Death Crimson is one of those legendary Saturn light gun shooters famous for being spectacularly bad -- routinely cited as one of the worst games on the platform. But here's the thing: the soundtrack has no business being this intense for what it's attached to.
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The "Main Theme" rips with this urgent, driving energy that suggests a far more competent game than the one you're actually playing. "Death Mask" and "First Boss" hit with that distinctly mid-90s Sega Saturn sound -- crunchy FM-adjacent synths pushed through the console's sound chip with real aggression.
"Treasure Museum" has this eerie grandiosity to it, and "Salonika" delivers surprisingly atmospheric work for a game that could barely render its own enemies properly. "Battle Bridge" slaps in a way that almost makes you forget you're fighting some of the jankiest polygon creatures ever committed to disc.
The bonus track "In the Court of the Crimson Death" is a gloriously unsubtle nod to King Crimson that tells you the composer was having way more fun than anyone on the graphics team. This 2018 soundtrack release finally gave proper recognition to the one part of Death Crimson that actually worked.
The game is a punchline, but the music never was.