Ten Capcom Arcade Bangers | Sound Test

[00:00:00] This is your mind on Fine Time Hello Capcom people, it's your boy Dre. I'm here by myself today because I wanted to do a little music show.

[00:00:21] Alright? Because over the course of doing Fine Time these last few years, I realized that I really enjoy talking about music and playing it for you guys while I talk about it. If you heard our episode where me and Andrew Elmore talk about impactful music moments in games, then you've heard me do this before. Or maybe you heard our Grandia 2 episode where me and Aaron from Superpod Saga had a little music section where we geeked out about all our favorites.

[00:00:47] I'm going to be doing the same thing here, basically. But this time, I'm going to be doing some Capcom Arcade Bangers. Because that's my favorite music in the world. Anyone who's known me for any amount of time knows that. And so that's the music I want to bring to you today, the audience. And I'm sticking to arcade games for a couple reasons. One of them being, you know, that's my passion, of course.

[00:01:10] And two, if I start getting into all the Mega Mans and Disney games and shit, the pool would become so big and this wouldn't really feel that cohesive. So limiting myself to just arcade games ensures that I will pick the best bangers for the people. Besides, arcade music is the best music anyway, let's be real. So here's how I was thinking this could go. I'll introduce the song. I'll let the song play for at least a loop, probably more like a loop and a half.

[00:01:39] Then I'll come back on and tell you what I love about it. Also, I'll probably share a little couple personal anecdotes along the way. Just because, you know, I was such a Capcom freak growing up and a arcade freak in general. So it only feels correct to bring a personal touch to this music party. Does that sound good? Well, I hope it does because I love sharing my favorite music with my favorite people, the fine time audience. And we're going to get started right now.

[00:02:06] So before I had the words to describe it as a kid, one thing I really loved was Japanese takes on Western fantasy tropes. You know what I mean? Because Capcom obviously trafficked in this a lot with like Knights of the Round and the Dungeons and Dragons beat them ups. And even still today with Dragon's Dogma.

[00:02:34] But my favorite one of these back in the day was Magic Sword. Magic Sword was a side scrolling action platformer where you climb this big ass tower. And baby, I was obsessed with this game. I loved going to the arcade and seeing how many floors of the tower I could climb with my paltry 75 cents or whatever I had. And I want you to hear the banger opening song composed by the wonderful Manami Matsumai. Hit it.

[00:04:22] You know, I really don't like to cite the first level of any game as a favorite because I really do think that people put way too much on that because they're so super influenced by that initial impression. But come on, this is great stuff. What an incredible fucking hype way to start a video game. Literally imagine yourself at the cabinet and you start the game and this just starts blaring at you.

[00:05:00] Okay, I literally just pumped my fist just now. Let's just move on before I get too crazy. Out of the three Street Fighter 3s that existed, I always had the biggest affinity for Second Impact.

[00:05:27] For my money, it had the best backgrounds, best presentation, and of course, the best music. Let's take a listen to what I consider to easily be the best stage theme in Street Fighter 3. Dreamed up by the dynamic duo of Hideki Okugawa and Yuki Iwai, it's Ken's theme from Second Impact. This is Funky Bay.

[00:05:46] Man, oh man, oh man, I almost don't even want to talk.

[00:07:18] You listen to this? You hear this shit? You know, I don't do a whole lot of pure nostalgia on the show, but man, you want to talk about putting yourself in a time and place? Very few things take me back to being a teenager like this song. This is the 90s, man. This is the very essence of the 90s. It's hip-hop, it's scratchy, it's brassy, and it's classy.

[00:07:44] What an incredible, knowledgeable, and professional composition, I would say. Like, to me, the best music in the world are the songs that capture a time period and allow it to live forever. You know what I mean? And in this space, the song occupies in my head? It's definitely a place I'll revisit forever.

[00:08:37] In the year of our lord 1995, nothing was cooler to me than Street Fighter Alpha. Because it finally buried my two favorite things in the world, Street Fighter and Final Fight. The two games have always been known to be the same universe before that, of course. Like, you know, how Zangief canonically got his spinning lariat move from Haggard and shit like that. We knew that, right? But we never saw the two come together on screen until Alpha. And what a time it was, man.

[00:09:05] It was just so exciting to see, like, you know, Guy could fight Ryu in a real-ass video game in my real-life arcade. You know, it was amazing. Anyway, the music was insane in this game, obviously. They did so many cool new versions of the old character themes and stage themes from Final Fight. And my favorite of the bunch was Sagat. Isau Abe was the original composer of his Street Fighter 2 theme.

[00:09:32] And he did his arrangement for Street Fighter Alpha as well. Because, you know, of course he did. So let's listen to that right now.

[00:11:19] Like, come on, dude. Come on. You listen to this shit? Fuck, man. You know, if there's anything the 90s was good at, it was taking a jazz element or a funk element or maybe both and executing that in something else to, like, the highest degree. And it's really hard for me to think of something that did it better than this. This shit's incredible, man.

[00:11:45] God damn. Isao Abe is the goat. Like, I don't have anything else to say. I'm in love.

[00:12:21] In the very early 90s, I spent a lot of time at the local Boys and Girls Club. And they had a few arcade machines there. One of them being Avengers. Avengers was a top-down beat-em-up of sorts. Really strange game. Not really that good of a game, all things considered. But it did have this one song that I thought was pretty neat. Brought to us by Tamayo Kawamoto. This is the song that plays in Stage 3 of Avengers. Check this shit out.

[00:13:27] Love this song. I just want to sing along. So good. This song was a treat, because since it's Stage 3 and, you know, it's a hard game because arcade, and we only had a few quarters between us, we rarely got to hear this song. So when we got good enough to make it there, this song was like our reward. Anyway, great old-school Capcom tune.

[00:14:22] So let's talk TechRomancer real quick, because this is a game I played mostly on Dreamcast. I didn't really see this at the arcade much. I did see it, but I didn't really play it there. But I loved playing it at home. And it has one stage theme that has never, ever left my head. Composed by the wonderfully talented Yuki Iwai, this is the military-based stage from TechRomancer.

[00:16:24] It's just so good. So, so good. It nails that cross-section between, like, mecha anime and Saturday morning cartoon, like, so perfectly. Like, that main instrument, those, like, really brassy synthesizer blasts, that's the mecha part, if you will. And then, like, the chorus is just this pure afternoon cartoon. Like this part.

[00:16:56] I love it. This song is unfortunately super underrated, because nobody knows what TechRomancer is, of course, but I'll always champion the song. Because, fuck man, just listen to it. Rarely has anyone understood the assignment this well. Absolute perfection.

[00:17:21] I got another Esau Abe jam for y'all, this time from Cadillacs and Dinosaurs, which is a game I deeply wish could be re-released, but I guess Capcom doesn't want to re-license it? But really, how much could the Cadillacs and Dinosaurs people actually want? Like, there's no way it could be that expensive to never see it again. Anyway, it's always been an arcade favorite of mine, because why wouldn't it? It's a brawler where you punch people and dinosaurs, which is like the coolest thing ever if you're a pre-teen.

[00:17:51] And Esau Abe unleashes an absolute banger in this game. It plays at various points in the game, and it's called Trap of Silence.

[00:19:12] Folks, I'm speechless. I'm just speechless. Esau Abe, everybody. The man is a god. He's just a god. Yeah, I really don't have anything else to say here. I don't. God has spoken. The end.

[00:19:56] If I can trace my love affair with Capcom music back to anything in particular, it's probably the one I'm going to play for you next. This song is the first time where I remember playing a game, and a song comes on. And I was immediately like, whoa, this is amazing. The game was 1943, and the song was, well, I don't know if it has a name, but it's listed as Air Battle Sea on the soundtrack, so that's what we'll call it.

[00:20:24] It's a Sky Stage theme in any event. And in my opinion, one of the most important songs in Capcom history.

[00:20:32] I just want everyone to know that I've been obnoxiously singing along this whole time.

[00:22:01] Oh, man. I love this song. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait, wait. No, I'm not done. We're not done. We're not. Turn that shit back on. Thank you. So good. You know, the person who composed 1943, their name is Kumi Yagama.

[00:22:26] They composed just two games for Capcom, 1943 and Section Z, and then they bounced. That's it. Well, whoever they are, they delivered what I consider to be the first great Capcom song. So thank you, Kumi Yagama, for literally changing my life.

[00:23:05] So here's what I want to do now. I want to play a song everybody knows, but maybe you don't know it like this. Okay? I want to play the main theme from Ghosts and Goblins. Yeah, that one. You know the one. I bet you're humming it right now. But have you ever actually heard the arcade version of that song? Because it's drastically different from the NES version, for obvious reasons, and even

[00:23:33] further different from the sequels that also, like, reprise it? So I want to play the original ass arcade version of that Ghosts and Goblins main theme, composed by Ayako Mori, because it's my favorite version. Here it is.

[00:24:41] See? Isn't this so much better than that shitty NES version? This one is so cool. The arcade version is so excellent. I almost love the clattering nature of it. Like, real instruments physically hitting each other by accident or something. I know that's a weird description, but that's how I feel. It's also a bit evil churchy in this format. Anyway, cool shit. Just thought that maybe if you never heard it like this before, it just might blow your mind.

[00:25:10] I hope it did. Alright, alright. Back to the obscure shit. That dank shit. And folks, I'm about to show you the dankest.

[00:25:33] So, I played a song from 1943 a little bit ago, which was the sequel to 1942, and was succeeded by 1941, and then in the mid-90s came 19XX, The War Against Destiny. What a title. And what a shmup. It's a really excellent, really underrated game. And of course, by virtue of the fact that I'm talking about it right now, it also has a killer soundtrack.

[00:26:00] I want y'all to hear the second stage song in particular, because... Oh man. Let's just do it. Shun Nishigaki, take us away.

[00:27:40] Rarely the type to get emotional at music. Not that there's anything wrong with that. That's just not typically me. But this song does it to me, man. This song hits me fucking deep. I wish I could explain why. But I guess that's the beauty of music, huh? I wish I could go... I feel like I could go dive deep and go swimming in this song.

[00:28:10] That's all I gotta say. What a beautiful piece of art. I got one more song for y'all before I get out of here. So, have you ever had a friend...

[00:28:41] That's the whole sentence. Have you ever had a friend, question mark? Have you ever had a friend where you play a game against each other a lot? A fighting game or otherwise. And you're just so evenly matched at it that it basically makes for the best one-on-one experience ever. Just because of that other person. That was me and my friend with rival schools. Every match was so fucking tight. And it was like some of the most fun I've ever had playing a video game against another person.

[00:29:10] I think about that a lot when I hear this song from rival schools. The incredible piece by Setsuo Yamamoto. The stage theme for the rooftop of Sunshine High School.

[00:30:40] Like, damn. Just fuck me up. I love how it bucks that usual three-act style of Capcom song. And it just kind of goes on a journey. Also, like... Did he borrow Takayuki Iwai's guitar? Because that's totally his synth guitar sound. Haha. Maybe he took it from one of his sound fonts or something.

[00:31:11] Anyway, what a classic. Great music and great times. Anyway, that's it. I hope you enjoyed these ten Capcom arcade bangers.

[00:31:39] And I hope it inspires you to seek out some other stuff you haven't heard before. Capcom or otherwise. I'm out of here. And if you like this, let me know about it. And I'll probably do it again. Until next time, see ya! The Watcher App Thank you.