GS-001: Street Fighter II The Definitive Soundtrack

[Robert_Chrystian]

Sorry to bring this up again, but shouldn't this have Isao Abe and Syun Nishigaki as arrangers, hence the booklet states (and we know they did) they have made the new arrangements of the CPS-1 tracks, originally composed by Shimomura? I think I could put a composed breakdown on the notes for the known compositions, so people don't need to search that information on all the earlier albums (like I did), what you guys think?

[Jedi QuestMaster]

Originally Posted by dancey

DEATH TO UNICODE APOSTROPHE

I realize that these were taken from the tags from the downloadable version, but no. no.

Why? What's wrong with this?

[Jimby]

dancey may well have his own reasons but, for me, the reason they should be avoided is that the site's advanced search function treats regular punctuation and their unicode equivalents as different characters.

[dancey]

In addition to Jimby's comments about it breaking search, it also breaks regex search.

Unicode has no place in an English tracklist whose primary audience is Western and the release locale is Western, especially when said tracklist can be freedb queried from a real physical disc. While general applications and operating systems (Vista and later) have support for Unicode, it is not something US audiences use. Ever. (Except for Word Processing apps who like to insert their own UTF8 bullshit)

Additionally, the Unicode apostrophe I so blatantly have an issue with is never an apostrophe in tracklists. It's almost exclusively U+2019 "Right Single Quotation Mark", which is just wrong. An apostrophe is not a quotation mark.

Correct:

Guile's Theme

Incorrect:

Guile’s Theme

[Jedi QuestMaster]

Originally Posted by Robert_Chrystian

Sorry to bring this up again, but shouldn't this have Isao Abe and Syun Nishigaki as arrangers, hence the booklet states (and we know they did) they have made the new arrangements of the CPS-1 tracks, originally composed by Shimomura? I think I could put a composed breakdown on the notes for the known compositions, so people don't need to search that information on all the earlier albums (like I did), what you guys think?

I didn't even see this. Yes, please! Is it too late? I'm stumped on a few of these.

Originally Posted by dancey

In addition to Jimby's comments about it breaking search, it also breaks regex search.

I see. Is this something that can't be helped?

Originally Posted by dancey

Unicode has no place in an English tracklist whose primary audience is Western and the release locale is Western

I think I see where you're coming from, and it makes sense in this case, but it's not true in general. The trademark sign™ is used in Deadbolt. Infinity (∞) is used in Bayonetta. Are you just talking about punctuation?

Originally Posted by dancey

While general applications and operating systems (Vista and later) have support for Unicode, it is not something US audiences use. Ever. (Except for Word Processing apps who like to insert their own UTF8 bullshit)

From a graphic design perspective, certain characters, specifically the left and right single and double quotation marks (‘’“”), the em dash (—), and the en dash (–) are used distinctively, and their ascii counterparts are disfavored. I understand, however, that in programming it's different.

Originally Posted by dancey

Additionally, the Unicode apostrophe I so blatantly have an issue with is never an apostrophe in tracklists. It's almost exclusively U+2019 "Right Single Quotation Mark", which is just wrong. An apostrophe is not a quotation mark.

Apparently this Wikipedia page is wrong, too, as well as my entire Communications Design curriculum at Chico State.

Maybe this page will shed some light on the matter?

If you'd like us to continue using straight apostrophes, fine (but not dandy).

[dancey]

I have no issue with track titles that are very clearly stylized, like the ™ (as bizarre as this is) or ∞ in your examples. Or for other examples, Kimagure Orange☆Road Singing Heart², or "The Pro-fe-ssor♥'s Theme (Original Version)" from Romancing SaGa 3. Or, you know, every god damn Hiroyuki Sawano album (............).

But the things that don't make sense are:

Using ’ instead of ' -- US keyboards can't even type this, we don't even have a key for it! It's not stylization, it's just a straight up mistake from whoever tagged the album, likely because they were in or using a foreign keyboard/map. The only time this is even used are in Word Processing applications that automatically do it for you, which, imo, is silly.
Using unicode（　）instead of regular (), or using other unicode forms of parenthesis instead of a regular parenthesis. Things like （,【，〈，＜ (and their complimentary closing variations). Just use () in an English tracklist.
Using unicode 「...」which are literally Japanese quotation marks (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japane...raphic_symbols), which should be converted to standard US ASCII ".
Using unicode punctuation when an equivalent, non-ambiguous US ASCII version exists. Like 。instead of . or 、instead of , or the three ellipses Unicode instead of 3 period ellipsis (..., I don't know how to type the Unicode one) or using ？ instead of ?.
Using any version of an em- or en-dash (ー). This is always converted to a regular US ASCII space-space (" - "), which is the best presevation of the separation of two words that any of the varieties of elongated dashes do.
Unicode ～ are converted to regular ASCII ~, appended and prepended with spaces (" ~ ") if it's separating two subjects. Like "Bob's Theme～Johns Theme" would be "Bob's Theme ~ John's Theme", or without the prepended space if it's supposed to indicate a type of subtitle, subdescription, or some kind of descriptor of the track. Like, for example, "Bob's Theme～blah blah～" would be "Bob's Theme ~Blah blah~".


I don't think there is a policy, or a rule, but if I see any of those in English tracklists that isn't just an obvious stylization, I will always correct it. Tracklists, with some rare exceptions, are not graphical or design oriented in nature and shouldn't really be treated as such. They are just textual descriptions of songs.

Creating an English tracklist from a Japanese one already creates a pretty polarized argument in these parts but if you're going to create one, whether it's a translation, transliteration, or a US release of something previously Eastern, you might as well go all the way and remove Unicode that US/native English speakers don't use, don't have, can't type, and sometimes are not supported in applications (though less common now).

[Jedi QuestMaster]

Originally Posted by dancey

But the things that don't make sense are:

Using ’ instead of ' -- US keyboards can't even type this, we don't even have a key for it! It's not stylization, it's just a straight up mistake from whoever tagged the album, likely because they were in or using a foreign keyboard/map. The only time this is even used are in Word Processing applications that automatically do it for you, which, imo, is silly.

Did you even read the Quora link? Historically, typewriters needed to be simplified with less characters, so the apostrophe and quotes became straight: ' " Same reason why there were only capital letters. Using a right quotation mark, which is the same as an apostrophe is not a mistake.

Originally Posted by dancey

Using any version of an em- or en-dash (ー). This is always converted to a regular US ASCII space-space (" - "), which is the best presevation of the separation of two words that any of the varieties of elongated dashes do.

Typically, the en dash has spaces around it anyway: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Prologue

The em dash, however—that is usually used to make abrupt stops, kind of like a comma, and without spaces. It should be replaced in ascii with two hyphens--like this.

By the way, do we have a list of eastern -> western punctuation conversions? I thought I saw something like that here? (or maybe I'm hallucinating?) If not, that'd be useful.

[dancey]

We are not talking about typography or typewriters or graphic design. Neither of your points are applicable here. And yes I read the article. Here is a perfect quote from it:

although outside of professional typography, approximately nobody goes to the trouble of typing U+2019 when their editor doesn’t automatically make the replacement.

The emdash in Japanese tracklists is not used as a hard stop, it's mostly used as a separator with both an open and a close in much the same way that ~ is used, and then other times used as a hard stop separator. Here is a perfect example:

Porco e Bella —Ending—

It would be silly to convert that to:

Porco e Bella --Ending--

Thus, it has always been converted to -word-, and because of -word-, I've always used a single ' - ' as a separator when a word phrase exists that doesn't use a closing emdash. So

John's Theme—Bob's Theme

would be

John's Theme - Bob's Theme

not John's Theme--Bob's Theme
or John's Theme -- Bob's Theme

[Jedi QuestMaster]

Originally Posted by dancey

The emdash in Japanese tracklists is not used as a hard stop, it's mostly used as a separator with both an open and a close in much the same way that ~ is used, and then other times used as a hard stop separator. Here is a perfect example:

Porco e Bella —Ending—

It would be silly to convert that to:

Porco e Bella --Ending--

Thus, it has always been converted to -word-, and because of -word-, I've always used a single ' - ' as a separator when a word phrase exists that doesn't use a closing emdash. So

John's Theme—Bob's Theme

would be

John's Theme - Bob's Theme

not John's Theme--Bob's Theme
or John's Theme -- Bob's Theme

Yes, I agree. It is used here in the same manner as an en dash. A comma wouldn't replace it. Do we have a character list of Japanese to English punctuation?

Originally Posted by dancey

We are not talking about typography or typewriters or graphic design. Neither of your points are applicable here. And yes I read the article.

I was just trying to bring clarity to your confusion; I'm not trying to tell you what punctuation you should use--I've moved past that. Yeesh! No need be uptight and get defensive.

But you're right, it's not applicable here (and it's not really important anyway) so I'll let it go.

[LuxKiller65]

Hum any comments on sound quality for this release? Worth purchasing?

[BlazingAbyss]

Out of curiosity, is there a reason why this album (among others) is no longer available for purchase on Bandcamp? You can still download it if you purchased it back when it was, but I find it odd that several of their albums are no longer available through Bandcamp while others (such as the Ninja Gaiden ones) still are.

[LuxKiller65]

They're all out of stock, except the Ninja Gaiden Vol. 2 vinyl edition.

http://bravewave.fangamer.com/produc...i-ost-vinyl-cd

http://bravewave.fangamer.com/produc...oundtrack-vol1

http://bravewave.fangamer.com/produc...oundtrack-vol2

[BlazingAbyss]

I see, so the digitals on Bandcamp are only available for separate purchase for as long as their respective CD/vinyl are? That's kind of strange.

[LuxKiller65]

No idea, maybe send them a message, they must know why the digital albums are also gone?

[BlazingAbyss]

I emailed them about it, here was their response:

"Of our current lineup, only Street Fighter II The Definitive Soundtrack is no longer available in any format due to an expired license.

The two ART OF FIGHTING titles and three SHOVEL KNIGHT titles, as well as the two SONIC ADVENTURE albums are not available from Brave Wave digitally. They are only available in physical formats but are uploaded to Bandcamp for customers redeeming download codes."

[Aifread]

It's a shame Brave Wave never did CD reprints of Sonic Adventure 2. That soundtrack is expensive now. I like it, but I don't $200 like it.

[TheGazelMinistry]

Originally Posted by Aifread

It's a shame Brave Wave never did CD reprints of Sonic Adventure 2. That soundtrack is expensive now. I like it, but I don't $200 like it.

Which version is $200?

Multidimensional runs for at least twice that, and you can get the 20th anniversary edition for between $40 and $100 or so.

(But I, too, would have liked a BraveWave CD version, rather than vinyl only. I have no interest in vinyl.)

[Aifread]

Originally Posted by TheGazelMinistry

Which version is $200?

Multidimensional runs for at least twice that, and you can get the 20th anniversary edition for between $40 and $100 or so.

(But I, too, would have liked a BraveWave CD version, rather than vinyl only. I have no interest in vinyl.)

Multidimensional, which is the only complete CD version. And I've never seen it go for that much. It's been at a stable ¥20,000 on YJA for a while now.

[depa]

Originally Posted by BlazingAbyss

I emailed them about it, here was their response:

"Of our current lineup, only Street Fighter II The Definitive Soundtrack is no longer available in any format due to an expired license.

The two ART OF FIGHTING titles and three SHOVEL KNIGHT titles, as well as the two SONIC ADVENTURE albums are not available from Brave Wave digitally. They are only available in physical formats but are uploaded to Bandcamp for customers redeeming download codes."

Also the Ninja Gaiden is sold out in all versions. Same licence expired?

[BlazingAbyss]

Originally Posted by depa

Also the Ninja Gaiden is sold out in all versions. Same licence expired?

The Ninja Gaiden OST is still available digitally through Bandcamp. The Street Fighter OST is the only one gone due to an expired license at the moment.

[TheGazelMinistry]

Originally Posted by Aifread

Multidimensional, which is the only complete CD version. And I've never seen it go for that much. It's been at a stable ¥20,000 on YJA for a while now.

Okay. I've seen it on eBay and Otaku for nearly $400 or more.

If and when I am ready to spend $200 on it, I'll have to check YJA.

[Aifread]

Originally Posted by TheGazelMinistry

Okay. I've seen it on eBay and Otaku for nearly $400 or more.

If and when I am ready to spend $200 on it, I'll have to check YJA.

Well, just because a few sellers list it for that much doesn't mean that's what people are paying for it. I can't see any sold legitimate copies on eBay, so I don't know.