Month: October 2014

Over the past few months, Red Bull Music Academy’s Diggin’ in the Carts has explored the history of the Japanese video game music scene and the impact their most notable composers have made across the world. The series limited run has featured musicians like Yoko Shimomura (Street Fighter II), Nobuo Uematsu (Final Fantasy), and Masashi Kageyama (Gimmick!), among others, along with input from folks outside the medium who have been influenced by the genre.

The sixth and final episode, released earlier this month, spends much of its duration focusing on Tekken. The shift from cartridges to CDs in the 90s allowed video game music to expand at a rapid pace. Bandai Namco Games’ Katsuhiro Harada doesn’t attribute this to an evolution within the community itself persay, but the loosening of restrictions placed on musicians by previous formats.

Composers who worked on various installments of the historic fighting game franchise, including sound director Kanako Kakino, Yoshie Takayanagi (Tekken, Tekken 2), Nabuyoshi Sano (Tekken 3), Akitaka Tohyama, Taku Inoue, Rio Hamamoto, Keiichi Okabe, and Yuu Miyake, discuss the influences they brought to the table over the course of the series. From spruced-up guitar riffs reminiscent of The Chemical Brothers to drum and bass compositions, the fingerprints of each composer can be found in Tekken even today.

Be sure to let us know which piece of Tekken music is your favorite in the comments.

Source: Red Bull Music Academy

A couple of weekends ago, Taito and Capcom’s national Ultra Street Fighter IV tournament series collaboration in Japan culminated in the Isshuu Sengeki Cup, otherwise known as the Taito Arcade Nationals. While the event had a lot on the line in terms of monetary worth, its status as a premier tournament on the Capcom Pro Tour gave it some added weight in terms of the automatic Capcom Cup qualifying spot for the first-place finisher.

Taito Arcade Nationals was a veritable who’s who of Japanese competitors, with players like Evil Geniuses’ Momochi, Daigo Umehara and Mago of Team Mad Catz, NISHIKIN, Kyabetsu, KoujiKOG, Shimauta, Kazunoko, NINOMAE, Nekojita, EBI, YUBIKEN’s SUPER SANTAROU MAN, and Bonchan in attendance to prove their skills on the national stage.

Amazingly enough, it would be NISHIKIN and his admirable Blanka play that would see the most success this day, dropping player after player on his way to grand finals. In fact, his dominant run would see him go undefeated until winners finals, where Kazunoko would manage to take one game before ultimately being sent to losers.

The event culminated in an intense grand finals between NISHIKIN and Sagat master Bonchan, who traded games until Blanka eventually came out on top.

If you missed watching this event live, Capcom Fighters recently uploaded some great footage for you to catch up with. We’ve included a few of the tournament’s late matches below, including the back and forth grand finals match, along with the full 3-on-3 team tournament also held over that weekend.

Full results from the Taito Arcade Nationals can be found in our coverage hub.

Source: Capcom Fighters