Bare Knuckle 3 (Streets of Rage 3) Music & Audio Hack 1.0


Longer explanation of why this hack exists:
Many songs of SOR3 are pushing the limits of the mega drive sound chip, while others are borderline experimental oddities.
While the music is stylistically designed to be that way, it can't be changed, the effects of it can be minimized.
So what this hack does is move the music around so that the awesome songs are heard more, and the repetitive & annoying songs are heard less.

Additionally, there are many sound effects that just sound bad. When playing the game on high volume (the way it's meant to be!), many of the voice samples get too grading and drag down the overall experience.

When addressing this, if there is a regional difference between versions, then the best quality sample is chosen. Sometimes the sound effect in question suck regardless, then the audio is lowered in volume so that it becomes less tiresome to hear again and again.

This hack builds on the Japanese version (Bare Knuckle 3) due to it being the best version. Biggest differences are Ash not being absent & proper colour palettes for Axel and Blaze.

If you are still doubting how much these changes impact the game, I suggest just playing through the hack once. Personally, I love Streets of Rage 3 and this hack made it much easier to appreciate the game.


>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>MUSIC PLAYBACK CHANGES:
If the stage isn't mentioned, that means it's unchanged.
For example, the 'Disco Dance Club' theme & 'Shinobi Reverse' songs are too closely tied to their stage to be changed.

The goal here is to increase song variety. One problem with sor3 is that it reuses songs often, so there really isn't one song per stage anymore.
So it becomes a question about what songs should be re-used and which ones shouldn't.

>STAGE<                      >NEW SONG<
1-1 Warehouse                Poets 1
1-2 Harbor                   Poets 2
1-3 Alley                    Tunnelway (Very short section of the game, fits having a short song)

2-1 Street                   Moon

3-3 Construction Elevator    Dub Slash (Dub Slash is now used for the two self-scrolling elevator stages)

4-2 Tunnelway                Random Cross (fairly upbeat, means it continues the theme of the previous song 'Happy paradise'.)

5-x Side Room 1              Bubbly Ambient Theme (1E) 
5-x Side Room 2              Bubbly Ambient Theme (1E)
5-x Basement                 Unused song (00)

6-1 Corridors                Crazy Train
6-x Switch Rooms             Cycle 2
6-x Fight Rooms              Random Cross
6-x Box Room                 Beyond Oasis Early Tune (Previously unused song)

6-3 Rooftop                  Generic Boss theme

(Hostage Saved Route)
7-1 Forest                   Poets 1
7-2 Factory                  Cycle 1

(Hostage Died Route)
7-1 Outside White House      Poets 2
7-2 Inside White House       Poets 1


Notes:
*'Poets 1' & 'Poets 2' are such good songs, so I made them the stage 1 themes following the trend of previous games having banger opening songs.

*Good examples of misuse of songs; 'Poets 2' is normally only heard for a bout 30 seconds in the 1-3 Alleyway section of the game before being interrupted by the Shiva boss. Meanwhile 'Tunnelway' is way too short of a song to be heard in the entire stage 4-2.

*'Fuze' is extremely overused. How dumb is it that this song is the true final boss theme, but also heard in 1-1 and all over stage 6? I opted to remove it from stages all together so that you'll only hear it as the Shiva & Neo X Boss themes.

*If previous point wasn't enough, Stage 6 poorly handles how 'Fuze' is used (on top of it being heard too often). Every time you enter or exit a room 'Fuze' starts over, allowing you to never hear it fully - only the first 30 seconds again and again.
Since the level is timed, and you are in a hurry, I changed the track to 'Crazy Train' which is a very hectic and more fitting as the level's main theme rather than the boss theme.

*'Cycle 2' is one of the worst songs in the game, so it has been demoted to Switch room theme. 'Cycle 1' is used for the factory theme instead, it was too intense of a theme for the 1-2 Harbor stage.



>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>SOUND SAMPLE CHANGES:
bank 0 voice 2 (Blaze forward move )   -> replaced with English version, and reduced volume by 1 decibel
bank 0 voice 4 (Male Scream 1)         -> reduced volume by 2,5 decibel
bank 1 voice 1 (Blaze forward special) -> replaced with English version
bank 1 voice 2 (Male scream 2)         -> reduced volume by 2,5 decibel
bank 2 voice 3 (Axel forward move)     -> reduced volume by 3 decibel
bank 2 voice 5 (Skate & Roo sound 1)   -> reduced volume by 1 decibel
bank 3 voice 1 (Whip sound)            -> reduced volume by 3 decibel
bank 3 voice 3 (Female Scream)         -> reduced volume by 3 decibel
bank 4 voice 7 (Skate & Roo sound 2)   -> reduced volume by 3 decibel

Notes:
*By reducing the volume, the rasp in samples when played back is less noticable.

*Axel, Blaze, Zan & Shiva all have different sound samples when comparing English and Japanese version. The best sounding samples are chosen for this hack.

*I tested with replacing Axel's forward move with the unused and more clearer sounding 'grand upper!!' (bank 5, voice 1) but it didn't change much in practicality. The English version has him saying 'Bare Knuckle!!!' but I think that he should say grand upper just like it was in Streets of Rage 2.

*Blaze's English samples are more clear sounding so they are used.

*For Shiva, English version is unintelligible, also the Japanese version's sample sound better with less rasp.

*The Sound Zan makes when using his forward move and throw (bank 4, voice 1) is very different when comparing the two versions. English has an 'HUAHHH!!' which is in terrible quality and simply way too loud. Worst offender when it comes to annoying sound effects since you hear so often. Thankfully the Japanese version uses a different sound effect all together which does not pierce your ears.

*Some sounds are the same in all versions such as Skate & Roo, plus all the generic baddie death screams. Here it's more of a question of lowering the volume to reduce the low quality playback when heard in game.

*The Yamato Boss fight has 4 voice samples, each for his different attacks. For the English version they changed what he says from 'ninpo' to 'magic' (and so on). Since the boss rarely speaks, the quality of the sample isn't really a concern. Here it just makes more sense for the character to speak Japanese, so it goes unchanged.



>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>FUTURE POSSIBLE IMPROVEMENTS OF THIS HACK:

1.Fixing the 'Good Ending' theme hiccup
The problem is that there is a hiccup when the end credits are loaded. Look up the ending for yourself to see what I mean.
If editing song data to delay the song for a few seconds (as in the song starts but the music comes a few seconds delayed) is possible, then the hiccup would be avoided. Otherwise fixing this is probably not possible.

2.Find a way to stop music from starting over when entering/exiting a room (would specifically help in stage 5 & 6).

2.There is a rather loud jump sound effect (Blaze, female enemies & ninjas use it) that is a bit too sharp for the ears.
But since it's not a sample I couldn't fix it for this version.





