Retronauts - Retronauts Episode 154: SEGA special - Phantasy Star Interview - After Burner II - Space Harrier - Streets of Rage 3

Episode Date: June 4, 2018

All SEGA, all the time! First, a chat with Phantasy Star designers Rieko Kodama and Toru Yoshida. Then, an in-depth look at DataDiscs' releases of the classic OSTs for After Burner II, Space Harrier, and Streets of Rage 3. Special thanks to Alex Aniel!

This week in Retronauts, it's P.H. Not app. Everyone and welcome to a Retronauts episode recorded live and on site in a retronauts episode recorded live and on site in, In, where in Japan are we? It's in Tokyo, but what part of Tokyo? We are in Ootaq, Otau, near Hone de Airport. All right. And we are at the headquarters of Sega and have the very rare and exciting opportunity today to speak to two long-time Sega veterans. And instead of me rambling a lot, I'll just kind of jump straight into the questions.

Some of these are kind of related to the new Sega Genesis classics release. for PS4 and Xbox One, and also the upcoming Sega Ages for Nintendo Switch. And I was speaking to Ms. Rieko Kodama and Mr. Toru Yoshida, who have lots of games in these collections and are still active and vital creative forces with Sega. So, again, instead of rambling a lot, I'm just going to turn over the mic to them and let them talk. So, yeah, thank you both, So, yeah, thank you both for, to be on the show today. I really appreciate you coming to join the show and talk about your

experiences with these games. So I was hoping you could both begin just by giving a brief introduction. I'm assuming most people listening to this show know who you are, but just in case a really quick introduction of kind of your brief history with Sega and what you do with the company now. And I am a producer at Sega, and I had promised Jeremy that I would do this interview before, but it took a lot of time getting it together. So I'm very happy now that we have this opportunity to do this today. Hello, my name is Toro Yoshida, and I am at Sega, and I work on promotional graphic design materials for, smartphones. And today I'm very happy to talk about interesting topics related to the Genesis Mega Drive today. So I wanted to begin by asking Ms. Kodama, I know that you studied graphic

design and I'm curious how that led you to becoming involved in video games. Yes, so when I was a student, I was studying ad design and I spent two years studying how to do graphic design for ads. That said, most people might think of ad design as advertising things that other people have made, but I wasn't interested in that. I was more interested in being able to design things on my own. So when I was a student, I was also interested in video games. I was playing a lot of arcade games, and I found them to be very interesting. So I thought maybe I can try applying for some game companies, so I applied for two companies at the time, and I was actually accepted into both companies, but I decided to accept the offer from Sega.

Can you say why you chose Sega? Was it just, it just seemed right at the moment? The reason I ended up choosing the offer from Sega, it has, well, first I applied to both of them, they were both located in the Kamata area of Tokyo, so I thought, you know, I was coming to the area very often, so it would be quite convenient to work for either company, but I actually had a, a sempai or a mentor working at Sega, and that person encouraged me to join Sega. That person asked me, should, why do you come join us and work for us? And I thought that was the best decision. So that's why I joined Sega. I actually studied graphic design as well. So that kind of, that kind of,

I don't know, that intrigues me. I'm curious to know how you feel your studies in graphic design and your interest in it has helped you as a game designer and game illustrator. Yes, nowadays, when people make games, everybody has a specific task that they need to tackle. So one person will handle polygons, the other person will handle level design, and so forth. When I study graphic design, I study graphic design, I study. things, key components such as typography or screen layouts and so forth. So I really wanted to try being, I wanted to influence or work on all those different

aspects because back in the day, when I first started working on games, one person had to do every single aspect of the game. So whether you had to make the logo or the backgrounds, all of that needed graphic design. So that's the influence that my study on graphic design has had on my career as a game developer. So for Mr. Yoshida, what drew you to video games and how did you become involved with Sega? Well, it was, um,

that I guess from college from school, I was sort of a little bit of, uh, uh, when I was about to graduate from university, I was participating in what we, what all students do. It's job hunting, shu-shok,

Katsdo. Everybody looks for jobs at the same time. And at this time, there were no IT or, like, technical schools. So I was at a regular university. And I had a very difficult time

finding a job for graduating university. But one day, Sega actually visited my university and gave a seminar or an explanation about what they do as part of a recruitment push and when I

attended that seminar and I thought maybe it would be quite interesting to make games so I ended up making or applying for the job and making a pitch and it turns out that

Kodama's son was the one who looked at my work and as luck would have it would end up working together and I would end up getting into Sega I would end up getting into Sega I can't So if I may speak for a moment, back in our day, the concept of making a games

or developing games had not yet been concretely laid out like it is today. And whenever people joined game companies, they actually had no idea what they might actually end up doing once they got in. Basically, everyone had to start from scratch and figure out what they had to do to make a game and it could be fiddling with a computer and learning how to deal with pixels and polygons and whatnot. So it was a different time. As people who have, you know, been involved with some of the games being compiled in the Sega Genesis Classics Collection and Sega Ages series, what's your perspective on these compilations? Like, is it strange to revisit these games

that you worked on 20 years ago, 25 years ago, or then to see that people are still interested? in them? Well, in Japan, I find a retro game to name,

so you old game is called it's and that's it's a local in the

place or some there's some people are that are to know

that I find it very interesting here in Japan people refer to retro games as old

games and of course, as you may know, there are many shops that sell retro games and those are for people who are very interested in that and who like it but 30 years ago I never would have imagined that the things that I was making back then would

be enjoyed by people today and that's very interesting and the people who decide to play these versions I'm very grateful to them and I'm very happy that they have these opportunities game of retro game's recog version of I'm

a Sega Mega Drive Collection and I'm another other

other other doing it's doing it's making the

people people now now the retro game again so yes

Sega Ages is a separate project from the classics collection

however in my in my section there are people in the team who are also part of the original developing teams for these games, they felt that they wanted to bring back these games again and have them be playable for younger people, and they thought that would be very interesting.

And for me, I feel like whenever I look at the stuff, the graphics that I worked on from way back, I actually feel a little bit embarrassed, and I think this is something all designers can understand and know what it's like. But the fact that there are still people out there today who want to enjoy classic games on newer hardware, I think that's quite great, and I hope that they're able to enjoy these games. So, yeah, let's jump ahead to talking about some of the fantasy star games.

I'm working on a series of retrospective features right now talking about the evolution of role-playing games in general. And I feel like Fantasy Star is a very important series in the history of RPGs. So I'd like to get some perspectives on the inspirations and design of those games. So to begin with, can you talk about the roles that each of you played in the Fantasy Star series back on, you know, the master system and the Sega Genesis? So, yes, on the Fantasy Star series, starting with the first game, I worked on character design and background design. For the second game, I worked on the event illustrations, actually, because Yoshida-san asked for you, so. For Fantasy Star 3, I actually wasn't as involved in that one.

At the beginning, there were a lot of talks about what kind of confidence. concept the game should have. And so at the beginning, I ended up participating in such discussions related to the scenario and to the story, but I actually left most of that up to the development team of the game. Going on to Fantasy Star 4, I worked on a lot of the background design, so things such as the battlefields and the backgrounds in those. I was also the director of the game along with Yoshida-san. I was, um,

Fantasy Star 1 of the time, I was not a student, so Fantasy Star 2 from the second it is, but two two, then the main character of design, or, and, uh, winded out of, uh,

window in the coming, like, character's face, uh, showp was, also a different, people were also different, For Fantasy Star 1, actually, when that game came out, I was still a student, so I wasn't actually at the company, and I didn't work on it.

So the first game that I worked on was actually Fantasy Star 2. So what I did was I did the main character design. I drew the character faces that appear on the windows. I also ended up doing the small characters that appear on the field. I did a few of the dungeon fields as well and I also designed the animalistic or the organic enemies in the game

moving on to Fantasy Star 3 I helped out in terms of bug testing I would play the game and I would write reports making suggestions on what improvements they could make going into Fantasy Star 4

as I mentioned earlier I directed the game alongside Kodama San The main parts that I handled were story direction. I also drew and illustrated all of the characters. Once again, I ended up doing some enemies, mostly the monsters in the game. I did some of the event scenes,

you know, the small scenes that play out in the game. That said, I asked Kodama San to do the backgrounds because due to scheduling issues, if she didn't jump on board, the game wouldn't have come out on time. You know, the original fantasy star debuted around the time that RPGs were becoming very popular in Japan. Can you talk about the origins of the game

and what the creative vision for it was? Justo, Dracway 3 or the... Fantasy Star came out around the time when Dragon Quest 2, I think, had hit the market. Before then, RPGs, could only be enjoyed on PCs, for example, games such as wizardry and Ultima. And because of that, I felt like only core gamers or hardcore gamers can enjoy that, but I did play them myself.

That said, when the Dragon Quest series finally hit the Famicom, or the NES, this was the time when I felt anybody, including non-core gamers, can begin to enjoy RPGs, and, as you know, it was very popular. So at that time, Sega thought, you know, we should maybe try making an RPG game ourselves. And this was also around the time when I happened to join Sega. So they had asked me, you know, what would you like to do in the company? And I felt that now, that would have been the time to make an RPG. But what I wanted to do above all was to make something that no one else was making.

So to describe that concretely, I wanted to make, instead of, 2D dungeons, I wanted to make 3D dungeons. And instead of inanimated enemies, I wanted to make animated enemies. So this was around the time when Sega thought, you know, we need to make a JRP, a Japanese-style RPG that has the Sega essence and is developed for Sega hardware. So I feel part of what makes Fantasy Star unique is that it has a science fiction setting. Can you talk about the, I guess, the creative, choice there, and did you find that a difficult setting to work with versus, you know, standard fantasy, or was it maybe more liberating?

Diffici. What I mean, to say, I'm really mecca or what I'm going to. Okay, so for me personally, at that point, I had never dabbled in drawing, I guess, mechanical kinds of imagery, so things like spaceships or things related to sci-fi. I mean, looking back at it now, of course, I feel kind of embarrassed to look at it. But, yeah, sci-fi, science fiction was quite popular at the time. And I've said this to other people before, but I love the Star Wars universe. And I wanted an opportunity to try to make something that took place in a bit of a similar world.

I wanted to make a game that would merge like this Middle Ages, this theme of the Middle Ages, this theme of the Middle Ages, featuring those sci-fi elements, but also mixed with, I guess, Japanese elements to make it a unique experience. You mentioned that you wanted to create a very technically sophisticated game, so you included the first-person dungeons. Was it difficult to fit all of that content onto the master system with the first-person dungeons and the overhead view for talents and things like that? in terms of three-d dungeons

in terms of describing how the graphics were made so for example with the 3D dungeons we had the programmer I guess create I don't know if you should call them polygons but we had we had those polygons and the animations made first and I stepped in

and added color, detail rock textures and so forth to give it a physical visual image and then so we actually tested it out in the game, and it ran, I guess, quicker than we were expecting, but it actually looked quite smooth. So, I mean, I didn't have many difficulties getting this together, but I think the programmer at the time probably had experienced a lot more difficulty than we did.

That person being Yuji Naka. Jumping ahead to Fantasy Star 2, I guess this question is more for Yoshida-San. I feel like Fantasy Star 2 represented a pretty big, overhaul for the series, you know, a change in perspective in dungeons and the addition of story animations for key scenes. Can you talk about, you know, the creative changes there and your role and involvement in those? So, for Fantasy Star 2, I had actually just joined the company, and I... joined the Fantasy Star 2 team in the summertime. So I actually, I had very little direct input on how the game would turn out

or the specific direction of the game. So I don't have any, like, I don't know, like, I have nothing to brag about specifically, but I just did what the planners and the graphic designers told me to do. So one of the things that I did work on for the game, were the event graphics used in the cutscenes. So you might remember there's a scene in which Dark Forrester appears, and the planner of the game had told me

to make a scene where something big appears on the screen. So originally I was just thinking of a scene where the protagonist and Dark Forrester appear, and they kind of talk to each other. But actually, I was able to enhance or make, in the end, make images that were bigger than the original intent. So they were supposed to be just small windows

that were showing the characters, but I was able to use, like make a more horizontal or a wider image. So that's one of the things that I remember for my involvement in the game. Jumping ahead to Fantasy Star 4, since both of you co-directed the game I guess you can both speak to this

but I feel like Fantasy Star 1, 2, and 3 were all very different from one another in a lot of ways did you find it difficult to settle on a format and a style for the fourth game in the series given how much change there had been in the previous games I've heard that there was even consideration of making it a first-person dungeon game again

With 3D dungeon to do you know That's really, yeah, actually, to test the game to start with regards to

your remark about, you know, possibly going back to 3D dungeons, actually at the beginning of development we did create a 3D dungeon

to test the game. However, when we implemented it, it turns out that it took up so much data that we couldn't actually do anything

else with the game. I think this was due to ROM limitations with the data size. There wasn't enough ROM space to add all the data that we needed if we took this approach. And as you know, we had already transitioned from

the master system to the Mega Drive. So with the Mega Drive, you could achieve prettier graphics. Whereas with the master system, most of the graphics were just lines and such. So if you're to keep with that precedent, we wouldn't have been able to realize that on the Mega Drive

while trying to maintain those prettier graphics so we couldn't have enemies on the screen and whatnot so we really had to change the design of the game around quite a bit would you have been able to have implemented 3D dungeons if you had made it for Mega CD or was it always supposed to be a cartridge game Mega CD's the form of the same So, yes, you were asking about making Fantasy Star 4, possibly for the Sega CD or the Mega CD. The thing is, when Fantasy Star 4 came out, it was already the end, toward the end of the life of the Mega Drive.

And actually, like, during the development of Fantasy Star 4, we had already seen glimpses of the Sega Saturn. So, you know, so, like, given how the Sega, the Mega CD didn't say, that well, we felt that it didn't make sense to make a game for a hardware whose relevance was dwindling and was about to be replaced. So we thought, you know, we should make Fantasy Star 4 for the Mega Drive. In terms of whether or what would have changed if we did end up making a Mega CD version, I think what would have happened was the event scenes would have been changed into animation scenes. This isn't something that I personally would have wanted, but it might be something that people on the development team were thinking

about if we would have made that version, because, as Kudama said mentioned, at the time, like these animation scenes were so popular on mega-CG games. So, actually, I did want to get back to a previous question. I think we, I accidentally sidetracked you a little bit by asking about the first-person dungeons. But I am curious about just kind of the creative process that went into deciding, you know, like, let's make Fantasy Star 4 in this style, you know, building off the previous games in the series. So, to answer your question, in terms of what we were, of the approach that we had going into Fantasy Star 4, we, of course, wanted to take. all of the good elements of the series up to that point and put them into the new game

but also being a new game he also felt that it was the right time to get rid of things that could have been discarded without negatively influencing the game with Fantasy Star 1 through 3 I feel like the series had developed a set of

maybe I don't know if Quarps is the right word but basically the Fantasy Star series was known to be very easy to enjoy and I don't know if simple is the right word but I felt like it was a game for the masses

for the common people so we wanted to of course take that on board to the next game but in that sense it wasn't so hard to conceptualize both the hard part came because Sega wanted to make a fresh new experience

as well and we had to change things up to meet that expectation, so we ended up implementing things like new battle styles, newer event scenes, so we crafted a new system around those at the request of the company. You know, Fantasy Star obviously lives on through Fantasy Star Online and, you know, the online games. There's never been another game in the series and the style of, you know, PS1 through 4. Did you conceive of Fantasy Star 4 as the conclusion of this saga? Or do you think

that there's still room for you know a continuation of that universe and that style of game within the Fantasy Star banner So yes Fantasy Star 4 is called the end of the millennium and so we of course created it with the intent

of wrapping up the story that had continued from 1 through 4 and I've said this before and I've heard this before but people you know always ask me for people always ask me to make sequels and I of course welcome such comments very happily actually there are people who played the Fantasy Star series

when they were young and then they ended up going to university graduating and then they would end up working with me actually and so what I have to say is if there are people out there now who are enjoying the Fantasy Star games and they, of course, want me to make something new or to make a sequel for it. I encourage them to join Sega and try getting that project off the ground.

Cancethe's in the first from the matter. So, of course, I agree with Kodama'san. And there is no doubt that Fantasy Star 4 was, of course, meant to be a conclusion to the story of the time. So we drew that line and we laid it on the sand. And of course, you know, I did think about it at the time, you know, if we did make a sequel, what could we actually do with it? But I also echoed Kodama's thoughts in that

if there are people out there who'd like to make a sequel, then I'd like to leave it up to them. Me personally, I'm actually not really involved in active game production at the moment. I'm doing something a little different. But that said, since you mentioned Fantasy Star Online, I feel that because people are enjoying the series through online gameplay now, that it would actually be quite difficult to go back to an offline format. But that said, obviously Fantasy Star Online uses elements that were first seen in the Fantasy Star Games.

So in a way, I feel like those, The spirit of those games lives on through Fantasy Star Online as, I guess, a pseudo-sequel of sorts. So my final question about Fantasy Star, I guess to both of you, is, you know, having been involved in the series and, you know, Karama San, you said you wanted to bring something new to the RPG genre with Fantasy Star. What do you think the series place in the history and evolution of role-playing games is? Like, looking back, what do you think the legacy is for these games or the significance of them? That's a tough question. That's a tough question, but let me try to answer that.

So when Fantasy Star came out, the only RPGs from Japan that were available were on the Famicom. So obviously, being the Famicom, The graphics looked a bit cheap, or maybe not so advanced. But when Fantasy Star came out, I feel like we really raised the bar in terms of the graphics. The graphics were prettier and the characters were animated, so it really raised that level. And it showed to the world that JRP's could offer these really nice graphics with the character animations. so I think in that sense

Fantasy Star occupies a very important position in the history of RPGs and I feel as if other games drew influences from Fantasy Star as well Jeremy's said what hearing your question Jeremy, as someone who made the series it's I actually don't really know

how to answer that question That said, I know you're asking about how much significance fantasy star has in the history of RPG's, but I guess for me the most important part would be that fantasy star was probably an important part of my own life and one of my epic works. I recall a story of being at Tokyo Game Show, and when I was walking around, a person called out to me, and that person was from France, and that person mentioned to me, oh, thanks to you, I learned Japanese. I learned Japanese because I wanted to play fantasy star in Japanese, and so I was very happy to hear a story like that. So that's the kind of significance it has on me personally. And then finally to wrap this up, I would just like to ask, you know, as people play the Sega Genesis classics collection, as they play Sega Ages, what would you like for them to take away from these classic games that you've worked on, you know, here in the year of 2018 or even, you know, further in the future? So I'm not sure if this directly answers your question

but if a young person today were to go back and to play an old game I honestly have no idea how they would react games today are predominantly made with polygons So if someone were to look at a game made with polygons and then look at an older game made with pixels, I'm honestly not really sure how they'd react to that, how did they feel about the old style versus the new style.

But if there are young people out there who can play the game and enjoy it, then I would be quite happy with it. And if somehow there were a way for modern players to understand the thoughts and feelings that we put into this game, then that would be fantastic as well. Of course, the people who made a game

of a lot of people who enjoyed or my games back in the day are now dads and are now moms as well and I would love it if they could

show these games to their kids and tell them, yeah, these are the games I played when I was young. I have a story about a friend of my mine that I had met on Facebook, that person's name is Alex. And that person told me, oh, my, my parents enjoyed the game, Alex kid. That's why they named me Alex. So I thought, wow, I can't believe there are things like that out there. And, you know, that might, that might continue on. But I hope that

keeps happening. Thank you both very much for your time. Kodama son, Yoshina San, it was great having you on. So I guess everyone should look forward to the Sega Classics, Sega Genesis Classics collection and Sega Ages and reacquaint themselves with these games and maybe acquaint younger players as well. Teach them there's more to the world than Overwatch. Thank you very much. We're going to be able to be. Whoa, hang on. Yeah, I know what you're thinking. Oh, it's another ad. Time to hit fast forward. But this once, can I impose on you to hear me out? Ads help us continue to keep this show free to download, while still allowing us to invest

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Welcome to the fantasy zone. Get ready. We still have quite a bit of running time left for this to qualify as a full-length podcast, so let's keep going with the Sega theme. I haven't looked at Datadisc's Sega music releases yet this year. They've put out quite a few really top-notch records as part of their ongoing effort to remaster and preserve vintage Sega soundtracks on vinyl. They put out three great albums over the past six months or so.

and I'd like to have a look at those now. Rather than go in release order on these, I'd like to explore them in order from my least to most favorite. Least favorite is an extremely relative term here, of course. All three of these records are top-notch. So let's begin with Afterburner 2, another record mastered from the arcade board. Although not as well known as the original Afterburner, Afterburner 2 had every bit as good as soundtrack. As a game developed in the late 80s to feature aerial combat with an F-14 Tomcat jet, there was more than a hint of Top Gun about the soundtrack. Think of the opening track,

power is Kennedy Loggins by way of FM synthesis and you're on the right track. But of course, none of the tracks here have syrupy pop vocals. It's all electronic music. The second cut of the record, final takeoff, sets the tone for the overall It's a fast-paced rocker that appears to incorporate heavy instrument sampling for things like drums and guitars to give a warmer, less mechanical edge to the music than pure synthesizers alone would provide. The combination of electronic tones and low bit-rate sampling makes for a somewhat staticy soundscape. The fast-beat and wide sonic palette absolutely do the trick of putting you in the mindset for the quick, disorienting action of a game in which you dodge and juke through chunky, scaling clouds while avoiding missiles from a fleet of enemy planes.

You know, I'm going to be able to be. And so many, you know, I'm going to be able to, you know, and so much, you know, and I'm going to be, you know, and I'm going to be. The next track, After Burner, is equally 80s in a totally different way, with a program synth lead line that creates a lower key sort of intensity. Eventually, some big owner-of-a-lone-heart keyboard stings hit, and the lead synth line fades in favor of pure drum and bass rhythm. With low guitar and subdued keyboards, with low guitar and subdued keyboards, and eventually leading to a truck

triumphant key change and a sort of solo breakout at about the 75-second mark, right about where most game music tracks would be looping back to the start. This track does loop, but it does so in an unconventional way. Most game music just loops linearly, ABC, ABC, ABC. But after burner loops more like A-B-C-B-C-B-C. Although you probably aren't thinking too much about the structure of the music while you're sweatily dodging migs in the sky, there's a lot going on here that keeps the track interesting and prevents it from becoming too repetitive as you play. Thank you. By contrast, the next track is called City 202 and almost feels inspired by Devo or something.

It's bright and upbeat with a heavy, repetitive drumline. Thankfully, it's only a brief interstitial track, so it doesn't wear out its welcome. Red Out is ripped straight from a B-grade sci-fi movie or anime from the late 80s. Driving electronic baseline and lots of extremely sterile-sounding drum fills build up to some broad synth chords. Something like a synthetic xylophone takes over for a while before the synth returns more aggressively and brings us to the inevitable loop. This track works for Afterburner 2, but if you told me this was from the soundtrack to like bubblegum crisis or some Jean-Claude Van Damme movie, I'd absolutely believe it. I've never actually finished Afterburner 2 in the arcades, so I can't say for sure that this track, Super Stripe, plays over the final stage. It sure sounds like final stage music.

It's lower key than the other tracks on the record. It still has a 4-4-drama electronic bass beat propelling it forward. The lead melodies are more subdued with a pair of scents trading lead parts. The passage right before the inevitable loop feels almost climactic without creating any actual resolution. Just the sort of thing that builds up to a final. boss or whatever. Probably whatever. I don't recall Afterburner having bosses. And the first disc in this set ends with a reprise of Afterburner called the Melody version. features of bright synthesizer taking the lead line throughout much of the running time,

was never used in the games that has only ever appeared before on a handful of Japan-only soundtrack CDs. It's a pretty different take on the tune and brings the set's first disc to an interesting conclusion. The second disc of Afterburn or 2's soundtrack consists of the music from disc 1, presented through live arrangements by Sega's in-house band, the SST band. These performances take the soundtrack's flirtation with late 80s sound and make it more than mere subtext. These are slightly longer tracks than the end-game tunes, so there are only four total to preside. with several of data disks' other arcade albums, Afterburner ships has two 12-inch-45 RPM records.

There's just a bit too much music here to contain on a single 33-R-PM disc without suffering degradation on the inner tracks. The first out of disc two, the first side of disk two contains fairly straightforward arrangements of final takeoff and afterburner, but side two is where it gets more interesting. The first track here is a medley of maximum power and redout, managing to weave two very different tunes together into a cohesive hole. The real standout for this side, though, is the afterburner medley that concludes the entire record. Hey, hey, hey! It takes threads of music from the entire record and combines them into an impressive six-minute construct filled with solos, breakdowns, and major tonal shifts.

And it really cements Afterburners 2 soundtrack as prime grade late 80s arcade arcade buttrock. I'm going to be able to be. For something a little more vintage, though, I prefer Datadisc's most recent Sega release, the fresh from the press's Space Harrier. This one takes the form of a single 45 RPM LP because it's an arcade game from 1985 and there's just not that much music to work with. What is here, however, is great stuff. I'm going to be able to be.

Space Harrier is one of the few data disks releases to include liner notes, used by composer Hiroshi Kawaguchi, and that's fitting because this truly is a landmark in the history of video game music. The opening track, Main Theme, is definitely the high point of this album, which isn't to criticize the record for peeking early, it's just that Fantasy Zone's main theme is a groundbreaking composition that sounded miles ahead of anything else in arcades at the time. Byrd My own. By comparison, the best the competition had to offer in 19,

85 were soundtracks like Ghost and Goblins, Super Mario Brothers, and Gratius. All of those are tremendous soundtracks, but they don't compare to the depth and richness that Kawaguchi achieved with Fantasy Zone, even as other projects from the same year, like Hang On, Don't Compare. Fantasy Zone was the essential stepping off point for Kawaguchi's future masterpieces like Outrun, and it helped inspire the rest of the industry to up their game and begin treating game music like quote-unquote real music. Thank you.

The other tracks here are still no slouches, they're just a little more like what you'd expect from a mid-80s game soundtrack. For instance, the second and third tracks, Squilla and Ida, are basically simple beats that slowly ascend in pitch for 20 seconds, break down, change key, and then repeat. There's some great percussion here, especially in Ida, but they're fairly basic compared to the sweeping, ambitious main theme. Track 4, Godarnia, follows the same basic structure as the other secondary stage themes, but it shifts to a more down-tempo style with a pulsing synth line over a steady snare drum track. Synthetic bass pedal line lends the track's some mellow flavor that stands in contrast to the crazy intensity of the game action. And finally, side one of the record ends with the atmospheric wee-wee-jumbo.

A muted keyboard arpeggio that fades into and out of hearing while ambient sounds and effects play over top. This track only plays during certain miniboss encounters, rather than during Space Harrier's hyper-fast forward-scrolling combat sequences, and Kawaguchi took advantage of the change in the game tempo to compose a track that feels similarly distinct from the surrounding cuts. On top of that, it works remarkably well as it closed to one side of the record, leaving, the listener with a sense of nagging unfulfillment that prompts them to flip over to side B for the promise of an up-tempo palate cleanser. Most of the rest of the record follows the pattern of the stage themes, with short compositions that loop quickly.

The extended musical workouts of games like Afterburner 2 were still a few years away. There's still a lot of variety within that structure is demonstrated by Battlefield, which has a sort of up-tempo feel that could almost be rack time jazz. which is then followed by Sura, a more chill composition, and Volda, which doesn't even really bother to introduce a melody, driven instead by tune percussion loops, broken up by traditional rock drums. Honestly, this whole album is worth it to me, just for the fact that it proves there's more music to space hearier than the tracks accompanying,

the first couple of stages. This is such a difficult game. I've never been able to make it very far into it. So hearing these tracks on vinyl gives me a glimpse of what life might be like for people who have a better grasp on the play mechanics. So this is what it sounds like to be able to beat space here. fittingly, the album wraps with a live performance of the main theme by the SST band. Unlike the performances on Space Harrier, though, this one doesn't stray far from the source material. It's basically just a rendition of the in-game tune on Real Instruments. Thank you.

And that's fine, considering what a sweeping achievement that original work truly was. The Space Harrier LP may not be the most impressive listening in Datadisc's library, but its historic import makes it one of the most essential pickups for any game music enthusiast or fan of game history in general. But by the end of it. disc's recent releases is the single most challenging record in their entire library. Yuzo Koshiro and Motohiro Kawashima's Streets of Rage 3. For years, Streets of Rage 3 has had a reputation for containing one of the worst

soundtracks of all time. It's widely reviled by fans who fawn over the music from the first two games. And honestly, I kind of understand where they're coming from. This is a pretty weird collection of music to accompany a walk-and-punch brawler. That's like the most meat and potato genre of video game imaginable, and yet it has this as a soundtrack. The opening track, beat Ambiance, let you know precisely what you're in for with Streets of Rage 3. avant-garde music, a technical experiment that pushed the boundaries of electronica and computer-assisted

composition. The fact that it appeared in a mass-market video game about hitting dudes really hard in the face is absolutely wild. And I can see where game audiences in 1994 would have heard these mesmerizing electronic beeps and strange squeaky punctuations and said, what in God's name is this? It's a far cry from the driving house and techno tunes of the first two games. Taken as a game soundtrack, it's pretty weird. As a standalone music release, though, it's pretty incredible. Like Space Harrier, this record atypically includes liner notes,

penned by composer Kosher. There's a somewhat There's a somewhat conciliatory tone to his text, as if tacitly apologizing for defying player expectations. But at the same time, he explains his aspirations and methodology for this collection of music. Besides, it's not like every track on here is some a total assault on the senses. But their track, views, shows that there's still a lot of house style from Streets of Rage. It's just been taken to the next level.

It's a fast-paced techno piece containing multiple layers of percussion, break beats, and numerous shifts into totally different phases. This is a sort of intense techno music you'd hear a few years later, and PlayStation shooters like Einhander and Thunderforce 5. But this is music generated by a Sega Genesis well before the PlayStation's launch. This is a cutting-edge piece of game music history. There's a lot happening in this music, and it's almost impossible to describe how a track like cycle one evolves without sounding didactic or boring. This track combines distorted guitar sounds, multiple syncopated electronic backbeats, layers of drums, and synthesizers that blur the line between melody rhythmic backing and percussion. That's pretty heady stuff. All of this is to say,

Streets of Rage 3 is not an album you just throw on because you want to chill to some familiar game tunes. This is a challenging, demanding collection of music. It requires active listening, and in that sense, I think it's a perfect choice for release on vinyl. I know the idea of publishing retro video game music on vinyl can seem odd. It took me a while to wrap my own head around it. But the format really is perfect for.

a soundtrack like this. Since you can only get 18 or 19 minutes of music on a record side before the audio quality begins to suffer, an LP record can't run long enough to allow listeners to zone out. Records become a more active listening experience because they force you to get up and flip sides pretty often. It would be pretty easy to mentally tune out the intensity and harshness of Streets of H3 if you stuck it on a 70-minute CD. Here on vinyl, you really don't have time to drift away, so it encourages you to pay attention to the music. Even a fairly normal piece like the poet's two, Even a fairly normal piece, like The Poets 2, contains a lot of challenging creative choices.

It's an album that you need to participate in to fully appreciate it, and the format makes that easier. I don't want my praise for Streets of Rage 3 to sound pompous or condescending. Like I said, this is kind of rough listening as part of a game soundtrack. And even as a standalone LP, it's not music for everyone. It's not the kind of thing you throw on in the background at a dinner party. House party or rave maybe, but the harsh sound quality and occasional dips into atonality of these compositions absolutely won't be to most people's tastes. I think fans of noise music, industrial bands, and hard techno would be most likely to appreciate it.

And then there are occasional tracks like disco that break up the game's almost oppressive soundscape with bright, fast-paced, extremely danceable compositions. So that would probably turn even them off. But really, just on the level of technical achievement, I can't speak highly enough of this album. I genuinely feel this is an essential piece for any game music enthusiast collection. Not necessarily for the sake of listening, but absolutely is a token of genuine creative innovation in the medium. It's hard to listen to a track like Boss and think, oh yes, this sound is coming from a Sega Genesis.

The Genesis' sound chip has a checkered reputation, because it was very easy to produce flat, grading, or lifeless music with it. In the hands of an expert, though, the Genesis could weave some truly extraordinary music that took full advantage of its Yamaha designed FM synth capabilities. Street of Rage 3, however, is on a different level altogether. Genesis-style instrumentation, as with the Peter Gunn homage and the track percussion, everything surrounding it feels like it comes from some other sonic source altogether. I realized getting the most out of audio hardware was kind of Yuzokushiro's thing back in the day. Remember how Actraiser sounded so amazing that it forced Nobuo Uematsu to rework the Final

Fantasy 4 soundtrack? But this may be the pinnacle of his achievement of it. There are so many layers to each and every track, so many different kinds of sounds happening all at once, so many different parts to each composition, that the whole thing feels like it should be well beyond the capabilities of the Sega Genesis. Life, my, my, my, my, my, life. My life, my, my, my. We're going to be able to be. We're going to be able to be. We're going to be.

I'm going to be. I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to be Koshiro and Kawashima's compositions here are basically the spiritual opposite of most of the tracks on the space carrier soundtrack. Those are mostly simple 20-second loops that throw together a single beat and melodic idea. Whereas there's almost no single track on stage of Rage 3, they can even sit still for 20 seconds

before introducing a new voice or shifting over to a different style altogether. It's a little exhausting, to be sure. This is another way the vinyl format works in this release's favor. After 17 or 18 minutes of these pulsing, chimerical tracks, your brain probably needs a quick breather before diving into the next set of cuts. Fortunately, the record track arrangements provide some relief in itself. For example, Site 2 ends by following up the intense throb of Bulldozer with a more muted, almost atmospheric random cross. Streets of Rage 3 pounds its way into your skull, but it always backs off just as you reach the point of overload.

Well, that's how it is for me, at least. I mentioned that the liner notes include some information on Koshiro's process. as a composer for Streets of Rage 3. Much of what makes the soundtrack so unique comes from the fact that Koshiro used a computer to compose his tracks. And I don't mean he used tracking software as he wrote. That's a given.

I mean, he came up with an automated process that generated beats and melodies, which resulted in dense arrangements and compositions that he might not have constructed on his own. The burbling computer sounds of tracks like Underground, for example, probably sound inhuman and uncanny because they are. While Serge of H3 wasn't composed entirely with an automated script, Koshiro's program helped him break out of standard game music paradigms.

He mentions in the liner notes that in some cases, his program generated off-key or otherwise a tonal result that he never would have come up with himself. Rather than smoothing over these unusual productions to make them fit more comfortably into the game music format, Koshero says he often left them as is. This has a lot to do with what makes Streets of Rage 3 such a challenging listen, I think, but it makes the whole thing fascinating both in terms of the actual musical output and in terms of the production process. I've noticed that the further you get into the soundtrack, the more it starts to settle down into what you tend to think of as traditional game music. I don't know if that's simply a result of the avant-garde shock wearing off,

or if the composer's deliberately front-loaded the intense and jarring tunes for maximum impact. Even then, when you reach what appears to be the final boss, Mr. X, the lead into the big battle consists of a line played on an out-of-tune piano, sounds almost like someone recorded the Castlevania soundtrack at the wrong playback speed. And then that leads into the strangely muted, an atonal RoboX. Whose unsuitability for use is a final boss theme is probably meant to hint at the fact that this isn't the real final boss boss, but rather a fakeout. And then side C mixes things up by rapping with Crazy Train, an insanely fast techno beat layered with skittery and synthesizers and sound effects. Its intensity stands in contrast to the music accompanying the Robo X Showdown, leading into the record's final side in a high-energy fashion.

The The Dyevon. D.D.D.D.D.D.D.D.D. D.O. D. D.O. D. D. Side D contains the tracks that accompany the game's final stages in battles, and again, the music here increasingly takes on the feel of standard game music fare. It's still complex and multi-layered in a way that seemingly transcends the inherent limits of the Genesis audio hardware, but it doesn't feel quite so much like it's daring you to enjoy it.

And it includes some subtle callbacks to other tracks. The Poets One, for example, includes little hints of the jingling computer tones that appeared constantly throughout Side A, reaching back to the beginning of the adventure to tie a bow on the whole thing. Musically, I feel the game sort of hits a climax with the final, true-ending battle theme, cycle two. Thank you. This is a huge expansive techno piece that, again, sounds like the sort of thing you'd have heard in a PlayStation 1 game four or five years later.

The pulsing synth line burbles away beneath a huge, urgent drumbeat, while snippets of melody drift in and out of the soundstage. And this gives way to Inga Razen, which carries forward the same propulsive beat, but masks it with non-melotic synthesizer pulses and sampled computer effects. It's less intense than cycle two, but with its off-putting arrangement, it really does feel like the culmination of everything Streets of Rage 3's music is about. And by that token, the ending theme feels almost hilarious coming after an hour of jarring techno music. It's laid-back drumbeat and poppy piano line call back to music of the first two games. And it really does create a sensation of victory. If the soundtrack's dissonance represented the chaos of a city under siege, the chillaxing vibe of the ending says,

all's well now. Mission accomplished. And finally, there's an unused track at the end, BGM4. which is basically an aimless electric organ line that seems to ignore all rules and expectations concerning rhythm and melody. It's a perfect cover to an album that breaks so many conventions about game music. So, yeah, Streets of Rage 3. It's an odd album, and that I can't necessarily recommend it to everyone for the sake of pure listening pleasure.

It's very much a record that will appeal to certain specific tastes. Yet I really feel like it's a kind of record that belongs with music enthusiasts, because it's truly a groundbreaking work. And I don't mean that just in terms of game music. Streets of Rage 3 was a landmark in music, period. The fact that it was tied to a video game makes it all the more remarkable. It's pretty crazy to think video games had only featured real original compositions for less than a decade by the time Streets of Rage 3 debuted.

I mean, it wasn't until the mid-80s. In games like Gradius, Darius, and of course, Space Harrier, the game music really did begin to evolve beyond grading bleeps and public domain ditties. And here was a game soundtrack that pushed the cutting edge in terms of techno trends and technical processes. Koshira and Kawashima put together something amazing here, and it's an album that really deserves to be appreciated on his own merits. It's a tough listen, but it's a worthy one.

Anyway, that wraps it up for this Sega-focused episode of Retronauts. Huge thanks to Sega PR for helping me to get Riego Kodama and Toro Yoshida on the show. And thanks again to Alex Anil for interesting. interpreting. Thanks also go out to data disks for providing samples of the three records covered in the show. As for myself, I'm Jeremy Parrish, and this has been Retronauts. You can find my online musings on Twitter at GameSpite and at a variety of sites like Retronauts.com, USgamer.net, Polygon.com, and IGN.com. Be sure also to check out my Retronauts video chronicles projects like Game Boy Works and NES works on YouTube, and the accompanying books

at fangamer.net. Retronauts, of course, is available on services like iTunes at Retronauts.com and on the podcast One Network. We're supported through Patreon at patreon.com slash retronauts, where $3 a month gets you access to our show one week before the public, add a higher bit rate without ads. We'll also be introducing some patron exclusive content to the summer, so be on the lookout for that. Anyway, we'll be back in one week with another episode,

so look forward to it. You know, Life is full of those Ah, moments. Like right after the first stretch and yaw in the morning. Or like standing in the forest alone amid the stillness,

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on the one, two, three dollar menu. Price and participation may be Bury cannot be combined with combo meal. The Mueller report. I'm Edonoghue with an AP News Minute. President Trump was asked at the White House if special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation report should be released next week when he will be out of town. I guess from what I understand, that will be totally up to the Attorney General.

Maine Susan Collins says she would vote for a congressional resolution disapproving of President Trump's emergency declaration to build a border wall, becoming the first Republican senator to publicly back it. In New York, the wounded supervisor of a police. Police detective killed by friendly fire was among the mourners attending his funeral. Detective Brian Simonson was killed as officer started shooting at a robbery suspect last week. Commissioner James O'Neill was among the speakers today at Simonson's funeral. It's a tremendous way to bear, knowing that your choices will directly affect the lives of others.

The cops like Brian don't shy away from it. It's the very foundation of who they are and what they do. The robbery suspect in a man, police, they acted as his lookout, have been charged with murder. I'm Ed Donahue. Thank you.