DuckTales

Composed by Hiroshige Tonomura

DuckTales marked the beginning of Capcom's partnership with Disney. In North America, they published Hudson Soft's Mickey Mousecapade in 1987. But in 1989, Capcom developed their first Disney title, based off one of Disney Afternoon's most popular cartoons. What made DuckTales special, and what still makes DuckTales special to this day, was that this wasn't a quick and cheap cash-in. Effort was placed into every part of the gameplay. The way Scrooge McDuck traveled and fought his enemies, the non-linear ways you could play the game, the colorful graphics, and of course, the music. Many of which were from people who had prior experience working on Capcom's other popular platformer, Mega Man.

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Except for Hiroshige Tonomura, who did not have any Mega Man experience. He got his start working on the arcade version of 1943 Kai, then worked on Capcom's version of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms story, Destiny of an Emperor. After DuckTales, he would work on Capcom's adaptation of the Japanese movie A Taxing Woman before leaving the studio to compose for Taito. Tonomura's most famous contribution to the DuckTales game, as well as arguably one of the most popular pieces composed in any Capcom game, was the theme for the moon level.

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Frequently appearing in "best of" lists, retrospectives, and the most commonly arranged piece arranged on OverClocked Remix, the theme for the Moon level alone helped make DuckTales one of the most memorable games in Capcom's library, and one of the most memorable games based on a licensed property. The Moon theme became so iconic to DuckTales, it became a small part of the 2017 cartoon reboot. Part of the intro can be heard during the last episode of season 1, and the character Della Duck sings a lullaby version of the song in the episode What Ever Happened to Della Duck, making this version the only official version of the Moon theme to contain lyrics. The arrangement was composed by Dominic Lewis, with vocals by Della Duck's voice actress, Paget Brewster.

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DuckTales set the bar for how video games based on licensed properties should play, look, and sound. The game did more than just suppliment the popularity of the DuckTales series, it enhanced and added to it, with a soundtrack that went well beyond enhancing the game experience. It enhanced the entire DuckTales lore, and it became just as iconinc as the game itself.