Last Ninja 2 Soundtrack (C64)

Last Ninja 2 Soundtrack (C64), Matt Gray, 1988

The Last Ninja had been a multi-million-selling smash, so developer System 3 had little reason to upset the formula when creating Last Ninja 2: Back with a Vengeance. The main novelty was its change of setting: protagonist Armakuni is mysteriously transported from feudal Japan to 20th-century New York City, where he must once again defeat the evil shogun Kunitoki. These new locales provided just enough novelty, while the core gameplay remained largely intact. System 3 also refined important elements of the formula, however, with better sprite animation, more locations, and a greater number of puzzles. The result was another enormous success: 5.5 million copies sold, plus ports to the Amiga, Atari ST, NES, ZX Spectrum, and MS-DOS. And one should not forget the confusingly titled Last Ninja Remix, a slightly enhanced re-release of Last Ninja 2 for 8-bit computers.

The work of Ben Daglish and Anthony Lees on The Last Ninja had been one of that game’s principal selling points, channelling the requisite sense of Eastern mysticism into one of the densest and most energised action game soundtracks of the 1980s. Anthony Lees wrote some material for Last Ninja 2, but it was rejected by the developer as unsuitable for the game’s style. In stepped Matt Gray, who had already scored a handful of 8-bit titles since entering the industry in 1987. Even so, Last Ninja 2 was his biggest assignment yet, secured after System 3 made him its in-house composer on the strength of his quickly written and impressive loader track for Bangkok Knight. After three more years in games, Gray moved into dance production and remixing, co-creating tracks for the Pet Shop Boys, Kylie Minogue, Girls Aloud, Sugababes, and, of course, Cher’s “Believe”.

The Last Ninja 2 soundtrack proved to be a dream project for Gray, and not merely because he was working on a guaranteed bestseller. This was the first game to use his own SID player, which he would continue to refine on later projects, designing all of its sounds from scratch. As with The Last Ninja, System 3 asked for individual tracks for each level and loading screen, while giving Gray, by his own account, “free reign to produce the coolest music I could”. He happily obliged, delivering 13 pieces that made for an even more expansive score than its already astonishingly lengthy predecessor. His chief inspiration came from contemporary dance music and synth-rock, a direction he would revisit when rearranging the soundtrack for 2019’s Reformation – Last Ninja 2.

There is a good reason why the Last Ninja 2 soundtrack is often held in even higher regard than the excellent The Last Ninja. What Gray creates here is larger in scale and sound than perhaps any other chiptune score up to that point. His ability to develop long-form pieces is every bit as remarkable as Daglish’s on the previous game, though he shapes them rather differently. Where Daglish often pursued a more cinematic, multi-tiered approach, Gray usually reveals his dance-music influences by adding, subtracting, and varying melodies and rhythms every 15 to 20 seconds. His judgement in moving these elements around is impeccable, never losing sight of the larger structure or of the need to sustain a satisfying arc across a five-minute piece.

Witness the stop-start dynamics of “Central Park In-Game”, which interrupt the track’s constant forward momentum only in order to increase tension and expectation, ready to be released in a blazing finale when the lead melody begins to oscillate frantically as it climbs the scale. Other cues, such as “The Office In-Game”, are less meticulously tiered, but that is no problem: Gray pours so much adrenaline into the breathless rhythms that the track can simply floor the accelerator from the outset and never look back. Even here, though, there is room for subtlety and atmosphere. Listen to how Gray’s melodies drift chromatically and uneasily, creating a surprisingly claustrophobic mood when they collide with the cue’s wall of forceful rhythm.

If there is one thing that instantly distinguishes the Last Ninja 2 soundtrack from its competition, it is just how huge it sounds. This is due above all to the immensely voluminous bass sonorities Gray draws from his SID player. He flexes that player’s muscles throughout the score, and almost every composition is powered by fantastic bass lines that twist and turn restlessly, as in “Central Park Loader”. Their hyperactive energy genuinely sets the music alight, finding the sweet spot between brute force and the kind of complexity needed to keep these long pieces varied and compelling.

Gray’s melodic gifts are every bit as impressive. While his steady drum patterns and irrepressible bass lines keep the music surging forward, he rotates a remarkable number of fresh melodies through each piece. Once again, he finds exactly the right balance, this time between repetition, making the most of each tune’s anthemic hook, and the need for constant renewal. Most of Gray’s robust, catchy melodies suit the soundtrack’s action-heavy character perfectly, providing players with a sense of heroic momentum as they battle through wave after wave of enemies.

Unexpectedly introspective moments still surface. There is the serene, flute-like melody in “Central Park In-Game”, or the whistled lead that enters after 2:43 in “The Street Loader”. Then there is the score’s most arresting moment of all on the final-level cue “The Mansion In-Game”. Out of nowhere, after Gray has already built his most superbly developed piece, he introduces at 3:27 the soundtrack’s slowest and most emotional melody, complete with immaculately realised vibrato. Suddenly the frenzy subsides, and time seems to stand still.

Most of the time, however, this is a score that never pauses for breath, casting aside much of the mysticism that shaped The Last Ninja and replacing it with a grittier, harder-edged sound suited to the game’s urban setting. Even within that framework, Gray finds several different approaches to action scoring. There is the unbounded ambition of “The Mansion In-Game”, which ranges from all-out propulsion to almost ambient, menacing interludes before culminating dramatically in the soundtrack’s most discordant melody. “The Street In-Game”, by contrast, grooves along on tighter, more funk-inflected rhythms, while its melodies shift between approximations of treble-heavy keyboard soli and something closer to industrial machine noise.

The score’s strangest composition is “The Sewers In-Game”, which relies on what may be the most brooding, gargantuan bass pads ever written for a chiptune soundtrack. They behave like black holes, blotting out the light and deliberately sucking every last bit of air from the arrangement, creating an aural image of almost unbearable oppression. It may be less pulse-racing than the rest of the Last Ninja 2 soundtrack, but it is ultimately just another expression of the same maximalist imagination that makes this score such a jaw-dropping technical and artistic feat.