4 out of 5

Label: Limited Run

Produced by: ?

This is a Gameboy score, y’all, and it kicks so much butt. I know, I know – Konami Kukeiha Club and others have been making great chiptune music with minimal resources long before we started calling it chiptune music (this soundtrack included), but it still blows my mind when the things that were kinda sorta just designed to make us stay heads down and glued to a screen are these awesome pieces of work all on their own. With Turtles VGM in particular, I think the balance is particularly hard: staying withing the relative “confines” of the TMNT themes from the Fred Wolf show (which informs the whole sound, for better or worse – it’s what allowed there to be these games) while also branching out and making original sounding tunes. ‘Radical Rescue’ is one of the most impressive examples of this, bouncing along the playful but all-forward-momentum style Turtles music and coming up with very memorable level tunes. The soundtrack includes the lil’ blips of interstitial stuff as well – game over screens, etc. – and the GB limitations work great for this, as it forces a minimalism onto the bits so they sound unique, and can’t outright mimic the Arcade game from which a lot of that stems. In terms of KKC overall, this is also a great balance of when they go overboard with speed and the platform bounciness of their approach.

Limited Run’s presentation of this feels a little imbalanced in terms of looping the level themes quite excessively, just to get the listen up to an acceptable runtime. I guess I never know if the repetition is a label’s choice or comes packaged with the original files in some way, but whatever the case – yeah, the music is great but limited by design, and after a couple loops you’re good. On a physical format – like cassette – this is especially noticeable, as then A-side hits its runtime, but the B-side is half-empty.