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What makes it more special is the music from Motohiro Kawashima. Who?! That's sort of the point. Not many people know he did the music for retro beat-'em-up Streets of Rage 3 - Brandon Sheffield, who adores the music and game, made the same mistake. He wrongly congratu-tweeted composer Yuzo Koshiro, who's copyright is on the game. Koshiro deferred the compliment to Kawashima, so Sheffield redirected his praise - and got a little more than he bargained for in return.
"Dude the music is great for Streets of Rage 3! You should do more music,'" Sheffield tweets him.
"I would if I had the chance," Kawashima replies.
"Cool we should work together some day," Sheffield returns.
"Let's do it right now."
The reason Kawashima hasn't popped up in lead composer roles since Streets of Rage 3 is because no one has asked him. He ended up taking the work Koshiro didn't want, Sheffield says. Oh, that and he wrote music for Japanese pop idols, but none of them ever got anywhere, so Kawashima didn't get paid - that's how it works out there. Mind you, South African rap group Die Antwoord used "Expander" from Streets of Rage 3 in new song "Happy Go Sucky F***y", which is some title.
It took Sheffield until a Tokyo Game Show to meet Kawashima face to face, at a suitably unexpected vegan cafe in the Hadajuku district nearby. "We had a little parfait cake and some tea," Sheffield grins.
"Basically I told him what this game was, and man... Japanese game devs are super-creative but when it comes to talking about business they're very straight-faced. Having to describe to this man, whose music I listened to as a child, why this game about hitting deer with your station wagon was something he should be a part of was..." And he trails off, intimating it was... awkward.
Kawashima, bemused, asks a question. "Why does someone want to play this game?" he scratches his head. "What is the point?"
Stumbling, Sheffield tries to come up with an answer. "I dunno it's kinda weird..." Eventually he wins him over with talk of "super-tight" driving game design.
Kawashima then wants to know why Sheffield likes his music, so Sheffield embarks on a lengthy and careful reply.
"And there was this one part of our conversation that actually made me get a little misty[-eyed]," he goes on. "We were talking about money and I was like, 'Listen, we're an independent developer, we don't have a lot of money, we aren't going to be able to pay you that much.' And he's like, 'Don't worry about it - I'm just happy that someone's asking me to make music again.'
"And I'm like..." he motions being taken aback. "It was... I dunno - it got an emotional response from me because he was happy that someone had requested him. He had put a lot of music in games but it had always been a hand-me-down kind of situation. This was the first time ever that someone had specifically been like, 'No, I want you to do the music for me.'"
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Jun 21, 2012, 09:33 PM
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