My first exposure to Street Fighter was on the SNES. Capcom did a masterful job porting it to Nintendo's 16-bit baby and I grew quite fond of the SNES renditions of what are now iconic game music tracks. Years later, I would hear the CPS-I and CPS-II versions as well as the Genesis tracks. It's quite interesting to hear how the music from Street Fighter II sounds on different hardware. Sagat's theme on the SNES really spoiled me as I could never get into CPS-I or II versions of it. Indeed I do find some versions of Street Fighter II songs better on certain hardware. If only there were some way to combine the best bits of each version into one soundtrack. And that's where Karl Brueggemann comes in.
Known for his work on the Sonicesque soundtracks, Karl has combined different portions of the arcade, SNES and Genesis version of Street Fighter II's soundtrack into what he calls the ultimate edition. It may sound like a horrible mash up idea on paper, but Karl makes it work beautifully. The only downside of an otherwise excellent soundtrack is that Cammy, T, Hawk, Fei Long and Dee Jay's themes were't given the same treatment as the initial 8 world warriors and four bosses. But I guess you can't have everything. Street Fighter II: Ultimate Edition can be yours for free.
Street Fighter II: Ultimate Edition
1 comment:
The gritty CPS-II OST and the later arranged version which first appeared on the 3DO (and also featured in Hyper SFII) were the best in my opinion. Hard to choose between them!
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