Shadow Force / Shadow Force: Henshin Ninja (J)

[Generator]
MAME 0.164, modded by Valley Bell

The last beat-'em-up that Technos Japan Corp.
developed itself before its eventual
bankruptcy, "Shadow Force" features the gimmick
of being able to steal the bodies of your
enemies and use their attacks. It also features
a great FM synth and sampled drums soundtrack
by the composer of "Double Dragon", with
"Scientific Laboratory" being a standout.
Sadly, the US version crumbled beneath the
weight of a clumsy six-button control scheme
and random pointless duels, both of which were
removed from other versions of the game.

Also seemingly removed were nine different
songs, a few of which appear to have been for
cutscenes and others of which appear to have
been simple jingles. The eighth is an apparent
Easter Egg, a version of Mendelssohn's Wedding
March placed in the last accessible sound test
slot, and the ninth is an apparent speaker test
that is never used anywhere. One song unused
in the US and World versions is in the Japanese
version as the opening theme, and placed at the
start of the playlist accordingly.

That opening theme also suffers an ostensible
glitch in which channels 5-8 drop out after
about four minutes and six seconds, which is
clearly not intended since you never hear the
song for that long. The version in the playlist
is the intended version of the song, but I've
also included the original loop outside the
playlist as a separate file, if you're curious.

Enjoy!


Size reduction:
1. vgm_sro: 14.6 MB -> 2.26 MB (15.5 %)
2. vgm_cmp: 2.26 MB -> 800 KB (35.4 %)
3. gzip: 800 KB -> 222 KB (27.7 %)
Total: 14.6 MB -> 222 KB (1.52 %)

— The Golden Horse

Source: VGMRips