Hajime Hirasawa squeezed an entire orchestra out of the SNES sound chip and somehow made it feel cinematic. Star Fox's 1993 soundtrack is this wild collision of jazz, rock, and orchestral writing all crammed into SPC700 samples.
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The Corneria theme alone carries more momentum than most full game scores. Then you hit the boss tracks and the energy just doubles down with these frantic, layered percussion patterns that never let up. The arrange versions on the album show what Hirasawa really heard in his head, and honestly it's stunning how close the SNES originals already got.
He left Nintendo right after this over a rights dispute. Absolute tragedy. If you think 16-bit soundtracks peaked with other franchises, Corneria will change your mind.