Jump to content
IGNORED

Streets of Rage 4


derFunkenstein

Recommended Posts

3 minutes ago, Steven Pendleton said:

Good. That game is pretty good aside from the voice acting, which is not so great. Still, that's the least important part of the game, so it doesn't really affect anything. I liked the OST in that game, as well. I think Yuzo is not the main composer, but the guest composer for Streets of Rage 4 or something. He doesn't really do as many games as he used to, but wouldn't be the same without him so I'm glad he's here.

I bought the SoR4 soundtrack on Bandcamp because I'm a sucker for video game music.  Yuzo has five tracks that he's credited for on the OST.  :)

 

Main Theme of Streets of Rage 4

Character Select

They're Back

Mrs Y

Mr Y

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, digdugnate said:

I bought the SoR4 soundtrack on Bandcamp because I'm a sucker for video game music.  Yuzo has five tracks that he's credited for on the OST.  :)

 

Main Theme of Streets of Rage 4

Character Select

They're Back

Mrs Y

Mr Y

5 is better than 0! I think I saw that Yuzo is going to release the OSTs for SOR 1 and 2 on CD and cassette somewhere. Definitely pass on cassette, but I might have to get the CDs! He always does a great job and I like his music a lot. I never played anything with his music until Etrian Odyssey IV (unless you count the arrangements he did for Super Smash Bros.), and I have no nostalgia for his music at all, but every time I play a new game and see his name on the title screen I know that at least the music is going to be awesome.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Steven Pendleton said:

I don't know your fluency level in English

You'll have some indication soon, since I've been interviewed by Michael Garvey. ;)

3 hours ago, Steven Pendleton said:

I was honestly shocked to learn that Metal Gear always kept the same voice actors for the entire series. Then MGS V and yeah.

I guess I'm not spoiling you anything but there's a good reason why the voice was changed for MGS V... ;) I'm not a fan but I found out in the very first trailer since I recognized this famous voice in it (he was also the mysterious sniper in Phone Booth if I'm not mistaken).

1 hour ago, digdugnate said:

I hate to see what 'Hardest' and 'Mania' plays at!

Some say Mania is easier than in previous games, but it's difficult to compare. In the Genesis games, difficulty was mostly based on enemies' strength and stamina. But some people enjoyed playing SoR 2 on Mania difficulty but with the maximum amount of lives and credits available, just to go as far as possible. You can't do that here. In SoR 4, enemies are already tough even on Easy, and while there are more enemis on harder difficulties, not that many. It's mostly the number of lives (2 in Hard and 1 in Mania I think), and the "cost" of special attacks that change.

Normal mode is a lot easier with another player by the way, because once again, there aren't more enemies (but there aren't more items either). One thing I forgot in my review is that lost health from friendly fire can be regained too! :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, digdugnate said:

I bought the SoR4 soundtrack on Bandcamp because I'm a sucker for video game music.  Yuzo has five tracks that he's credited for on the OST.  :)

 

Main Theme of Streets of Rage 4

Character Select

They're Back

Mrs Y

Mr Y

They're a bit disappointing though, imho. ? Derivière made the best tracks I think, even though a few are tributes from previous games. My favorite (and I'm not alone) is Rising Up from the Y Tower, and the Chinatown one is great too.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

26 minutes ago, roots.genoa said:

You'll have some indication soon, since I've been interviewed by Michael Garvey. ;)

I've actually not seen his interview with Tommy. Maybe I should get around to that. Still avoiding the Amico thread? Stuff's going weird in there again...

26 minutes ago, roots.genoa said:

I guess I'm not spoiling you anything but there's a good reason why the voice was changed for MGS V... ;) I'm not a fan but I found out in the very first trailer since I recognized this famous voice in it (he was also the mysterious sniper in Phone Booth if I'm not mistaken).

Yeah, I played it for 70 hours the week it was released while also being a full-time college student! Steam says I have 435 hours in the game. I'd never heard of Sutherland before I played MGS V since I don't watch TV or movies or anything, so it was... yeah, different.

 

23 minutes ago, roots.genoa said:

Through Wayô Records - it's French once again. ;)

Lol you guys know what's up over there for video games for sure. Perhaps the small amount of French blood in me is why I love video games so much!

Edited by Steven Pendleton
fixed redundancy
  • Confused 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 minutes ago, roots.genoa said:

They're a bit disappointing though, imho. ? Derivière made the best tracks I think, even though a few are tributes from previous games. My favorite (and I'm not alone) is Rising Up from the Y Tower, and the Chinatown one is great too.

Nooooooooooooo~ then again, Yuzo has been unusually busy recently. MD Mini + Susume!! Mamotte Kishi + this game + everything else he has going on + running his company = a lot of work for one guy. I'm not sure if all of those projects all were in a short time span or they overlapped or anything, but it's a bit disappointing. Still, I'm hoping the game's music is as good as the other 3 games' music is.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

43 minutes ago, roots.genoa said:

They're a bit disappointing though, imho. ? Derivière made the best tracks I think, even though a few are tributes from previous games. My favorite (and I'm not alone) is Rising Up from the Y Tower, and the Chinatown one is great too.

My favorite is 'On Fire' :)

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, Steven Pendleton said:

Nooooooooooooo~ then again, Yuzo has been unusually busy recently. MD Mini + Susume!! Mamotte Kishi + this game + everything else he has going on + running his company = a lot of work for one guy. I'm not sure if all of those projects all were in a short time span or they overlapped or anything, but it's a bit disappointing. Still, I'm hoping the game's music is as good as the other 3 games' music is.

I was talking about that earlier with my brother and, the thing is in the West we mostly know Koshiro for Streets of Rage when it's not really representative of this work and style. Actually, it's a well known fact that SoR music was plagiarizing (in a good way) dance music from the early 90s. I think he did a few tracks here to please the fans - DotEmu revealed very late he was involved, and announced Derivière was actually the main composter less than a month before release (while I think he was there from the beginning). Derivière doesn't really has a specific style but can imitate other composers, like Richard Jacques that you may know if you like SEGA. It may be my favorite video game music composer.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 minutes ago, roots.genoa said:

Actually, it's a well known fact that SoR music was plagiarizing (in a good way) dance music from the early 90s.

Hmm, with a statement like this I'd like to hear specific song titles so I can compare. I've never heard any assertion that Yuzo Koshiro has plagiarized other composers.

  • Confused 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Zoyous said:

Hmm, with a statement like this I'd like to hear specific song titles so I can compare. I've never heard any assertion that Yuzo Koshiro has plagiarized other composers.

I don't think he literally meant "plagiarism" more like takes inspiration from. I'm really into old school house and techno and the music of SoR has it's own sound... 

 

If just producing music in a certain style equals plagiarism then I guess I'm guilty of it too. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, Zoyous said:

Hmm, with a statement like this I'd like to hear specific song titles so I can compare. I've never heard any assertion that Yuzo Koshiro has plagiarized other composers.

Oh off the top of my head, I can tell you for certain, the intro song in Streets of Rage 2?  That's Enigma's Principles of Lust.  Huge hit at the time, and it was a clear take on that.

I don't fault them, it sounds great.  But yeah, it's Enigma :)  Start both about 0:35 in and you'll see what I'm talking about.

 

 

 

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, Zoyous said:

Hmm, with a statement like this I'd like to hear specific song titles so I can compare. I've never heard any assertion that Yuzo Koshiro has plagiarized other composers.

There's a full video about that but sound was cut because of copyrights (but there are links in the description):

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just a slight correction: I discovered that the music from the first part of the first level (They're Back) is from Koshiro, and it's great.

Motohiro Kawashima's themes also sound a lot like the Genesis games, but I've always been less fond of his style (SoR3...).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 5/2/2020 at 6:03 AM, roots.genoa said:

I was talking about that earlier with my brother and, the thing is in the West we mostly know Koshiro for Streets of Rage when it's not really representative of this work and style. Actually, it's a well known fact that SoR music was plagiarizing (in a good way) dance music from the early 90s. I think he did a few tracks here to please the fans - DotEmu revealed very late he was involved, and announced Derivière was actually the main composter less than a month before release (while I think he was there from the beginning). Derivière doesn't really has a specific style but can imitate other composers, like Richard Jacques that you may know if you like SEGA. It may be my favorite video game music composer.

A lot of his earlier games are obscure or did not get released outside of Japan, and some of them don't have his name on the title screen. Most people know him from Streets of Rage, but he's done way more than that. How many people know he did the music for the Master System version of Sonic the Hedgehog? He did, but his name isn't on the title screen. Maybe he's in the credits, but I've never finished the game so I don't know. Not much reason to play it that I can see when I can play (the original) 16-bit Sonic instead.

 

He has slowed down considerably recently, as I mentioned, and he's apparently 52, so he's getting close to retirement age, which is 60 in Japan. Most Japanese companies straight up kick you out when you turn 60, although occasionally you can stay until 62 or maybe 65, but beyond that is basically unheard of. It does depend on the company and your position, however, but in general you are not allowed to stay once you turn 60. He is the CEO of his own company, so nothing is stopping him from continuing, but we'll see what he does.

Edited by Steven Pendleton
formatting
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Since some of you were shocked I used the word 'plagiarize' (even though I added "in a good way"), I'd like to clearify that I love the music from Streets of Rage (I prefer the first one in that regard because Motohiro Kawashima brought more "trance" in the second one and I'm not a big fan of that style). It's both great and a technical marvel because, while it's heavily inspired by existing music, it's still an incredible achievement to have been able to recreate these songs with the Genesis/Mega Drive sound processor. Koshiro is a genius, absolutely. :)

 

By the way, as a French journalist pointed out on Twitter, Olivier Derivière tried to do the same thing for SoR4, but with current electronica. For instance, the theme from the 7th level is clearly inspired by Aphex Twin and is actually named "Aphex Train". I also answered that I felt that a part of the excellent "Chow Time" (from the Chinatown level) sounded like an awesome track from the Watchmen series by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, and Olivier Derivière liked my post... ;) Knowing him a little, if I was wrong, he would have told me.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 5/2/2020 at 1:09 AM, Curious Sofa said:

Oh off the top of my head, I can tell you for certain, the intro song in Streets of Rage 2?  That's Enigma's Principles of Lust.  Huge hit at the time, and it was a clear take on that.

I don't fault them, it sounds great.  But yeah, it's Enigma :)  Start both about 0:35 in and you'll see what I'm talking about.

 

Thanks for the links! I remember how popular Enigma was for a while back then. Always using the same flute sample in all their hits!

 

Well, I love to geek out on music, so I analyzed both tracks and they are actually pretty different. They do have a similar vibe in a way, and they have a similar swing to the drum patterns, but other than that they are quite different. You can easily hear that they clash if you beatmatch them ("Principles of Lust" is around 95 bpm and the Streets intro is about 100 bpm) and play them simultaneously.

 

Here are the chord progressions:

"Principles of Lust" alternates between G minor and Bb Major chords.

The Streets 2 intro alternates between F Harmonic Major and D Major.

 

Here's the Enigma bassline:

bass_enigma.thumb.jpg.72a5b95c4f85bbf27f976b45b2ac1208.jpg

 

and the Yuzo Koshiro bassline:

bass_yuzo.thumb.jpg.da022a18aceea0f838b6065ee9010bae.jpg

 

And lastly, although the drum patterns have a similar swing, you can see that the patterns are quite different as well:

 

Here's the Enigma drum pattern. Most of the action that might typically be played on a high hat is actually a brush on the snare, but to compare to Yuzo's composition I transposed that to the high hat (C#2 here):

drums_enigma.thumb.jpg.f1f7e2ded8f2b430ad43cb79f66ed092.jpg

 

and Yuzo Koshiro's drum pattern:

drums_yuzo.thumb.jpg.a5c32759342ddd7562849e647f755bf3.jpg

 

So in summation, I would say, sure they have a similar vibe and could even be worked into a DJ mix together because of it... however, you would have to break the crossfade down to just the drums to do it because the chord progressions clash. An inspiration? Certainly. However, the word "plagiarize" has only one specific meaning with legal ramifications, and if misused could be considered slander. It's a serious word to use when referring to an artist's work, so that's why I raised an eyebrow. And people on the internet can really take misinformation and run with it. But please consider my post an exploration for fun and appreciation of the music. Both of the artists are classic and it's fun to speculate on their inspirations.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...