The Music in Rastan Made You Want to Crush Your Enemies and See Them Driven Before You
To this fifteen-year-old at the time, this fantasy game with an exciting score was best in life.
by Rich Watson
The 1982 movie Conan the Barbarian, an adaptation of the series of pulp novels by Robert E. Howard, was a sensation during the eighties. The character appeared in other media and inspired spin-offs and imitations.
Rastan was a video game set in a Conan-like fantasy setting. In addition to its superlative graphics, what set it apart from other games was its sophisticated music.
Rastan: hacking and slashing
Rastan (AKA Rastan Saga), designed by Toshiyuki Nishimura and directed by Yoshinori Kobayashi, came out in 1987 for Taito. The player is Rastan, a barbarian warrior.
You must fight a horde of lizard men, skeletons, dragons, gargoyles, and many more, on six rounds full of obstacles, to reach the finish and freedom. The game uses a joystick and buttons for attacking and jumping.
Your main weapon is a sword, but along the way you can acquire other weapons. A bar at the bottom of the screen tracks your health. The enemy can hit you and reduce your strength but potions picked up along the way can restore it. You can also pick up treasure for extra points.
A big boss awaits at the end of each round. You have to fight them to pass.
The music
The game’s composers are Naoto Yagishita and Masahiko Takaki. This is their score:
The score rises and falls in waves. It begins at a quick pace, providing a tension that spurs you forward as you play.
The rhythm changes with each “movement.” One is like a heartbeat. You can imagine certain sounds symbolizing creatures lurking all around, advancing and retreating, evoking feelings of dread and menace mixed with action. Towards the end the score has a more epic sound, like a majestic procession.
There are ten movements in the overall score that correspond to different stages of the game.
Playing Rastan
Back in the late eighties, I found Rastan tough to master. I could reach the big boss in the first couple of rounds, but defeating them would drain my health to the point where if I survived, I wouldn’t last much longer in the next round. And don’t get me started on the bats.
I stuck with it because I felt immersed in the world of the game, or at least, as immersed as an eighties arcade game could get. The music was a major factor, but the visuals—made by Nishimura, Taira Sanuki, Seiji Kawakami and Genya Kuriki—were fascinating, from the Lord of the Rings-inspired backgrounds to the character designs to the weapons and obstacles.
Looking at the game now, it seems less difficult than when I first played it; there’s little in the way of strategy. All you have to do is attack with your sword again and again until all your foes are dead. It’s not even like fighting games like Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter where you can use different styles to defeat your enemies—but for what it was, and in its time, it was terrific.
Also by Yagishita and Takaki
Yagishita worked into the nineties on the sound and music for games like Space Gun, Darius, The Flintstones: The Rescue of Dino and Hoppy, Galactic Storm and Bust-a-Move. Takaki’s career in video games lasted into the twenty-tens, doing the sound and music for Darius, Bubble Bobble, Rainbow Islands, American Horseshoes, The Fairyland Story (all with Yagishita), plus Superman and Rambo III.
Taito made two Rastan sequels.
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Have you played Rastan?