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Barry "Epoch" Topping, one of the developers behind the shoot 'em up Birdcage, has just released a new album featuring original arrangements of songs from the N64 classic Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon.
Adventure Diary, as the brand-new project is called, features 9 tracks from the Konami action platformer, originally released in Japan in 1997 (and later in North America and the UK in 1998), with Topping eschewing more popular tracks like the Opening Theme and "I Am Impact!" for the game's lesser-known but equally amazing dungeon themes.
This could inevitably put some people off, but it is a decision that seems to have gone down pretty well with the series's super fans, including Goemon researcher Project Goemon, who wrote of the album, "Original covers of the MNSG soundtrack that don’t include “I Am Impact” or the main theme are quite rare. I love the energy and the original elements. Ordering the tracks like a live set is genius."
Here's the full tracklist:
- Harukaze
- Transformed Oedo Castle
- Ghost Toys Castle
- Heartbreak Kororin
- Festival Temple Music
- Airy Mermaid
- Gourmet Submarine Castle
- Gorgeous Musical
- Goe Goe Spark
"The Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon soundtrack has always been a deeply influential work for me," Topping wrote on the album's Bandcamp page, "And I've wanted to do this arrangement project for a while. The project started out as a transcription and production exercise; dismantling the original tracks, locating source sounds and figuring out how the music is put together.
"I had the idea to do a full band Goemon track for 2025's The Needs: ReCovered album, so we chose Festival Temple Castle. That got the ball rolling and I decided I wanted to take a crack at all the game's dungeon themes, taking a similar approach to our work on Festival Temple Castle."
As he went on to explain, the goal here was to honour the original work, while "expanding them musically" and "applying [his] own production style." He hopes this will bring a new freshness to the soundtrack, which was first released over 30 years ago.
"I like to think of these tracks as being made for a modern Goemon remake that just doesn't exist yet," he continued. "With the exception of some percussion, all sounds were either taken from their source synthesisers/sample libraries or remade in various synthesisers, to mimic the original sounds."
You can grab the album here. It's free to buy, but if you want to support the musician, you can name your own price.