Favorite Tunes #18: Fighting Themes

Two opponents enter the ring (or the street corner, or back alley. Why be picky?), only one leaves. The fighting genre is probably one of the most competitive scenes in gaming, if not the most competitive. I've been to a tournament or two, had some online matches but nothing as grand scale as something like EVO. Maybe someday. What's better than pounding the crap outta your opponent? Doing it to some sick beats. While I love me some Street Fighter, I've kept the number of tracks to that series to a minimum. Gotta show how diverse the genre is, ya know.

              Tetsuo Kato (Arrange) - Fighting Layer (ARC)

Developed by Akira (the chaps behind the Street Fighter EX series) and released in 1998 only in Japan, Fighting Layer is a 3D fighting game I've never played for obvious reasons. Regrettably, I can't tell you much about it. I can, however, tell you that the music to this game is sensational. The score was co-written by Takayuki Aihara and Ayako Saso, known for their renowned work on the Street Fighter EX soundtracks. The original Tetsuo Kato is a great theme on its own, but this will be one of those times where I'm gonna have to say that the arrange version trumps it.

              Sail Over the Storm - Soul Calibur (ARC, DC)

One of the first games I bought for my Dreamcast in the summer of 2001, Soul Calibur blew me away with its stunning visuals and deep fighting mechanics. If Donatello showed me that staffs could be good weapons, Kilik demonstrated just how deadly they could be. All of Soul Calibur's music is fantastic, but Sail Over the Storm is without question my favorite track from the game.

           Cafeteria - TMNT: Tournament Fighters (SNES)

When Street Fighter II dominated arcades and home fighters in the early 1990s, everyone and their mother wanted a piece of the action, including Konami. Their response to Capcom's fighting cash cow? Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters. For crying out loud, there's even a jab at Street Fighter on the box art. As much as I love the Turtles, it didn't do much to make me forget about Ryu, Guile and the gang, but it was cool to see the green machines hashing it out in a fighter against Shredder and some others that sadly escape me. Since the game came from Konami, of course the music was awesome and to this day, I haven't met anyone that cannot say Cafeteria is awesome. Play this song during a cafeteria brawl and I guarantee it with be the best fight in the history of dinner brawls.

                   Guile Stage CPS II - Street Fighter II (ARC)

The fighting genre probably wouldn't have made so many leaps if not for Street Fighter II. Yeah, Capcom pretty much whores the series out these days, but there isn't a gamer that lived in the 1990s that doesn't look back on this game with nostalgia. Guile's theme is an audio masterpiece. I like a lot of versions of this theme, but the arcade CPS II incarnation is the best in my book. This song goes with anything. Anything. Just go to YouTube and type in "Guile's theme goes with everything" if you don't believe me.

              Mr. Karate - Nettou King of Fighters '96 (GB)

What's this? King of Fighters? On the Game Boy? Surly you jest. No jesting here. Yes, there were a few King of Fighters games released on the Nintendo's brick. None of them made it outside of Japan so that's probably why few people know of these games' existence. Despite the limitations of the Game Boy hardware, there was some good music in these pocket sized King of Fighters games. Nettou King of Fighters '96 gave Mr. Karate, an quick paced, drum pounding boss theme. With a name and theme like those, I would certainly not wanna screw with that guy. If you played rom hack Rockman No Constancy and wondered what the source of that killer boss theme was, wonder no longer.

             Kombat Tomb - Mortal Kombat II (SNES ver.)

Even with Mortal Kombat 9 being a smashing success (or Mortal Kombat as it's official called), many still contend that Mortal Kombat II is the best Kombat game. Like original 1992 Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat II was ported to just about everything you can imagine. I played both the SNES and Genesis versions and found myself like the SNES music more, even over the arcade original. Despite the inferior hardware, the audio sounds a bit more fleshed out to me on the SNES.

       Blue Water Blue Sky - Guilty Gear X (ARC, DC, PS2)

Don't think a little girl carrying an anchor as a weapon is threatening? Think again. Think said girl will have some sweet and innocent theme as her background tune? Wrong again. Known for its rock soundtrack, May has one of the most well-loved themes in the Guilty Gear series. There have been a number of versions of Blue Water Blue Sky but I always find myself coming back to listen to the original.

     Multi-Man Melee 1 - Super Smash Bros. Melee (GCN)

Is Melee a fighter or not? Don't really care. All I know is that its a fine game, one of the best on the GameCube and a fine example of how to do a sequel. Melee expanded upon the formula of the original Super Smash Bros. added a ton of unlockable (I never did get every single trophy) and just made everything bigger and better in every conceivable way. This track is a rock arrangement of Melee's Main Theme. Thankfully, this song is also in the excellent sequel, Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

                        Urban Sight - Tobal No. 1 (PSone)

Tobal No. 1 came from a time when Square Enix did more than RPGs. Actually this baby came years before the two companies merged. Developed by DreamFactory, this was more ambitious than other fighters at the time. In addition to the standard fighting, there was a fully 3D Quest mode. It fared well in Japan but not so much in America. Contributors to the game's soundtrack, which covers a wide range of genres include Kenji Ito, Yoko Shimomura, and Noriko Matsueda to name a few. Character designs were done by Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama. Tobal 2 never saw a release outside of Japan, much to fan's annoyance.

Without Hesitation - Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution (ARC, PS2)

Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution is my favorite game in the Virtua Fighter series. With its incredibly deep three button fighting engine and a lengthy Quest mode the featured AI modeled after real Virtua Fighter players, the game offers something for everyone. The addition of Virtua Fighter 10th Anniversary was also a lovely bonus. This game taught me the joy of bashing heads as Pai and customizing your fighter's look, which in this game as I saw countless other fighters, was serious business.

Videos I Like #8: Rage Quit: Mortal Kombat

WARNING: The following linked video contains strong language.

I never could beat Shao Kahn in Mortal Kombat II because, well, he was pretty cheap. The only reason I saw the ending credits to that game was thanks to Game Genie. If the latest Mortal Kombat is any indication, it looks like his cheapness has been cranked to unbelievable levels. Rage Quit: Mortal Kombat shows the frustrations a gamer can go through when facing this boss. The stories you've heard about how insanely hard he is to be? They are all true.

Memories #6: Mortal Kombat

In the early 1990s word was spreading fast about an upcoming fighter called Mortal Kombat. Publisher Midway did everything within it's power to make sure gamers heard about Mortal Kombat. Only those that were dead or weren't born yet knew nothing of this game. It's that simple. TV ads, comic book and magazine ads and good old fashioned word of mouth made MK fever spread like wildfire. Posed to give Street Fighter II a run for it's money, MK featured realistic graphics the likes of which we'd never seen. The fighting combatants really sprung to life thanks to the digitized visuals with realistic character models.

Of course all of that stuff wasn't what made MK gain so much attention. It was it's over the top violence. Just punching your opponent made an insane amount of blood pour out of them. What's more, during the second round after depleting your opponent's vitality, the announcer would yell "FINISH HIM" (or "FINISH HER" if you happened to be fighting Sonya). If you knew the right inputs, you could execute a fatality, a death move that would kill the loser. It was shocking, gory, and awesome all at the same time. This same level of violence is what brought Mortal Kombat to the attention of Congress. Long story short, this game is one of the primary reasons we have the ratings labels on games that we have today. Naturally, I was completely unaware of this at the time. Ah, to be young and ignorant to the happenings around you.

Even I'd caught MK mania and wanted to give the game a try after hearing my good friends at church talk about it. But would my folks allow me to play it? While most mid to late teenagers probably wouldn't have a hard time getting the chance to play MK, us twelve and under kids had a bit of a struggle. See, at that age, playing MK was like watching an R rated move you had no business watching. Getting to play MK felt like getting to be part of the grown ups world and it was a chance that was just too good to pass up. I never played the arcade version and since a SNES was all I owned, I rented that version around the game's 1993 console release. At first, I was worried my parents wouldn't let me play the game, but to my surprise, they really had no problems with it. I'm guessing they trusted my ability to distinquish between what was real and what wasn't. It probably helped that I wasn't insane, but whatever.

"GET OVER HERE!" Come on, you
know it had to be said.

As powerful as the SNES was, I can still remember being wowed by the graphics that MK produced. First Street Fighter II, Star Fox, and now MK, the SNES just kept bringing out visual feasts. Anyway, I didn't know any moves (no instructions) so I just mashed buttons. I believe Sub-Zero was my first pick, probably because he was a ninja that wore blue, my favorite color. I won both rounds and was feeling pretty proud of myself. I'm pretty sure I discovered what is in my opinion, one of the series best moves in just the first round, the uppercut, which became my favorite. I just love how cool your fighter looked when doing that move. Plus it just felt so empowering for me to use it. Scorpion became one of my favorite characters thanks to Ed Boon's awesome voice.

More than likely, this is what happens
after Scorpion gets you with his harpoon.

I can remember one Wednseday afternoon during my rental period. We were playing as Raiden against Sonya on The Pit. It was a pretty tough fight and we were just frantically passing the controller back and forth. We were very low on health and she shot out her projectile move. Somehow, my friend teleported behind her (again, didn't know the moves) and we were slack jawed, because that one hit would have meant game over. The teleport gave us the opening we needed to take down the last of her health. The controller was handed back over to me. "FINISH HER!" the announcer demanded. I said "OK, I'll finish her!" and with that, I did my favorite move, the uppercut. I figured the match would just end like usual, but she went way up into the air and came crashing down into a pit of spikes. My jaw, along with my friend's jaw hit the floor. We'd never seen anything like that. I was actually a bit frightened by that. Looking back on it, I now think it was one of the coolest things I'd ever seen in a game at the time.

All my time spent playing Street Fighter II had made me a bit clueless as to what to expect as I moved up the fighter chain. After taking out the six regular opponents, I was met with what the game called a "Mirror Match." I don't remember these being too tough, but even after playing Street Fighter II: Turbo on the SNES, I wasn't use to fighting in these type of matches. What was really difficult for me was the endurance matches. In these fights, you had to fight two opponents back to back with no health recovery. Endurance rounds were pretty much what kept me from making it to the last two fights during my rental, but even so, I still had a blast playing MK.

During my week long stay in Toronto Canada (lovely city, by the way), my uncle had given me some cash to do with whatever I wanted. When we finally went to a place that sold video games I picked up Goof Troop, Mega Man X and Mortal Kombat. These actually mark the first time I'd ever bought a game in another country. Since I could now play MK for as long as I wanted, I finally had a chance to better myself at the game. When I got back to America, I played MK to death. I was able to advance beyond the endurance rounds and make it to Goro! And what happened when I made it to the four armed freak of nature? One of my earliest memories of a no-holds-barred-beatdown in video games. Most of the match consisted of me getting thrown back and forth as well as stomped on as I looked on in frustration and disbelief. I hadn't gotten a beating that bad since M. Bison. But in all my loses, I discovered Goro was vulnerable to spam attacks like fireballs and Scorpion's harpoon. With Goro down, I moved on to Shan Tsung and like Goro, he also mopped the floor with me. Thankfully, like Goro, he could also be beaten by spam tactics. After what seemed like many struggles, I'd finally beat MK.

After what seemed like many struggles, I'd finally beat MK. And yet I would still play it over and over. Via Nintendo Power's Mortal Kombat II coverage, I found that many of the fatalities for that game would work on the original. When I learned Scorpion's fatality (which was a simple block, up, up) I was thrilled. It felt awesome to be able to finally "FINISH" someone.

A few years later I discovered that the SNES version of MK was heavily sanitized. The blood was gone completely and some fatalities were heavily altered. Why was MK met with such censorship? Nintendo of America's family friendly practices at the time. This ended up costing the SNES version in sales as the Genesis version of MK pretty much took a nine iron to it at retail. Even so, I still dug this version of MK. And with Game Genie, I turned that sweat, mist or whatever it was into blood.

I never saw a lot of kung fu or martial arts movies as a kid, but the SNES version's audio of MK made me feel like I was watching that type of film. The character select screen still sounds amazing. Not only do I love the pit for what awaits the loser at the bottom, but the background music there was just so sweet! I can still see Shang Tsung sitting in the throne room watching you fight endurance rounds. Even the starting area, the courtyard, another stage where Shang Tsung watches is remembered thanks to the awesome music. That theme is so good, it was actually remixed in Mortal Kombat II.

These days, I can see that the original Mortal Kombat was loved so much mainly for it's gore. If it hadn't been for that, it probably wouldn't have been talked about and played as much as it was all those years ago. Doesn't it taint my memories of it? Not in the leeast. This is one of those games that I'll always remember fondly. How many kids wanted to play this game when it hit the home consoles but couldn't because mom and dad wouldn't let them? I was one of those kids that got to play a "grown up" game and while the first entry may be pretty shallow today, if I could go back and do it all over again, I'd do it in a heartbeat.