Another Streets of Rage Music Appreciation Post...

Due to the temptation of buying Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection for PS3, I'm reminded of my Sega franchise, the Streets of Rage series. I actually played the first SoR again today on my Wii while downloading Flower for PSN (review of that this weekend and its awesome). Other than the awesome and old-school beat-em-up gameplay (SoR2 as the pinnacle of the franchise), it has the best music in video games still to this day. It is probably because Yuzo Koshiro is my favorite video game composer because in games like these and the Wangan Midnight franchise, it is also feels like a party beating people up or racing at high speeds. These beats and tunes make you want to blast it real loud or go crazy at a club. Many remixes of these classic tunes are everywhere honoring Koshiro's greatness. It does feel like a shame that the Streets of Rage franchise was only on Genesis and probably for the best because they're still as good as they were in the 90s. Then again, the franchise has been getting the fan-made treatment lately with Streets of Rage Remake (version 5 coming soon and I can't wait) and a Streets of Rage 4 (trailer below and not made by Sega of course). Sure, I want Sega to resurrect this franchise on the new generation, but only on HD 2D graphics (a similar style to King of Fighters XII) for downloadable outlets.