This week in Night-Time Listenings, we listened to music from Rival Schools, SEGA Saturn classic Burning Rangers, obscure arcade game Ollie King, and Xenoblade Chronicles. Again, there’s only four here to due an event I had to attend. Remember to like our Facebook Page to listen to the music as it’s posted.

Rival Schools – On The Rooftop of Sunshine Highschool

Composer: Setsuo Yamamoto

 

Ah Rival Schools, one of those ever elusive fighting games from the PS1 era. This took the concept of the rival highschools and put them into the fight game. It also brought with it a King of Fighters-esque team based battle system where you picked two people, can call one out for a quick attack, or switch with between rounds. You never tagged each character in though. The characters of Rival Schools made appearances in Capcom vs SNK 2, and one more time with Tatsunoko vs. Capcom. Today, Rival Schools is stuck in one hell of a legal spot in Japan. But many still remember this beloved fighting game brought our highschool fightan fantasies to life.

Burning Rangers – Angels With Burning Hearts

Composed by Naofumi Hataya

Performed by Dennis St. James

 

Oh 90s, why has your awesomeness waned? Where has it gone? Here we have a game about fire fighters in the future, set to an awesome as hell theme song. Once again, No-Life Radio brought this song to my attention. However the version they broadcasted was the Japanese version. Warning though, the Japanese version of song has awesomely… bad Engrish. But here we have instead the fluent and powerful vocals of Dennis St. James. No offense to the Japanese version, but this English version is infinitely better. Seriously, I don’t think we’ll here music like this in videogames for a while (out side of Sonic games).

Speaking of which, Youtuber GereGere points out that the reason the lyrics are what they are at the bridges of the song is because it’s a nod to the Sonic Team, the developers of the game. “Sight Of Night I Cheer To Embrace A Magic.”

Ollie King – The Concept of Love (Concept of Passion Mix)

Composed by Hideki Naguma

 

If I haven’t made it obvious by now, No-Life Radio is an awesome place to discover new videogame music. Take for instance Ollie King. Before the Tony Hawk RIDE and SHRED games and fudged up the concept, Ollie King had you on a skateboard. This was an arcade game. Judging by the soundtrack, this was something of a companion piece to Jet Set Radio as much of the soundtrack for Ollie King has remixes of songs from JSR.

Xenoblade Chronicles – Gaur Plains (Night)

Composed by ACE+

 

I know that there are some out there that haven’t gotten as far as I have in Xenoblade. So to keep this as spoiler free as possible, I’ll only post music as far as Gaur Plains. In the game, this is the first grand vista you explore after trudging through Tephra Cave. It’s an amazingly calm piece of work. One of the cool things about almost all the songs in this game is that there are themes for both day and night. You’ll find yourself stopping for a bit just to listen to the music and probably enjoying how nice the night sky looks in this game.