The legendary Konami composer Miki Higashino has revealed that she will soon be returning to MSX development, lending her musical talents to the MSX2 Castlevania-inspired project Nightstalker.
Nightstalker, in case you didn't happen to catch our coverage of the game last year, is a homebrew project, currently being developed by Bad Landed, a group of MSX veterans composed of the coder Frederik Boelens, artist Joël Verdonck, level designer Patrice Verstichel, and the audio expert Jorrith Schaap.
It is being pitched as an action platformer in the style of the classic NES Castlevania titles, and is shaping up quite nicely by the looks of things, with Higashino's appointment sure to only raise people's excitement even further.
Miki Higashino (or MIKI-Chang as she was often credited) is rightly considered to be among the best composers Konami produced, having been a composer on several of the company's classic arcade games like Yie Ar Kung-Fu, Gradius, Salamander (otherwise known as Life Force in North America), as well as the PlayStation RPGs Suikoden and Suikoden II.
In the past, she previously worked on the MSX soundtracks to Yie Ar Kung-Fu and the 1986 fantasy-themed vertical shooter Knightmare, both of which have been praised in the years since, making this an exciting return for the artist. She will use Konami's SCC chip to create the game's music. This is a chip that was included in the cartridge releases of various MSX games, including F-1 Spirit: The Way to Formula 1 (MSX1), Nemesis 2 (MSX1), Parodius (MSX1), and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake (MSX2), to name a few.
"A legend returns," reads the official announcement on social media. "Miki Higashino (@mkhgsnofficial), composer of some of the most iconic (MSX) soundtracks of all time, is back. For the first time, she composes music for SCC, contributing to the soundtrack of: Nightstalker."
Commenting on her involvement with the project, Higashino said, "The SCC sound chip is a long-held dream that I've wanted to tackle. And the prospect of creating music for vampires gets my blood boiling with excitement."
The game is expected to launch next year, in 2027. We'll try to keep you posted on the project's progress as it develops, but you can also follow the team on Twitter/X and BlueSky.