music — Editorials — Patrick Kulikowski

A bombshell of a news story came out of this week that undoubtedly surprised fans of Resident Evil and Onimusha alike. One of the series’ composers, Mamoru Samuragoch, didn’t actually write any of the music.

Samuragoch (birthname Samuragochi), who was originally thought to have composed the soundtracks to both 1998’s Resident Evil: Director’s Cut DualShock Ver. for PlayStation and 2001’s Onimusha: Warlords for PlayStation 2 and Xbox, has recently admitted through a spokesperson that he had actually hired a ghostwriter to do his work for more than 15 years. The composer has been hailed as “Japan’s Beethoven” by Time Magazine back in 2001 for his purported hearing loss in the late 90s.

The story gets even juicier when the ghostwriter, revealed to be Takashi Niigaki, publicly questioned Samuragoch’s supposed deafness.

If you ask me, one of the most important aspects of a game (aside from being fun and playable) is whether or not it has good music.

A game’s soundtrack can make or break a game. Without a good soundtrack that instills some sort of joyful, thrilling or even fearful emotion in me I can’t have fond memories of that experience.

Some of us don’t think it’s enough to just hear a great tune while we’re busy blasting through a random encounter, stomping on a Goomba or tossing sonic booms. Damn it, some of us like to walk or drive down the road to the hair-raising ’80s rock euphoria that is the Grandia II battle theme, or the infectiously catchy melodies of Castlevania: Rondo of Blood. That’s why we like to purchase videogame soundtracks.

Looking back at the dual soundtracks of Resident Evil

Hey publishers, offer your soundtracks digitally