Magic Sword, and more. In January 1990 she left Capcom to go freelance and scored numerous games over the next two decades, including Batman: Return of the Joker (GB version), Dragon Quest Swords, and the popular Derby Stallion series. In 2014 Matsumae landed in the spotlight again with her well-received contributions to Shovel Knight, the first of a series of scores for indie projects. Her latest work is Battle Axe, a love letter to ‘90s arcade games that just came out on PC, Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. In the lead-up to Battle Axe’s release, I had a chance to chat with Matsumae via email. Here’s a lightly edited transcript, translated from Japanese.