The Last Ninja Soundtrack (C64), Ben Daglish / Anthony Lees, 1987
The Commodore 64 is home to more than a few legendary titles, and The Last Ninja is no doubt part of that select group. However, its development turned out to be an unexpectedly protracted affair after the initial group of developers – Budapest’s SoftView – could not make progress on the project. System 3’s Mark Cale took the code back to London, with the game’s engine rewritten for the C64 by John Twiddy. Cale’s vision for the project was an ambitious one. He envisaged an isometric ninja adventure that would create a far more expansive world for gamers to explore than what your regular C64 game accomplished. Blending exploration, adventure elements and arcade-style combat, The Last Ninja struck a chord with both critics and the masses, going on to sell about four million copies (according to Cale) and kicking off a massively successful franchise.