Ever since I started posting Dj CUTMAN’schiptune mixes, the man has been wanting to express his appreciation for my help, so he offered to remix a game track for me. What was I going to say? No? Naturally, I accepted his offer! He asked me which game I’d like to have sampled. I tried to think of a title that doesn’t get much exposure, and then it hit me —Power Blade!
Don’t rememberPower Blade? It was an action platformer for the NES in which the hero wielded a sick-ass future boomerang. I have a close, personal history, not so much withPower Blade, but with the original Japanese version entitledPower Blazer.Blazerwas a fun if highly flawedMega Manclone, but it’s nonetheless one of my favorite games of all time. When it was brought over asBlade, the game was completely overhauled with new character sprites, new stage layouts, more responsive controls, and faster gameplay. One thing that remained unchanged during the localization was the phenomenal soundtrack by Kinuyo Yamashita, composer of the originalCastlevania,Mega Man X3, and more. It’s almost criminal how good this music is.
An hour ago, CUTMAN emailed to let me know he had finished the track. Sampling the audio directly from the NES, the eponymous “POWERblade” is everything I could have hoped for and more. Seriously, listen to it after the jump or download it from SoundCloud. It starts off fairly unchanged from the source track, but about 17 seconds in, sh*t gets real!
CUTMAN, thank you so much for making this magic happen! I owe you a beer or ten!
