Legendary game composer and DJ Yuzo Koshiro has been making use of his spare time lately, sharing a new music track that appears heavily inspired by the work of Masato Nakamura’s original Sonic the Hedgehog soundtrack.
The piece is called ‘Sonic the Hedgehog Hard Off Zone’, and features the familiar drum snares and instrumental cues that made the 1991 Mega Drive platforming game such a classic. It is most likely a love letter to the halcyon days of music production on home consoles, where composers needed to have a level of programming to get the most out of hardware sound chips.
You might have also recognised the name ‘Hard Off’, which is a chain of second-hand hardware stores in Japan. Turns out this track isn’t just an homage to Sonic the Hedgehog, but also the catchy jingle that plays whenever someone walks into a Hard Off outlet in Japan. Cool huh?
It’s worth pointing out that Koshiro has also got a history with SEGA, and also Sonic himself. Not only was the influential musician behind the incredible soundtrack to the beat’em up Streets of Rage series on SEGA Mega Drive, he was also responsible for a large part of the development of Sonic the Hedgehog on Game Gear and Master System back in 1991 – including, of course, the soundtrack.
Source: Yuzo Koshiro (Twitter)
Hard Off is Japanese major second-hand shop,then he remixed its piped music.
Hard Off is just a second hand store in Japan. The composer made a Sonic/Genesis style song with the store’s melody.
Not only Sonic inspired, Sonic 1 inspired!