You've gotta give Capcom some credit; when a bunch of amateur remixers decided they wanted to remix the classic Street Fighter II BGMs as part of a community project, mostly just for their own fun, it was a big success. And when Capcom was ready to release the "Hi-def" version of Super Street Fighter II Turbo, they came to these amateur remixers and asked them to contribute their tracks, reworked to be less stand-alone music samples and more something that could work in the context of a game (i.e., don't get too creative with changing the mood or tone of the piece, since it works with the character and background art to create a single, unified "feel", make sure that none of the pieces stand out as too outre and that they all fit coherently together, while still maintaining the diversity that was part of their charm all along, and make sure that the tracks can loop properly and speed up for the dramatic "someone's almost KOed" sound effect.)
Involving a fan project so prominently like that was a cool and classy move. Go, Capcom! Just for that, I fired up my Street Fighter Alpha Anthology last night a bit and played around with it. I had a lot on my mind, so I didn't play for too long, but I've had this growing sense of wanting to reconnect with this hobby again after getting distracted by an absolutely crazy fall schedule.
