The 4 Best FM Towns Soundtracks

The FM Towns launched in Japan in February 1989 as Fujitsu’s attempt to create a state-of-the-art multimedia personal computer — the first machine in the world to ship with a built-in CD-ROM drive as standard. Its dual sound system combined six channels of FM synthesis via a Yamaha YM2612 — the same chip used in the Sega Genesis — with eight channels of PCM playback, giving developers both the punchy character of FM synthesis and the warmth of sampled instruments simultaneously. Sold only in Japan and discontinued in 1997, the FM Towns never found a large audience.

What it did attract was a remarkable series of arrangements: composers and arrangers who took arcade and console games already known from other platforms and reimagined them for hardware capable of something closer to their full musical potential. Norio Hanzawa added live brass players to After Burner and transformed a competent arcade score into a hard-rock classic; Akira Satoh’s Raiden port squeezed every ounce of ferocity from the FM Towns’ superior synth palette; an unknown arranger gave Yoko Shimomura’s Street Fighter II score a lightness and lyricism the arcade original never quite achieved; and Nenad Vugrinec gave Wing Commander the acoustic scale its cinematic ambitions had always demanded. The four scores collected here are not curiosities — they are, by meaningful measures, the definitive versions of the music they contain.

An alphabetical list of soundtracks, selected for the excellence of their compositions from all available FM Towns scores.

Each playlist has been carefully curated to include the strongest cues from each soundtrack. Audio is encoded at 192 kbps Opus. All rights remain with the original composers/publishers; this is for personal listening only.

After Burner Soundtrack

Norio Hanzawa / Hiroshi Kawaguchi, 1989

This is the definitive incarnation of one of arcade gaming’s most famous soundtracks. That’s not because the original After Burner score was beyond reproach — despite the affection it has attracted over the years, it is not Hiroshi Kawaguchi’s strongest work. While the music handles hook-driven synth rock competently enough, its melodies rarely truly take flight. As a result, the longer cues tend to meander, leaving the soundtrack feeling oddly laid-back for a game built around relentless, high-speed action.

Norio Hanzawa addresses these shortcomings decisively in After Burner‘s FM Towns arrangement. With a few exceptions, he remains faithful to the arcade original, but the shift to real instruments transforms the music entirely. The key addition comes in the form of three brass players. It’s an inspired choice: the brass injects a vibrant, swinging energy that the original simply lacked, while its jazzy inflections neatly reinforce After Burner‘s unmistakable 1980s identity.

From the opening bars of “Final Take Off”, the FM Towns version sounds bolder and more forceful than its arcade counterpart. Hanzawa frequently assigns the lead melodies to electric guitar rather than keyboards, lending the tunes a convincingly soaring quality, while punchy brass fanfares further intensify the momentum. Under his guidance, the score shifts decisively toward melody-driven, exuberant hard rock. In doing so, Hanzawa reshapes After Burner into something far more dramatic and rousing than the comparatively restrained arcade original.

Even “Super Stripe”, the arcade soundtrack’s weakest link, benefits from this treatment. Hanzawa’s masterstroke is to cloak the uninspired lead line beneath two clean electric guitars trading funky polyrhythms. By the time the final action cue “After Burner” arrives — cast in a weightier minor key, earning its five-minute runtime — the transformation is complete: the piece emerges as the hard-rock epic it was always meant to be, delivering a sizzling finale to a score that, at last, earns its status as a true classic.

 

Raiden Soundtrack

Akira Satoh, 1991

Many Japanese video games of the late 80s and early 90s embraced a proudly anthemic strain of synth-rock, music that lives or dies by the sheer force of its hooks. Few soundtracks, however, realised this ideal as completely as the FM Towns port of Raiden, composed by Akira Satoh. This is not a score of great subtlety, nor one that attempts a carefully shaped narrative or emotional arc. Instead, it targets the brain’s pleasure centres with ruthless efficiency.

With the game’s intro, outro, and boss tracks largely functioning as filler, the true substance of the soundtrack lies in its four stage themes, which together barely exceed ten minutes when looped. Yet within that brief running time, Raiden unleashes more stadium-sized, rousing synth-pop and synth-rock melodies than most game scores manage across an entire album. Every single hook feels engineered for maximum impact, the kind that invites fists-in-the-air, shout-along enthusiasm.

Why, then, choose the FM Towns version of Raiden over the TurboGrafx-CD release, which boasts two additional stage themes and two exclusive final boss tracks thanks to its Red Book audio? The answer is simple: this music demands the punchiest, most dramatic synth textures available. The FM Towns soundtrack sounds more powerful, vivid, and immediate than its TurboGrafx-CD counterpart, with superior production and a far more muscular mix. The FM Towns rendition plays perfectly to the score’s core strengths.

This advantage is especially apparent on a track like “Fighting Thunder”, which relies on relatively thin musical material. Here, the FM Towns’ upgraded synth palette proves crucial: once nagging melodic leads gain bite and aggression, while the expanded dynamic range provides the climactic rise and fall essential for a final-stage cue. The end result amounts to only a handful of minutes of music, but few game soundtracks deliver such a concentrated, joyful blast of endorphins — or such an unforgettable barrage of melodies.

 

Super Street Fighter II Soundtrack

Isao Abe / Syun Nishigaki / Yoko Shimomura, 1994

Once again, the FM Towns emerges with the strongest version of a bona fide arcade classic — in this case, perhaps even the greatest and most influential arcade game of them all: Street Fighter II (or, more precisely, its sequel-cum-expansion Super Street Fighter II). This time, however, the verdict is not quite as clear-cut as it is with titles such as After Burner or Raiden. The game’s PC port puts up a genuinely strong challenge and lands a few solid blows of its own. Ultimately, though, the FM Towns soundtrack (later reused on the 3DO) proves to be the more consistent and cohesive work.

What makes Yoko Shimomura’s score such a defining genre landmark, one that has remained popular for decades and has been quoted and reworked countless times throughout later Street Fighter entries? (Isao Abo and Syun Nishigaki contribute smaller portions to the score, while the arranger of the FM Towns version remains unknown.) It comes down to Shimomura’s extraordinary melodic invention. She delivers an astonishing range of tunes, spanning immediately catchy hooks to more elegant, long-spun melodies. The result is a soundtrack far more melody-driven than the average fighting game score.

The music often seems less concerned with directly underscoring on-screen aggression and more interested in creating colourful, lushly arranged sonic tapestries. Shimomura’s elaborate arrangements are another crucial asset that set her work apart from the competition. Taking the second half of Street Fighter II‘s subtitle (“The World Warrior“) seriously, the soundtrack evokes a wide range of cultures with remarkable ease. These compositions are further propelled by intricate layers of rhythm and counter-rhythm, lending the music yet more depth and sophistication.

Shimomura operates in two distinct modes on Street Fighter II. First, there are the more straightforward — if still meticulously crafted — power anthems for the game’s American characters (Ken, Guile, Balrog) and for Ryu. These tracks fuse unforgettable synth-rock hooks with carefully balanced arrangements and a surprising amount of musical substance. The second mode is even more compelling: here, Shimomura develops a musical identity that feels both individual and convincing for each character, whether they hail from Russia, China, Japan, Brazil, or India — an area where the King of Fighters series has often struggled. These cues retain their indelible melodies while placing greater emphasis on imaginative instrumental colour. At the time of Street Fighter II‘s release, the result was a fighting game score of unprecedented variety.

So what ultimately makes the FM Towns port the definitive version of this revered soundtrack? Unsurprisingly, it benefits from far more lifelike synths than the arcade original and most contemporary home conversions, clarifying textures and presenting them with greater vibrancy. While the arrangement largely stays faithful to the source material, it introduces a handful of thoughtful embellishments that enrich the music further — the swirling, intoxicating “Dhalsim” theme being a particular highlight. Elsewhere, the FM Towns sound palette’s softer, less cutting timbres lend “E. Honda” and “Vega” an almost romantic quality. Not every choice is entirely successful: these softer timbres somewhat undermine the near-apocalyptic menace of “M. Bison”. Still, taken as a whole, this remains the finest overall presentation of Street Fighter II‘s music, neatly capping the series’ first great musical chapter before it would move on to new stylistic territory.

 

Wing Commander Soundtrack

David Govett / George Sanger / Nenad Vugrinec, 1992

Wing Commander was a watershed moment for game music. Just look at its opening: an orchestra (in space) tuning up before launching into a triumphant fanfare. This flourish is a direct reflection of producer Chris Roberts’ ambition to create a fully fledged space opera. The Wing Commander intro makes it immediately clear that Roberts understood how vital music was to realising that vision — after all, you couldn’t have Star Wars without John Williams’ swashbuckling score.

Accordingly, it comes as no surprise that Roberts asked composers George Sanger and David Govett to draw inspiration from Star Wars and Star Trek: The Motion Picture. In 1990, such aspirations were highly unusual for a game soundtrack. On Western gaming platforms, the relatively recent introduction of the Roland MT-32 module had only just made it feasible to approximate orchestral instruments with any real conviction.

Despite its clear debt to classic film scores, Wing Commander still broke new ground within game music. It achieved a level of tightly woven thematic integration that no earlier game soundtrack had managed. Sanger and Govett’s bold main theme is introduced via the multi-layered “Fanfare”, whose sweeping heroics demonstrate just how effectively the composers evoke the sound of a Silver Age space opera using 1990-era chip synthesis. From this spectacular curtain-raiser onwards, the theme is continually reshaped and recontextualised across the score. Even by modern standards, the composers’ skilful, multi-faceted manipulation of this material remains remarkable.

This is not to suggest that the fanfare is the soundtrack’s sole source of melodic interest. Far from it: even in tense, militaristic underscore such as “Commander’s Office”, Sanger and Govett provide enough melodic substance to fully engage the listener. Wing Commander is so accomplished that its influence is still felt today — from this point onward, the destinies of game music and film music would become inextricably linked.

And what of the FM Towns version? Ported in 1992 by Nenad Vugrinec, it offers a faithful adaptation of the PC original’s material, with synths that are not a dramatic leap beyond the 1990 MIDI instruments. What truly sets the FM Towns release apart, however, is its sense of scale. The music is placed within far more spacious and vibrant acoustics, lending the score a heightened sense of drama — precisely the treatment these cinematic compositions demand.