Episode 38 - The Not-So-Contractually-Obligated After-Halloween Mixtape

Halloween has come and gone, but spooky season lives on in our hearts all year round, so this is a great set of creepy tracks that I didn’t quite get out the door before Halloween. (But I meant to, and then life got in the way.) 

We here in the VGM podcast community have seen Spotify pull down some of our episodes recently without any explanation as to why. My Castlevania bonus episode was removed, as were episodes of fellow VGM podcasts A VGM Journey and Nerd Noise Radio. None of us know exactly why we were targeted in general or why it was those specific episodes, and no one (not even a robot) at Spotify has reached out to tell us. So, if you’re listening to this on a podcast service that’s NOT Spotify, good job and thank you and keep on doing what you’re doing. And if you’re listening to this podcast on Spotify, you may need to find an alternative podcatcher to keep listening to us. I personally use Podbean and Pocket Casts both; I know Spotify is convenient, but I think both of those are better podcast apps, since they’re custom-built for podcast consumption. Podbean is currently the best place to find me, since that’s my hosting company, but any dedicated podcatcher you use should pick me up.

Special thanks for this episode goes out to:

• Fellow VGM podcaster Jameson of barSILENCE podcast for contributing cover art. You can and should find barSILENCE wherever you download podcasts, and check out his website at barSILENCE.com. 

• LongTones, an experimental electronic jazz project that provides promotional consideration to Professor Tom. You can find their work on Spotify by searching for “LongTones” or on SoundCloud at https://soundcloud.com/jon_no_h 

• BokiBokiPixelArt for the show logo. You can find him on Twitter @BokiPixelart. 

If you want to reach me, you can find me on Threads, Tumblr, or Instagram as ShujinAcademyVGMClub. I’m also on Mastodon at @ShujinAcademyVGMClub@mastodon.coffee, my username on Discord is ProfessorTom, and I’ve joined Bluesky as @shujinacademy.bsky.social. All episodes of the show are posted to my YouTube channel, which you can find by searching for Shujin Academy VGM Club. You can email me at shujinacademyvgmclub@gmail.com. Links to everything are available on my LinkTree at https://linktr.ee/shujinacademy. Please leave me a five star rating on iTunes or Spotify or wherever you’re finding this episode. New episodes are released once or twice a month depending on how often I get them done, and they premiere on Thursday mornings on your favorite podcatcher and on 8beats.co, the internet's number one game music radio station. I’m also now appearing on Terra Player, the new app that’s a destination for gaming podcasts and other content, so you can check me out there. 

During the show, I mentioned some other VGM podcasts, and they are as follows:

• Last year’s excellent Halloween episode of A VGM Journey (where I got the idea to play the Transylvania song from Duck Tales) can be found at  https://audacy.com/podcast/a-vgm-journey-a9eb9/episodes/level-116-06e41 
• The episode of fellow VGM podcast VGMporium devoted to exploring the soundtracks of NES games and arcade games that were siblings instead of straight ports can be found at https://vgmporium.wordpress.com/2023/03/09/episode-63-nes-and-arcade-versions/. 

Track Listing:

00:00 - Show Tagline

00:08 - Military Madness (TG16) - Menu (composer: Jun Chikuma)

00:34 - Intro Talk Segment 

05:15 - Duck Tales (NES) - Transylvania (prototype version) (composer: Hiroshige Tonomura)

08:15 - Military Madness (TG16) - Password (composer: Jun Chikuma)

09:27 - Gauntlet IV (Genesis) - Transparent Obstacle (composers: Hitoshi Sakimoto and Masaharu Iwata) 

14:40 - Secret of Evermore (SNES) - In the Arena (composer: Jeremy Soule)

15:37 - Shin Megami Tensei (Super Famicom) - Dream (composer: Tsukasa Masuko)

17:21 - Contra: Hard Corps (Genesis) - Guillotine (composers: Hiroshi Kobayashi, Michiru Yamane, Akira Yamaoka, Hirofumi Taniguchi, and Aki Hata)

19:16 - Nemo (Arcade) - Nightmare King (Stage 7) (composer: Yoko Shimomura)

21:03 - Golden Axe (Arcade) - Old Map (composer: Tohru Nakabayashi)

21:57 - Talk Segment II: Fatal Resurrection

25:12 - Al Unser Jr.’s Racing (NES) - Game Over (composers: Shōgo Sakai, Takafumi Miura, Masaaki Iwasaki, and Yuji Suzuki)

26:49 - Mother (Famicom) - Cemetery (composers: Keiichi Suzuki and Hirokazu “Hip” Tanaka)

29:20 - Yuppie Psycho (PC) - A Man Out of You (composer: Garoad)

31:46 - Persona 2 Eternal Punishment (PSP) - Undersea Ruins (composers: Toshiko Tasaki, Kenichi Tsuchiya, Masaki Kurokawa, T.KURA, Shoji Meguro, Kazuya Usui, Toshiki Konishi, Atsushi Kitajoh)

35:51 - Military Madness (TG16) - Enemy's Last Stage (composer: Jun Chikuma)

37:31 - Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow (GB) - Lavender Town (composer: Junichi Masuda)

40:29 - Shin Megami Tensei: If . . . (Super Famicom) - Terminal (composer: Tsukasa Masuko)

41:17 - Bubble Bobble (Arcade) - False Ending (composer: Tadashi Kimijima)

41:55 - Talk Segment III: Terminal Confrontation in 3D!

45:01 - Final Fantasy IV (SNES) - Dancing Calcobrena (composer: Nobuo Uematsu)

45:34 - Persona Q2 (3DS) - Peculiar World (Another Version) (composer: Atsushi Kitajoh)

50:33 - Persona 5 Strikers (multiplatform) - Loving Wonderland (composer: Ayana Hira)

52:51 - Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Genesis)  - Mystic Cave Zone (composer: Masato Nakamura)

54:52 - Contra: Hard Corps (Genesis) - Jurassic Dope (composers: Hiroshi Kobayashi, Michiru Yamane, Akira Yamaoka, Hirofumi Taniguchi, and Aki Hata)

58:02 - Shin Megami Tensei III Nocturne (PS2) - Playing the Fool (composer: Shoji Meguro)

59:35 - Outro Talk Segment 

1:02:39 - Crystalis (NES) - Poison Marsh (composer: Yoko Osaka)