The latest classic game to get the orchestral treatment from Seattle based videogame music publisher and label, Materia Collective, is the Gameboy gem, Pokémon Gold and Silver from the good old days of 1999. Titled Johto Legends: Music from Pokémon Gold and Silver, this latest orchestral re-imagining provides Pokemon fans with over an hour of new music and it’s now available on vinyl and CD as well as digitally.
Funded on Kickstarter by nearly 1000 backers, Johto Legends: Music from Pokémon Gold and Silver has been arranged and organised by videogame composer Braxton Burks and features amazing performances by some of the gaming industry’s greatest talent whose credits include a mix of well known and much loved games including Destiny, Dragon Age, Tomb Raider and Minecraft.
If you played and loved Pokemon Gold and Silver back in the day then Johto Legends: Music from Pokémon Gold and Silver will transport you back to the Johto region where you will relive the battles and the characters through a relaxing and breathtakingly beautiful soundtrack.
“Johto Legends is a passion project I’ve wanted to fulfill since I was eleven years old,” comments arranger and project organizer Braxton Burks. “Almost every day after school, I’d get on the bus home and turn on my Game Boy Color, loaded with a copy of Pokémon Crystal Version. I spent countless hours headbutting trees in the Ilex Forest, exploring the remains of the Burned Tower, and tracking down the legendaries Entei, Raikou, and Suicune… but it was the game’s soundtrack that really pulled me in with its memorable 8-bit melodies, an eclectic mix of romantic harmonies and Japanese folk music – the perfect backdrop for the Johto region. Sometimes I’d even imagine what the music would sound like if it were orchestrated by one of my idols, John Williams. ‘I wish I could do that,’ I thought. Well, I ended up carrying that dream to adulthood, fueled by my ongoing love affair with the Pokémon games that persists even to this day. I hope listeners will be able to recall their own nostalgic Pokémon journey – the battles, the towns, the routes and caves… and all the adventures in between.”
Johto Legends: Music from Pokémon Gold and Silver is available digitally and on CD via Bandcamp and on Vinyl from iam8bit.
