura’s alias is Perorin. In addition to DuckTales, he wrote tracks for the arcade version 1942 and the Romance of the Three Kingdoms-based RPG, Destiny of an Emperor. He left Capcom after 1989 to join Taito, where he worked on the sound team for such games as Bust-a-Move and Pro Baseball? Murder Case! (yes, that’s a real game). Not sure what he’s up to right now.
Keiji Inafune (of Rockman and now Mighty No. 9 fame) did the character design for the game. Awesome.
Yoshishiro Sakaguchi did the SOUND PROGRAMMING; it’s not the same as being a composer. He was a part of the development of the game, though.
This was Capcom’s first Disney-based platformer. Disney sent over a spy (Darlene Lacy) to make sure the game was up to Disney’s standards. In an interview with Nintendo Player, she discussed DuckTales and some of the changes that had to be made to the game to get it “on board” with Disney. Some changes:
Capcom originally had crosses on all of the coffins in Transylvania. Religion!!?? IN A U.S. VIDEO GAME SPONSORED BY DISNEY? OH NO! NO WAY! They changed them to say RIP instead.
Scrooge was originally supposed to eat hamburgers to gain back health dots (the technical term for those red dots that I just made up). Disney had it changed to ice cream cones.
Oh man, this one would have been brutal. There was originally a way for Scrooge to lose all his money. Lacey says they removed it because it was “un-Scrooge-like”. Just imagine…. oy…
The beta version of the game reveals some different tracks. For instance, this alternate unused Transylvania stage track (also note the crosses! OH NO! RELIGION! PROTOTYPE REJECTED!)
The beta version of the game also reveals a painfully slow version of “The Moon”‘s legendary track. It drags on and on:
Okay people, enjoy the rest of your Sunday. Comments welcome, as always. More Lesser-known Game Soundtracks this week. OMINOUS.
Welcome to another Lesser-known Video Game Soundtrack. Today, we’ll feature a game released for Famicom/NES and ported to the PC Engine with a cheat code that unlocks English language, and scored by someone I can’t find any information about! That’s always the best kind of article.
Classical Gaming 