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Street Fighter III: 3^rd Strike Original Soundtrack

(Distributed by Mars Colony Music)

While quite a few soundtracks for fighting games have gotten a bad wrap for being inundated with "Hot guitar lix" this CD has done pretty good job of avoiding it. This isn’t to say that the disc completely escaped the somewhat hokey tunesof the genre, but by in large the music on this soundtrack is respectable.

This OST has every tune to appear in the game, which includes things like two or three second ditties that flash through the speakers on occasion during the game. These can be a distraction from the regular, full-length tunes however. Once the listener gets used to these 3-4 minute pieces, these extremely short tracks pop up and are usually very loud/intense tracks that can really shake up people listening to the CD. With every single track on the CD listeners won’t have to worry about one of the level’s tunes not being present in the game though, so nobody misses out. The sound quality is quite good overall, but some of the percussion in earlier tracks sounds a little bit washed out, which is a little disappointing considering that the CD is predominantly electronic music where solid drums are important.

Overall if you like the tunes going on in the background when playing 3rd Strike, you’ll like the soundtrack. Despite the occasional hokey track (which are primarily gathered near the beginning of the disc) and some 5 second tracks that feel like a serious About Face from the rest of the CD’s tunes, the music is pretty good and worth the time of game soundtrack fans.

- Mr. Nash