Research & Reference

Resources

Primary research sources for Masashi Kageyama, Ghosts ‘n Goblins NES, Capcom NES era credits, and NES chip music - with credit research methodology notes.

Primary Credit Sources

The authoritative databases for NES-era game music credit verification.

VGMPF
vgmpf.com/Wiki

Video Game Music Preservation Foundation Wiki. The most authoritative source for in-game credit documentation. Kageyama’s GnG NES credit is documented here through in-game staff roll analysis.

Kageyama on VGMPF →

GnG NES on VGMPF →

MobyGames
mobygames.com

Structured game credits database. Kageyama’s MobyGames composer profile aggregates credits across confirmed and probable titles. Cross-reference with VGMPF for primary source verification.

Kageyama on MobyGames →

GnG on MobyGames →

VGMDB
vgmdb.net

Video Game Music Database - discography-oriented credits and soundtrack release data. Useful for cross-referencing OST release credits with in-game documentation.

Kageyama on VGMDB →

GameFAQs
gamefaqs.gamespot.com

Community-aggregated game data including period coverage, community difficulty ratings, and per-title credits. GnG NES’s difficulty is consistently rated among the hardest NES titles by GameFAQs community consensus.

GnG NES on GameFAQs →

Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org

Summary source for Kageyama biography, Tokuro Fujiwara career, GnG NES history, and Ricoh 2A03 technical documentation. Citations should be traced to primary sources.

Masashi Kageyama →

Ghosts ‘n Goblins →

Tokuro Fujiwara →

Archive.org
archive.org

Internet Archive - digitised magazine scans (Nintendo Power, EGM, Famitsu), game manual scans, and gameplay recordings. Primary source for period reviews and box art.

GnG NES on Archive.org →

Chip Music & NES Technical Resources

Technical documentation and community resources for NES/Famicom chip music research.

NESdev Wiki
nesdev.org/wiki

Definitive technical documentation for NES/Famicom hardware, including the 2A03 APU (Audio Processing Unit). Channel-by-channel technical specifications, register documentation, and hardware quirks. Primary technical reference for understanding Kageyama’s compositional constraints.

NES APU on NESdev →

NSFC Archives
nsf.rainwave.cc

NES Sound Format chip music archives. NSF files contain NES music data extracted from game ROMs and playable on 2A03-accurate emulators. The GnG NES soundtrack is available in NSF format for analysis and playback.

Shmuplations
shmuplations.com

Archive of translated Japanese game developer interviews. May contain Capcom developer interviews from the Famitsu era relevant to the NES sound team. Tokuro Fujiwara and Capcom staff interviews may be available here in translation.

Shmuplations →

LaunchBox GamesDB
gamesdb.launchbox-app.com

Comprehensive game database with box art, screenshots, banners, and logos for NES, Famicom, and arcade titles. Primary source for box art images used in this fan site.

GnG on LaunchBox →

Credit Research Methodology

How the NES music community verifies composer credits for Capcom NES era titles.

The Credit Opacity Problem

Early Capcom NES titles (1985–1988) were produced in an industry era where composer credits were treated as internal business information rather than public attribution. Some titles included staff rolls accessible at the end of gameplay; others did not. Where staff rolls exist, they must be reached by playing the game to completion - a non-trivial requirement for GnG NES specifically.

The VGMPF community’s approach to credit verification:

  1. Play or emulate the game to its credits/ending sequence
  2. Document the staff roll text verbatim, with screenshot evidence
  3. Cross-reference the credit against other known Capcom NES team members
  4. Cross-reference against MobyGames and VGMDB for additional corroboration
  5. Note confidence level: Confirmed / Probable / Unverified

Japanese-Language Primary Sources

For Capcom NES era composers, Japanese-language primary sources are the most valuable research materials: Famitsu issues from 1985–1988, Capcom internal documentation (rarely available publicly), and developer interviews in Japanese game magazines.

Masashi Kageyama interviews in English are essentially unavailable. Japanese-language Famitsu interviews from the era may exist; these would require both access to the original magazine archives and Japanese-language translation. The Shmuplations project has translated various Capcom developer interviews, but coverage of Kageyama specifically has not been confirmed.