Uploaded April 2026 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
A very creepy tune that plays during one of the last areas in the game (and also briefly before entering the catacombs for the first time). Most people will remember this area because the enemies are incredibly strong, and whenever you get frozen and hit, you receive a stupid amount of damage.
It's an arrangement of a song that originally appeared in Dracula's Curse on the NES (in 1989). The music composition is simple but very effective, there are only four instruments: the signature Organ 1, St Strings from the JV-1080, the SC-55's Harp, and a single sound from the JV's PopDrumSet2 kit: the Maracas.
"Nightmare" was originally composed by Konami Kukeiha Club and arranged by Sotaro Tojima and Hiroshi Mitsuoka.
A very creepy tune that plays during one of the last areas in the game (and also briefly before entering the catacombs for the first time). Most people will remember this area because the enemies are incredibly strong, and whenever you get frozen and hit, you receive a stupid amount of damage.
It's an arrangement of a song that originally appeared in Dracula's Curse on the NES (in 1989). The music composition is simple but very effective, there are only four instruments: the signature Organ 1, St Strings from the JV-1080, the SC-55's Harp, and a single sound from the JV's PopDrumSet2 kit: the Maracas.
"Nightmare" was originally composed by Konami Kukeiha Club and arranged by Sotaro Tojima and Hiroshi Mitsuoka.
![Ruins of Lemuria [Alternate Version] (Restored - Roland SC-88/JV-1080) - Golden Sun The Lost Age](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/XLyop3YmdIg/mqdefault.jpg "Ruins of Lemuria [Alternate Version] (Restored - Roland SC-88/JV-1080) - Golden Sun The Lost Age
Playlist with all my other Golden Sun restored tracks: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmKzt4avW8iLpm1sXSsT7OKnohNo5V6cg
Lossless FLAC files can be downloaded here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Q2MWzb_uSvXp0Z3vWthvErnzM3xyL6Em
~~ Ruins of Lemuria [Alternate Version] ~~
I made a detailed explanation/hacking tutorial video for this, please check it out! https://youtu.be/e4-bXbS-p2U
Similar to the alternate version of Traversing Weyard (thanks @KalaamNozalys for mentioning it!), a hidden music track can be found in the game data for Ruins of Lemuria. Since the instrument number is unknown, we found it via experimentation. Thanks @jdoghere for confirming that BrightStr was the most sensible choice!
~~ Details about the restoration process ~~
Tools used: GBA Mus Riper (midi and samples extraction), agbplay (synth restoration) and Reaper.
Hardware: Roland SC-88 Pro, Roland JV-1080, expansion card SR-JV80-05 World, and Alesis DM5.
Midi files: the sequences are extracted directly from the game but need to be heavily modified in order to play them on the physical modules.
Sounds: most samples have been identified over the years, but some sounds come from my own research.
Synths: in Golden Sun, synths are specific to the internal audio engine, they are completely separate from the other instruments. ipatix managed to reverse-engineer those synths and made the code available on github. Im using his tool, agbplay, to export them from the game in high quality (at a higher sample rate than what the GBA is capable of)
Drums: Golden Sun 1 uses samples from the SC-88 but on Golden Sun 2, Motoi Sakuraba changed all the samples. While some of them have been identified and come from the Alesis DM5, most samples still havent been found to this day. Ive extracted the samples from the game, denoised, re-panned and cleaned them.
~~ Thanks ~~
Mega thanks to Bregalad (GBA Mus Ripper) and ipatix (agbplay). I would never have been able to do those versions without their incredible work.
Massive thanks to the VGM Instrument Sources community, and especially FreeJusticeHere for his invaluable advice and help!
Special thanks to Coaltergeist and Cyanne for inspiring me!
Original song composed by Motoi Sakuraba. #GoldenSun #RestoredOST")
