The Streets of Rage series has a series of amazing soundtracks. The soundtracks, by Yuzo Koshiro and Motohiro Kawashima, were totally different to anything heard in video games; it was a time of trance and dance, when The Orb, The Prodigy and Orbital were getting into the charts. This soundtracks stood out among their contemporaries as they were not the usual bleeps and bloops of video games at the time... It spoke to many youths at the time, it was zeitgeisty and hearing the music even now sends me back to the 90s dance and trance scene.
So, with the announced release of Streets of Rage 4 I and many others were eagerly awaiting to hear who the composers were, and I am pleased to hear that the original composers are back but are now joined by a dream team of video game composers including Yoko Shimomura (Streets Fighter 2, Parasite Eve) and Hideki Naganuma (Jet Set Radio). This game is going to be a day one release for me based on the soundtrack alone.
I have all 3 Streets of Rage soundtracks on vinyl