Category Archives: Tunage
Celebrations of game composers, obscure and notable.
Tunage Updates – Koji Kondo and Naoki Kodaka pages fully updated!
Slowly but surely that backlog is being conquered! I finally finished up Koji Kondo‘s page by compiling a proper discography for him, which took some time, busy man that he is. With Kondo finally done, I moved onto Naoki Kodaka‘s page and gave it the complete overhaul, and it has its videos all up to date and two new clips added in that I had omitted before. That leaves Michiru Yamane and Yutaka Minobe to receive the revision treatment, and then I can get into setting up posts for the new composers I’ve been meaning to do.
Site Updates – Christophe Heral Tunage/Imagery Updates
Just a quick note that I had some spare time during lunch at work today, so I capitalized on it and finished updating Christophe Heral’s Tunage page. I also added in more Code of Princess and Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen artwork to the Misc. Imagery. Enjoy!
*disappears again*
Like this:
Tunage Update – Mari Yamaguchi and Kinuyo Yamashita’s Page are Completely Revised!
Since it’s now April and there’s no Tunage post from me as promised for January through March, so I wanted to explain what’s going on.
A) I’ve been busier than anticipated, which is one reason why I split them up in the first place,
B) Spring Break, which I planned to utilize for the first new article, zoomed by surprisingly fast,
C) I want to revise the old articles before jumping into a new one.
With Excuse C in mind, I’ve been reworking Mari Yamaguchi and Kinuyo Yamashita’s pages, and now it’s finally up to date. I completely redid the discography, revising a more current one of Yamashita’s from her own website, and have culled the clips a little but added in “Full Playlist” options onto games with such an option. I’ll start work on the others over April, and I will get a new Tunage article up for Ryu Umemoto as soon as I can.
Tunage – Norio Hanzawa
Image source: Giant Bomb
Norio Hanzawa (also credited as NON, Kazuo Hanzawa, Star Hanzawa, and Playback Hanzawa) is a video game music composer currently employed at Treasure Co. Ltd. He originally worked at Konami as a member of Konami Kukeiha Club where his first known credited game was Castlevania: The Adventure for the original Game Boy in 1989. In 1992, he was one of a handful of Konami employees who left the company to form Treasure, and is currently Treasure’s only full-time music composer.
How can it be that the soundtrack for Gunstar Heroes is notable enough to have its own page on Wikipedia (two, in fact!), yet the man who composed it is not? Norio Hanzawa’s musical scores are a perfect fit for Treasure’s classical sensibilities. They have a timelessness to them, capturing the essence of vintage video game music with their use of synth and catchy themes, yet still sounding right at home on modern consoles. Treasure’s games are known for their distinctive charm, but a large part of that charm would be missing without Hanzawa’s amazing compositions.
Discography
Castlevania: The Adventure (with S. Fukutake and H. Funauchi) (1989)
Quarth (1989)
RollerGames (1990)
The Simpsons (arcade version) (1991)
Bucky O’Hare (arcade version) (1992)
Gunstar Heroes (1993)
Dynamite Headdy (with Nazo Suzuki, Koji Yamada and Aki Hata) (1994)
Yū Yū Hakusho: Makyō Tōitsusen (with Nazo Suzuki and Aki Hata) (1994)
Alien Soldier (1995)
Guardian Heroes (1996)
Mischief Makers (1997)
Rakugaki Showtime (1999)
Bangai-O (Dreamcast version, with Aki Hata and Toshiya Yamanaka) (2000)
Silpheed: The Lost Planet (with Kass Satomari and Tomy Sonoda) (2000)
Stretch Panic (2001)
Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster’s Bad Dream (2002)
Wario World (with Minako Hamano) (2003)
Astro Boy: Omega Factor (with Tsuyoshi Kaneko) (2003)
Advance Guardian Heroes (2004)
Gunstar Super Heroes (2005)
Bleach: The Blade of Fate (2007)
Bangai-O Spirits (2008)
Sin & Punishment: Star Successor (2010)
Bangai-O HD: Missile Fury (2011)
Selected Samples
Castlevania: The Adventure
The Simpsons (arcade)
“Downtown Springfield ~ Help Maggie”
Gunstar Heroes
“Stage 1″
Alien Soldier
“Side Limits ~Flashback~”
Guardian Heroes
“Dear ‘Amadeus’”
Mischief Makers
“Esperance 1″
Wario World
Gunstar Super Heroes
“Title”
Bangai-O Spirits
“Title”
Sin & Punishment: Star Successor
“Successor”
Sources
MobyGames – http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,97690/
VGMdb – http://vgmdb.net/artist/1587
Giant Bomb – http://www.giantbomb.com/norio-hanzawa/72-58331/
Video Game Music Preservation Foundation – http://www.vgmpf.com/Composer.php?Id=NorioHanzawa
Additional Links
Artist page at Overclocked Remix
If there are any corrections or additions that need to be made to this article, please let us know in the comments!
The Tunage Inductees for 2012
Tunage kind of died this year, and I apologize for that. It’s a lot of work to put a post together for them, and I suppose the Youtube copyright change made me a little disillusioned to the continuation of the series for a while. I’d like to remedy that for 2012, and to do that I’m going to announce the four composers I’d like to get into the feature at minimum. I figure doing one per three month cycle is something I can handle, even with school. So, without further adieu, here’s who will be joining the prior musicians of Tunage:
Jan-Mar: Ryu Umemoto
Apr-Jun: Yuko Takehara
Jul-Sep: Stephen Rippy
Oct-Dec: Minako Hamano
Nester has also said he’d like to chip in at least one composer sometime in 2012, Norio Hanzawa. So there will be at least five profiles to look forward to next year. 
Like this:
Tunage – Yutaka Minobe
Yutaka Minobe
Best Known For: Skies of Arcadia (DC, GC), various Sonic the Hedgehog titles
Other Notable Soundtracks: Panzer Dragoon Orta (Xbox), Space Channel 5: Part 2 (DC), Little King’s Story (Wii), Yoshi’s Island DS (DS), Rule of Rose (PS2), NiGHTS: Journey into Dreams (Wii), Innocent Life: A Futuristic Harvest Moon (PSP/PS2), Flingsmash (Wii), Astro Boy (PS2), Onimusha: Blade Warriors (PS2), Shinobi (PS2), Jigen Kairou (PSP, import)
Current Employment: Freelance
Companies Associated With: Sega, Artoon, Marvelous
Examples of his Work:
Skies of Arcadia (DC)
Delphinus
Tunage: Michiru Yamane
Michiru Yamane
Best Known for: Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, among several other Castlevania soundtracks
Other Notable Soundtracks: Contra: Hard Corps (w. Aki Hata and Hiroshi Kobayashi), Suikoden III (w. Takashi Yoshida and Masahiko Kimura), Suikoden IV (w. Masahiko Kimura and Norikazu Miura), Sparkster (w. Kazuhiko Uehara, Masahiro Ikariko, Akira Yamaoka, and M. Matsuhira), Rocket Knight Adventures (w. Masanori Ohuchi, Aki Hata, Masanori Adachi, and Hiroshi Kobayashi), Rumble Roses (w. other composers), OZ, SD Snatcher (w. Masahiro Ikariko, Mutsuhiko Izumi, Yuji Takenouchi, Harumi Uekoh, Yuko Kurahashi, Tomoya Tomita, Tsuyoshi Sekito, and Kazuhiko Uehara), among many others.
Current Employment: Freelance
Companies Associated With: Konami (employee 1988 – 2008)
As with Koji Kondo, this will be split into multiple parts. This post will focus on Yamane’s Castlevania work, while the second encompasses everything else.
Examples of her Work:
UPDATE – Well, it seems that Sony, in their odd tyranny over KONAMI’s CASTLEVANIA SERIES, at least on their own consoles, have managed to prevent me (and others) from sharing Symphony of the Night, Curse of Darkness and one of the Dracula X Chronicles tunes from Youtube with the embed feature. You’ll have to click through to hear them on Youtube directly. I’ve tried about ten different users, but each had the same issue. I apologize. At least you CAN listen to them now. I’m fairly confident that Sony Music Entertainment, who is responsible for this, did NOT release Konami’s soundtracks, and are doing this because the games originated on Sony hardware…which I could grumble about for hours, but I’ll refrain for now. Again, I’m sorry about the extra hoops – there’s not much I can do.
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
Dracula’s Castle
Tunage – Naoki Kodaka
Naoki Kodaka
Noaki Kodaka spent close to ten years composing incredible music for Sunsoft. His mastery of the NES sound chip is evident upon listening to the soundtracks of Blaster Master, Batman, Ufouria: The Saga and Journey of Silius. He also handled the soundtracks for the Albert Odyssey series on his own, and collaborated with other Sunsoft composers on additional Batman soundtracks, Super Fantasy Zone, Super Spy Hunter, After Burner II and Gremlins II: The New Batch. He seemingly retired in 1996 and little is known about his current whereabouts.
Kodaka made amazing music that stands in a league of its own, especially for the NES. Consistently he pushed the NES sound hardware to its limits, composing tunes that were way ahead of their time. Despite his obvious talents and his imprint on early gaming music, Wikipedia continues to ignore Kodaka’s accomplishments. LVLs. is proud to spotlight this important figure and give him the home he rightfully deserves.
Complete Discography (Newest to Oldest)
Albert Odyssey: Legend of Eldean (1996, Saturn, Sunsoft, All Composition)
Waku Waku 7 (1996, NeoGeo/Arcade/Saturn, listed under Special Thanks)
Albert Odyssey 2: Jashin no Taidou (1994, Super Famicom, Sunsoft, All Composition)
Albert Odyssey (1993, Super Famicom, Sunsoft, All Composition)
Super Fantasy Zone (1992, Mega Drive/Genesis, Sega/Sunsoft, Composition w. Hiroshi Kawaguchi, Hara Nobuyuki and Shinichi Seya)
Super Spy Hunter/Battle Formula (1991, NES/Famicom, Sunsoft, Composition w. Hara Nobuyuki and Shinichi Seya)
Ufouria: The Saga/Hebereke (1991, NES/Famicom, Sunsoft, Composition w. Hara Nobuyuki and Shinichi Seya)
Batman: Return of the Joker (1991, NES, Sunsoft, Composition w. Hara Nobuyuki and Shinichi Seya)
Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990, NES, Sunsoft, Composition w. Hara Nobuyuki and Shinichi Seya)
Journey to Silius/Raf World (1990, NES/Famicom, Sunsoft, Composition w. Hara Nobuyuki, Shinichi Seya, Marumo and Mabochan)
Batman (1990, Game Boy, Sunsoft, Composition w. Hara Nobuyuki and Shinichi Seya)
Batman (1990, Mega Drive/Genesis, Sunsoft, All Composition)
After Burner II (1989, Famicom, Sunsoft, Composition w. Naohisa Morota)
Batman (1989, NES, Sunsoft, Composition w. Nobuyuki Hara)
Blaster Master/Chô Wakusei Senki Metafight (1988, NES/Famicom, Sunsoft, All Composition)
The Wing of Madoola (1986, Famicom, Sunsoft, Composition)
Examples of his Work:
Blaster Master/Chô Wakusei Senki Metafight
Area 1
Tunage: Christophe Héral
Christophe Héral
Christophe Héral is primarily a musical composer for French films and media. It would make sense then that he has worked with UBI Soft (A French publisher), contributing heavily to three of their games: Beyond Good & Evil, Rayman Origins, and Tintin and the Secret of the Unicorn. He is also attached to Beyond Good & Evil 2. Michel Ancel, creator of Rayman and Beyond Good & Evil, seems to be a big fan of Héral’s diverse range of musical prowess.
Héral has received several accolades over his career in France. Despite the quality and acclaim for his compositions, however, his recently created Wikipedia page does little to proclaim those triumphs. It barely even grants him recognition for his gaming contributions, and that’s what it focuses on. Fortunately, there’s always Tunage to pick up the slack, and we are proud to be able to give Héral his due.
Complete Discography (newest to oldest)
I’ve only included his gaming contributions.
Beyond Good & Evil 2 (Platforms unknown, UBI Soft, forthcoming, composer)
Rayman Origins (Multi-platform, UBI Soft, 2011, co-composer with Billy Martin)
The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (Multi-platform, UBI Soft, 2011, composer)
Beyond Good & Evil (multi-platform, UBI Soft, 2003, composer)
Best Known For: Beyond Good & Evil (PS2, Xbox, Gamecube, PC)
Examples of his Work:
Beyond Good & Evil
Home Sweet Home
Propaganda
Video Games Live
Beyond Good & Evil piece
Rayman Origins
Sea of Serendipity ~ Panic at the Port
Beyond Good & Evil 2
Trailer
The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn
Official Trailer
L’ile de Black Mor (Animation)
Theme
Eleanor’s Secret (animation)
Selections
Sources:
Christophe Héral’s Personal Website: http://www.heral.net/
IMDb Page for Héral: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0378425/
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