Streets of Rage 4: Mr. X Nightmare Soundtrack

Streets of Rage 4: Mr. X Nightmare Soundtrack, Tee Lopes, 2021

The renaissance of 2D gaming that began in the 2010s was not merely a boon for indie developers. It also allowed enterprising studios to revive classic franchises long left dormant, among them Streets of Rage. 2020’s Streets of Rage 4 arguably broke little new ground, but it delivered a skilfully executed take on eternally satisfying beat-’em-up mechanics. Strong reviews were followed by commercial success, with the game selling over 2.5 million copies worldwide within a year of release. DLC was therefore inevitable, and duly arrived in the form of Streets of Rage 4: Mr. X Nightmare. The expansion’s main additions were a new Survival Mode, seemingly inspired by roguelikes, three new playable characters and a tougher difficulty setting.

Given the franchise’s towering musical reputation, it is no surprise that great care had already gone into the Streets of Rage 4 soundtrack. Spearheaded by Olivier Deriviere, the score also brought previous series composers Yuzo Koshiro and Motohiro Kawashima back into the fold, while a roster of guest contributors including Yoko Shimomura completed the star-studded line-up. Yet for all its competent writing and polished production, the score did not quite reach the same lofty heights as its predecessors, and its unwieldy two-hour running time certainly did not help. For Mr. X Nightmare, the developers instead turned to an up-and-coming composer who had already contributed a bonus remix for an exclusive Streets of Rage 4 soundtrack CD release: Tee Lopes.

Having entered the industry on the strength of his YouTube game-music remixes, Lopes first drew major attention with his work on 2017’s Sonic Mania. In one of his post-Sonic Mania interviews, he even named a hypothetical Streets of Rage project as his dream next assignment. That is hardly surprising, since, by his own account, “Yuzo Koshiro’s soundtrack is one of the main reasons I ever dreamed of making music for games”. Unsurprisingly, then, writing the Streets of Rage 4: Mr. X Nightmare soundtrack was effectively a childhood dream realised: “It’s impossible to describe how meaningful this project is to me as a professional composer, but even more so to the child that still lives inside of me.”

Lopes’ stated aim for Mr. X Nightmare was to continue down the path charted by Deriviere on Streets of Rage 4, redefining the franchise’s music by introducing contemporary elements, or “outlandish features”, as he put it. On this occasion those included heavy metal, trap, dub and jungle. The frenetic pace of the newly added Survival Mode also left its mark. Lopes described his tracks as containing few breaks: “they’re chaotic in nature and structure”. And yes, the Streets of Rage 4: Mr. X Nightmare soundtrack is a relentlessly in-your-face affair. However, Lopes shapes all that unruly energy into concise, hugely entertaining cues through lavish, meticulously crafted arrangements and sharply honed pop instincts.

In fact, this may well be the most melodic soundtrack in the entire franchise. That is not to suggest that previous Streets of Rage scores, perhaps aside from part 3, were deficient in that department. Still, Lopes leans on relatively simple but instantly catchy melodic ideas more heavily than any previous series composer. The music’s complexity and interest instead arise from the dense, colourful layers of beats and rhythms carrying those melodies, creating a finely calibrated contrast between focused immediacy and sprawling invention. “Aerial Justice” and “Wings of Fury”, each stage theme appearing in two arrangements, crystallise Lopes’ approach perfectly. With their pounding beats and straightforward but effective guitar leads, these anthemic cues often recall Jake Kaufman’s Double Dragon Neon in the unabashed melodic directness that turns them into stadium-sized raves.

The Streets of Rage 4: Mr. X Nightmare soundtrack is a rock-solid crowd-pleaser from start to finish, but the challenge it faces is greater than one might think. Given its constant busyness and the repeated material, remember those dual arrangements of each stage theme, the score could easily have become a monotonous slog. Thankfully, Lopes’ songwriting is varied and strong enough that repetition merely feels like more of a good thing. It also helps that the soundtrack never outstays its welcome and that each stage theme pursues a distinct approach. “Spotlight Summersault” and “Blood for Glory” come closest to the spirit of “Aerial Justice” and “Wings of Fury”, taking that gloriously overblown sound one step further through hammering metal guitars and the enormous synth-brass fanfares familiar from American-football broadcasts.

Other stage themes are more adventurous. “A.I. Supply” is far more robotic and cold than the preceding cues, with its chopped-up melody and icy sci-fi beats. As on many other tracks, the B section introduces a striking shift in pace, here via a quirky breakdown in which an echoing melody drifts through neon-lit emptiness. “Stainless Kill” takes greater liberties with the original material than most of the other alternate stage arrangements. Frantically driven yet still eccentric, it becomes the soundtrack’s most high-strung and tightly wound episode, at times sounding like a robot thrown into a blender. “Sulfur Empire” and “Hell on Earth” are the score’s most emotionally maximalist moments. In “Sulfur Empire”, grinding industrial guitars collide with the cold, indifferent majesty of towering synth chords. Rearrangement “Hell on Earth” is more anguished still, with dissonant, howling synth leads and haunting wordless vocals.

Perhaps the score’s most inventive and heady cues are “Primal Pummel” and “Ritual of Battle”. They weave traditional Japanese instruments seamlessly into a framework of lean, hard-hitting beats. But even that is only part of the story: in “Primal Pummel”, Lopes passes the melody from shakuhachi to synth strings, before the cue mutates into a blistering saxophone solo and then plunges into a dubstep passage. “Ritual of Battle” is not quite as dazzling, but the chaotic vocals that erupt over tribal drums just before the loop keep the music intriguingly eccentric. Add to this a brief breather in the form of “Zero Pressure”, with its skeletal off-kilter beats and abstract electronics, plus the confidently swaggering opener “Corrupted Dreams”, and what emerges is one of 2021’s most diverse and polished electronic game scores. The Streets of Rage 4: Mr. X Nightmare soundtrack firmly confirms Lopes as one of game music’s most exciting new talents.