Town of Lenam - by Wolf | MSX Resource Center

There’s a fair chance that you saw Sword of Legend Lenam at least once in your life. If only because it’s one of only three MSX titles by Hertz, the others being Hydefos and Psycho World. There’s also a fair chance that the only music you may remember from the game are the intro and the highly lyrical village/town song. For most people there was barely any reason to ever play this game, and even those who can read Japanese have labeled the game as boring.

Games being obscure is no reason for Wolf to ignore them if they contain good music, as he demonstrated earlier with the intros for barely playable Galaxy Hero Legend 2 and the somewhat playable The Bride of Space Time. The town song from Lenam has been on his wishlist for a long time, and just days prior to Christmas he quickly put together a rough version. He brought this version to Carola, whom you may remember from the TYME party in Amsterdam, 2013. She provided angelic wordless singing for this song, and clearly demonstrates her enormous vocal range.

After Wolf added the finishing touch to his arrangement, guitar player Benjamin van Geest kindly recorded the guitar parts. Ben is a composer in his own right, mainly in the Prog/Jazz/Fusion-genre, and already invited Wolf in 2017 to do orchestrating and additional composing work for Ben’s upcoming album. The most notable (orchestrated) song on that album will be performed by Anneke van Giersbergen, no less!

Based on Wolf’s own mix, it was remixed and mastered by audio engineer Stefan Verster, making sure it sounds great on a wide range of audio systems. And so, for such a short tune from a totally insignificant game (at least for us Europeans), four people have put their stamp on this project.

Despite its length of nearly five minutes, this song was actually just a minor side project. Stay tuned, for there’s more to come from Little Red Riding Hood’s arch enemy.

Relevant link: Town of Lenam

Comments (13)

By Pippo

Hero (521)

14-05-2018, 23:00

An excellent tune, really!
My Real Congratulations to Wolf, Carola and All Involved People.

By Manuel

Ascended (19465)

14-05-2018, 23:24

I recognize this tune very well but I can't remember ever having played the game. Who covered it? I thought it was on some Sunrise Magazine, but I can't find it back... Does someone recognize?

By wyrdwad

Paladin (934)

15-05-2018, 01:12

Quote:

For most people there was barely any reason to ever play this game, and even those who can read Japanese have labeled the game as boring.

Really? I can read Japanese, I own the game, and... I quite like it! What I've played of it, anyway. I haven't had a chance to really sink my teeth into it, as other games have taken priority, but the first hour and a half or so was quite intriguing -- the writing, in fact, was actually quite good, with very natural dialogue from characters with interesting-seeming personalities. It felt like a high-end D&D game or something, and definitely got me interested in playing the game for real at some point -- though I'm more into sci-fi these days, so I plan to play at least Psy-O-Blade, Jesus, and Dual Targets before I get around to playing Lenam.

Still, the game's not boring at all, at least from the start. It really does feel like a pretty good fantasy anime, except in game form.

-Tom

By ro

Scribe (4963)

15-05-2018, 10:18

nice one Wolf and the Gang. Dunno the game, dunno the original tune, tho.
btw. still waiting on that one tune, Wolf. it's been years already... c'mon dude

By wolf_

Ambassador_ (10109)

15-05-2018, 14:09

wyrdwad: Care to record half an hour (or whatever length is relevant) of Lenam gameplay with openMSX and put it on YouTube?

15-05-2018, 17:00

wolf_ wrote:

Not really? Mostly because I don't even have openMSX installed on my computer, and have in fact NEVER used it. But also because uploading gameplay footage to YouTube wouldn't mean a whole lot unless you can read Japanese, since the dialogue is really the star of the show in this game. And I'm already busy with enough projects as it is that I don't really intend to translate and subtitle any Lenam footage... yet, anyway. Give me time and maybe I will! Heheh.

15-05-2018, 17:23

Oh, it's not about the translation, it's about getting beyond the first screens. I wonder how many people have seen anything other than that. Is it an RPG? Can you fight? Are there battlemodes? Or is it just text menu after text menu after text menu?

By Pac

Scribe (7007)

15-05-2018, 19:12

Thanks to the 4 members involved! Excellent work, quite different from what we are used to listen, mainly with soundchips here and there.

15-05-2018, 19:53

Oh, I see! Yes, there are battles in the game. It's mostly a visual novel, but when you're traveling from one town to another, you'll get into random battles along the way and have to fight. The battles aren't anything special, though, and in fact that's where I stopped playing because I kind of got bored with them -- I wanted to get back to more menus and dialogue boxes, since interacting with the world and talking to the people in it was by far the more interesting part of the game.

EDIT: As a disclaimer, it's been a long while since I last played this game, so I could be confusing it with another game. I don't think so, though, as there aren't that many medieval fantasy visual novel RPGs I've played!

16-05-2018, 11:52

Manuel wrote:

No one?

By chaos

Paladin (809)

18-05-2018, 12:00

Nice to hear a new MSX related song from your side! And great collaboration with these other musicians! Sounds great!

By mesiasmsx

Prophet (3444)

25-05-2018, 13:41

Excellent!
I love The Gathering and Anneke <3

By JohnHassink

Ambassador (5671)

25-05-2018, 20:33

Dear mesiasmsx, check out this disk then:
https://www.msx.org/downloads/music/disks/alto
It has all kinds of 90's rock arrangements from master Meits for OPL4. Among which also at least two songs of The Gathering.

Town of Lenam - by Wolf

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