The Sega Genesis didn’t have the best technical audio, and many of its games lagged behind the Super Nintendo in terms of music and sound fx, however despite its limitations it was still home to some of the greatest music soundtracks of the 16-bit era.
One of the best of the best was Streets of Rage.
Streets of Rage is not only one of the best of the Sega Genesis era, but it’s one of the best game soundtracks of all time. The soundtrack was composed by Yuzo Koshiro and produced using the Yamaha FM-synth sound chip of the Genesis along with Koshiro’s own audio programming language, “Music Love,” a modified version of the NEC PC-88’s Music Macro Language (MML). Koshiro is often considered one of the most influential innovators in chiptune and videogame music, with Nintendo Power once stating that Koshiro was “arguably the greatest game-music composer of the 16-bit age.” He also produced legendary music scores for Dragon Slayer, the Ys series, ActRaiser, and the Revenge of Shinobi.
Check out highlights with the Streets of Rave YouTube playlist below:
Streets of Rage can be played in its original glory in a variety of formats today, including on iOS
Continuing the awesomeness of Streets of Rage 1, Yuzo Koshiro once again outdid himself when creating the soundtrack for it’s sequel: Streets of Rage 2.
In an interview with Angus Harrison, staff writer at VICE and a walking, talking encyclopedia of electronic beats and breaks, he said that Koshiro’s music, “brought textures and sounds of club music, especially 1980s club music, into video games soundtracks.”
In reference to the music for the first stage, Harrison said, “I’m struck by just how direct it is. It’s like a big acid house tune. I was expecting something that used instrumentation or structures from club music—but that is basically a fast and hard acid house track.”
Check out highlights with the Streets of Rave 2 YouTube playlist below:
Streets of Rage 2 can also be played on iOS as well as a variety of other sources on Xbox One, PS3, and Switch
Gamatroid 