System 3 Archives - The Greatest Game Music

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

The Last Ninja had been a multi-million smash hit, so developer System 3 didn’t upset the apple cart when they created Last Ninja 2: Back with a Vengeance. The main novelty was the change of scenery: protagonist Armakuni is mysteriously transported from feudal Japan to 20^th-century New York City, where he has to defeat evil shogun Kunitoki once again. The new locales added just the right amount of innovation, while the core gameplay largely remained the same. However, System 3 also tweaked and improved important aspects of the formula it was following – better sprite animation, more locations and a greater number of puzzles. The result? A whopping 5,5 million copies sold and ports for the Amiga, Atari ST, NES, ZX Spectrum and MS-DOS following in due course. And let’s not forget the confusingly titled Last Ninja Remix, a slightly enhanced re-release of Last Ninja 2 for 8-bit computers.

Ben Daglish and Anthony Lees’ work for The Last Ninja was one of that game’s main selling points, channelling the required sense of Eastern mysticism into one of the most energy-packed and dense 1980s action game soundtracks. Anthony Lees wrote some material for Last Ninja 2, which unfortunately was rejected by the developer, who deemed it unsuitable for the style of the game. In stepped composer Matt Gray, who had already worked on a handful of 8-bit game scores since entering the industry in 1987. However, Last Ninja 2 was his biggest assignment yet, which he landed after System 3 had made him their in-house composer based on his impressive, quickly composed loading track for Bangkok Knight. After three more years of game scoring, Gray became a dance music producer and remixer, co-creating songs for the Pet Shop Boys, Kylie Minogue, Girls Aloud, Sugarbabes – oh, and Cher’s “Believe”.

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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 – were unable to make progress on the project. System 3’s Mark Cale took the code back to London, with the game’s engine then 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.

Like the game itself, The Last Ninja soundtrack has become the stuff of legend, again excelling on a platform that had no shortage of outstanding music. Scoring duties fell to the duo of Ben Daglish and Anthony Lees. Daglish had already built a sizeable portfolio of 8-bit computer soundtracks and was well on his way to becoming one of the most heralded game composers of the decade. Lees’ involvement was more of a surprise. He had entered a competition (run as an April Fool’s Day joke) by ZZAP! 64 magazine and his winning composition drew the attention of Cale. Lees would later write music for Last Ninja 2, but his score was rejected as the developers found it didn’t suit the style of the game. Many of the 16-bit computer games Lees would later write for unfortunately remained unpublished, before he retired from the game music scene.