ReMix:Street Fighter II: The World Warrior "Vega's Theme (Pulse Mix)" 4:19

A very happy birthday & お誕生日おめでとう to the one and only Yoko Shimomura, who basically defined early fighting game music with the iconic soundtrack to Street Fighter II; Larry and I were JUST on a podcast interview where we were geeking out about how much better SF2 was than SF1 (or any fighting game that came before it, really!), and how a BIG part of that was the music: catchy, globally differentiated, and substantive while ALSO being loopable AND having heavy damage alt versions... just really great stuff. To celebrate we've got MkVaff tackling Vega/Claw with an upbeat EDM take that'll have you backflipping, climbing up the walls, and caring far too much about your appearance:

"Hey y'all! I know I have a ReMix of Vega's theme on the site already, but I thought you might enjoy this one as well!

There really seems to be a perfect Street Fighter 2 song for every occasion. I was trying to come up with a few more ideas for source material for Pulse remixes, and after finding an alternate version of Vega's Theme (as it appeared in one of the Smash Bros. titles), I was reminded how fun and energetic the track was.

I had already created a cover of Vega's theme way back in the summer of 2001 that appeared on OCR, but with a much more downtempo, 90's R&B-inspired feel. I did enjoy creating that chilled out cover of the song for sure, but for this remix I wanted to fully portray all of the drama and excitement of the original theme.

After working on it for a few weeks, this track became one of my favorite remixes on the whole Pulse project - due in no small part to how brilliant Shimomura's composition was in the first place. I replaced some of the original synth / horn sounds with a variety of chopped guitar samples in order to portray some of the Spanish flavor of the original. I also tried to use some synths that evoked a string section to mimic some of the string sounds I remembered from playing the Super Nintendo version of Street Fighter 2 for many years.

As I was nearing completion of this song - or rather, arriving at the point at which I decided to stop endlessly tinkering with every detail of the song - the joy of listening to it slowly come to life really brought me back to those days of creating those early remixes in my parents' basement all of those years ago. It was such a great experience to revisit this exciting, beautiful theme once again - and in an entirely new way.

Hope you enjoy, and thanks!"

The good ole days :) I'm definitely gonna mix this one myself, eventually, but Mike has now lapped me twice with a second, distinct take on the flamenco-inspired original. As a side note, when doing the visualizer video for this, I had to do a double take, because the school slogan of UA, "Plus Ultra", was right there on... the flag of Spain; I was today years old when I learned that My Hero Academia kinda borrowed it from Charles V. Mike went beyond with this mix, too, making time for some variations and ensuring that the rock solid EDM foundation had some bells & whistles. I could have used some more flamboyancy on a longer solo - this IS a narcissist we're talking about, after all - but my head was bobbin' and my toes were tappin' and at one point I climbed up the chain link fence in my office and Izuna-dropped my Herman Miller Aeron, so that's probably a good sign. Enjoy it how you see fit, with or without collateral furniture damage, and again a very wonderful bday to Yoko Shimomura!