CP System

Uh, the Super Nintendo didn’t invent home fighting games, but Street Fighter II on it made them feel essential.

The game itself started in the arcades in ’91 on Capcom’s CPS-1 board.

Eight fighters, special moves you learned by feel, and best-of-three rounds that emptied pockets.

Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li, Guile, Blanka, Zangief, Dhalsim, E. Honda.

Sound desk.

Three versions of Guile’s theme, the arcade original, the Super Nintendo home version, uh, then, uh, Sega’s Mega Drive Special Champion Edition from the year after.

First, the coin-op, Capcom’s CPS-1.

Listen to this.

But the compensational brief was international flavor.

Each playable character had a country of origin, and Shimomura's job was to translate that geographic and cultural framing into a 90-second loop using the CPS-1 arcade board's YM2151 FM synthesis chip and MSM6295 sample chip.

The constraints were severe.

Limited polyphony, limited sample memory, and the requirement that each track loops seamlessly-