MusicBox

[Miauz55555]

Mrs.Pumpkinの滑稽な夢／luz×nqrse×そらる×まふまふ【歌ってみた】

[-FuNkY-MoNk-UK-]

[Miauz55555]

SCHANDMAUL - Der Teufel 2.4 (Internationale Version 2015)

Irish Way - The O'Reillys and the Paddyhats

[-FuNkY-MoNk-UK-]

[EmanReleipS]

Been loving this relaxing song.
I usually don't like talking segments in music that I play in the background when I'm concentrating (for example at work), but in this song it is rhythmic enough that it doesn't bother me.

Dye O - Can't You Stay

[Miauz55555]

C for Caroline -> Be My Caroline

[EmanReleipS]

I just drove home late at night and heard a strange song on the radio, which I have to share with you guys.

It's some sort of mix between jazz, electronic and rock sounds, and in German on top of that. I'm not sure if these guys know where they are going with this sound, but it's definitely something different. The music video is also just as weird as I had expected.

Also, their band name may be a very German pronunciation of "Houston".

Curious what you guys think of this.

Husten - Wohin wir drehen

[LiZaT-KiNg]

Well i was long time not here, but since yesterday im back and i see that the Server still exist. That's nice
Back to Topic:

[Pegasus]

Last Thursday was a pretty big day for classic gaming. Specifically, for beat 'em up genre enthusiasts.

After 25 years, April 30th saw the release of the newest installment to the seminal and beloved Sega Genesis/Mega Drive-based Streets of Rage (Bare Knuckle in Japan) game series, Streets of Rage 4, this time for consoles and PC. While I haven't had the chance to give it a proper look yet, by most counts/reviews, it's decently crafted - if leaning a bit conservative in evolving its game mechanics - and a worthy successor to the SoR legacy overall. If it does merit a separate spotlight post later on, you can be sure I'll tell you all about it, but this time around, the focus of what follows will be on something a bit older than SoR4 itself.

If you're not familiar with the 3 previous games, there's a couple o' paragraphs' worth of info behind the following spoiler that offer some insight into why they're considered a gaming milestone even today, but I've also included a few links to high quality video/text resources that even SoR oldschoolers may find worthwhile to check out for the wealth of fascinating trivia in 'em - your choice .

The Streets of Rage concept is basically "defeat the evil syndicate plaguing your city by punching, kicking, and generally beating the snot out of all their thugs and mini-bosses across a number of stages". Like many of its contemporary competitors (think Double Dragon, River City Ransom, Golden Axe, Final Fight, TMNT III and IV, Cadillacs & Dinosaurs, etc.), movement is in pseudo-3D along a multi-depth flat environment; players get a decent choice of tactically varied characters to pick from, each with their own stats and special moves; there's local co-op play support, a few branching paths between sub-stages, most of them sprinkled with melee weapons and enough mechanics and environmental hazards to keep things interesting, and even a few alternate endings for good measure.
While I was firmly on "team Nintendo" during those heady days of highschool console wars, and only ever managed to play SoR2 myself at friends' places (the rest I only got to later, on PC emulators), if I had to attribute the SoR games' great success and renown to something, it'd be to their higher and more satisfying production values in responsiveness, sound and feeling. Given this thread's nature, you won't be surprised to hear that the fun & replayability of Streets of Rage games also benefited substantially from their stellar soundtracks, composed primarily by electronic music prodigy Yuzo Koshiro across all 3 classic titles, also aided after the second title by fellow composer Motohiro Kawashima. Its early 90's genres and influences ranged from house/club, techno, and big beat to pop, and from Prodigy to George Michael (some classical/ethnic asides can be found in SoR3, too), and they consistently enhanced the ass-kicking experience - whether through a pumping, thrilling or chill vibe - delivering a remarkably memorable set of tracks. I think it's fair to say that, collectively, Streets of Rage's music probably ranks among the all-time top 20 franchise OSTs across all gaming platforms, and influenced an entire generation of VGM remixers for the subsequent 2-3 decades.
I'd be remiss to conclude this part without recommending these two, superbly produced videos by Strafefox that delve into all aspects of the making of the SoR trilogy - the former for 1 & 3, the latter just for SoR2. You might also be interested in this very illuminating, in-depth interview from 2012 with veteran visual/game designer and project lead Ayano Koshiro, sister to Yuzo Koshiro and co-founder of Ancient Software, the small studio with just a handful of devs in their 20s that Sega entrusted development duties of SoR2 to and which managed to create the most memorable game in the series.

October 2020 edit: I don't normally bother updating a side-note part of a post, but in this case I think it merits an exception. A few days ago, Strafefox reworked/remade his SoR2 documentary into an extended version, this time including even more details about Ancient Software, as well as the game's and the soundtrack's development, owed in no small part to him scoring an interview with Yuzo Koshiro himself! If you've ever enjoyed playing any SoR game, IMO this is definitely worth 18mins of your time to check out .

The "meat" of this post is not in highlighting the classic 3 games' music, however. After all, if you've spent any decent amount of time around online gaming communities, you may've been exposed to one or more of Koshiro's very popular SoR tunes already - be that Dreamer, Go Straight, Under Logic, Slow Moon, Expander (2023 edit: oops, as Yuzo-san himself points out, this one was made by Motohiro Kawashima), Attack the Barbarian, Max Man or any other hit - just by virtue of osmosis . Instead, the actual subject here is the music of Streets of Rage Remake (SoRR) that many might not be familiar with.

SoRR was a classic example of what happens when a producer of a hit game series leaves a craving audience with nothing new to play with for over a decade: eventually people's impatience turns to creativity, and they set off to do the job themselves. Arguably, SoRR exemplified that rule, seeing how what was launched as a small fan project 'round 2003 by indie PC dev Bombergames managed to hit a complete state in 2011, with many dedicated fans helping out in a number of ways. It even received subsequent upgrades all the way to v5.x, at which point Sega did what most producers/rightsholders do in such cases, i.e. issue a Cease and Desist order, albeit in a more polite way than Nintendo usually opts for.
SoRR was impressively expansive and comprehensive, both in the way it accommodated its PC players (many configurable options, unlockable player characters, AI and 2-player co-op, other play modes, customizable character palettes and BGM, level editor; sadly no online co-op), but also in all the included & discarded content from the 3 official games it managed to artfully include, optimize and weave into its impressive, branching ~100 "phases" (sub-stages) count! As the cherry on the top, once the project's quality began to shine through, a group of seasoned VGM remixers (BGM1401, GrooveMaster303, Gecko Yamori and B-A-C) committed to produce a fully remixed score, spanning the source series' entirety of OSTs. After a number of changes and reworks during earlier versions, the SoRR V5 OST boasted a massive, grand total of 83 tracks!
The easiest way to get started on this over 3-hour-long turbocharged nostalgia trip is through a YT playlist, such as the one right below:



There are, however, two very good reasons why I'd recommend getting your hands on the SoRR v5.1 game and its soundtrack in mp3 format. For one, it's a damn well-made piece of work that, even after SoR4's release, you'll find no shortage of SoR enthusiasts still swearing by its name and considering it the best in class at doing the series justice. It can deliver hundreds of hours of solo or local co-op fun at quick, no-setup sessions, and sometimes that's the kinda short commitment you're looking for in a game.
For another, having the OST in mp3 form allows you to take it on the go, but, more importantly, to go through it in a non-default track order just by making a custom playlist, like the one I made myself a few years back so that my listening experience of it would more resemble a playthrough of the game with considered thematic flow. With a total runtime of 3hr36mins (for me anyway, with silent bits trimmed down), believe me, that can make a big difference to your mood, whether you're hearing it for the first time or just doing other work while enjoying it in the background for the hundredth time. As a helpful nudge towards that direction then, you can find my playlist attached right below in a .rar archive because the msg. board doesn't allow straight upload of .m3u files.

SoRR V5 OST playthrough order.rar

(1.28 KiB) Downloaded 530 times

Please do keep in mind that this playlist is mostly for illustration purposes and likely won't work out of the box for you. You'll probably need to slightly rename the mp3 files you got to recreate that same order, but that shouldn't take more than a few minutes. Either way, I hope you find it useful.

Happy listening .

[-FuNkY-MoNk-UK-]