Capcom's 1996 lightsaber-fighting-game-in-space and its soundtrack absolutely rips. Star Gladiator Episode I runs on that mid-90s arcade intensity where every stage theme needs to pump quarters out of your pocket. The stage tracks cycle through rock-driven battle anthems and spacey synth atmospheres, each one engineered to keep your adrenaline locked in.
Read more
The character select screen alone has more energy than some full albums. What really stands out is the roster of individual good endings, each getting a completely different musical sendoff. Hayato's is triumphant, Bilstein's is unsettling.
The whole thing lives in that sweet spot between PS1 redbook audio and arcade board sound design. If you love Capcom fighters from this era, this one slipped past way too many people.