FM synthesis pumping Detroit techno and house music through a Mega Drive like Yuzo Koshiro smuggled a nightclub into a cartridge. Streets of Rage turned the YM2612 sound chip into a rave machine in 1991, and it still sounds ahead of its time.
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"Fighting In The Street" opens with this punchy, bass-heavy groove that set the template for every beat-em-up soundtrack that followed. "Moon Beach" shifts into something almost chill before "Stealthy Steps" drops you into a paranoid, stripped-back tension piece.
Sixteen tracks, no padding, every one of them a demonstration of what the Genesis hardware could actually do. If you think 16-bit music can't compete with modern production, Koshiro made his counterargument thirty years ago.
Go listen.