Hardware constraints and freedom are what delivered great BGMs during the early 90’s. Over the years the ideas behind video game sound production in SF has gone from “make the best music you can make on this hardware”, to “make cool music”, to “make a deal with some label to license some crappy pendulum/nsync clone, and throw in some overproduced dumbstep in while you’re at it”.
SFII - Melody-driven tracks. But a specific type of melody. You could basically replace / accompany the melodies with a vocal and it would still sound good (they did in fact do this). The CPS1 was suited for this style of music. Final Fight sounds really bad on CPS1 because the hardware was not suited to deliver the composer’s vision, at least not using their final arrangement. Maybe they pushed the system a bit too hard in an effort to demonstrate what the CPS1 could do. SFII sounds awesome because the music was composed and arranged according to the strengths and weaknesses of the system.
SSF2 - Same as above, but the tracks were arranged for newer hardware so they sound very different. Some CPS1 tracks sound worse on CPS2 (I think the True Ending sounds overdriven on CPS2). However, tracks that were composed and arranged for the new hardware sound great, like Cammy’s theme. Overall the arrangement is still very good, but keep in mind that had the original producers had access to CPS2 hardware from the start, we might have had completely different character themes. Again here, there is little outside influence in terms of popular opinion about music.
Alpha 1/2 - Producers have a bit more freedom with the hardware. You start hearing rhythmic structures. The melody is still there because of historical arrangements, but you can tell that there’s a shift coming. Sound direction is beginning to play a bigger role. Rose’s Alpha 2 theme is a great example of melody and rhythm. This type of track would not have been easy on CPS1.
Alpha 3 - Alpha 3 was a big experiment in acid techno/breaks/rock on a hardware platform that didn’t really support it IMO. The clearly intended to shake up the franchise (all older BGMs replace, new fight system etc). You either love it or you hate it, but some tracks can grow on you. It took a while for me to go from “this is absolute shit” to “I kinda like this tune”.
SFIII - A switch to rhythm-based music: Jazzy breaks, drum n bass and hip-hop and a bit of house/techno. Of course it didn’t start out completely like this, but the shift was inevitable (see Tekken 3 which came out in the same year). And the important bit is that they had started taking into account what was considered “cool” in underground dance music. It also made sense because there were no longer hardware constraints. This was basically the era when guys like Roni Size, Amon Tobin, Funki Porcini et al were exposing Nu Jazz, breaks, Jazzy DnB etc to the EDM masses. If you didn’t listen to these type of artists and played 3S back then, there’s a good chance you hated the music at first.
Skip to SFIV - Pop fusion dance garbage for the most part. Case-in-point? The theme song is by a NINETEEN MEMBER Japanese Boy Band. Sure, you may nostalgia all over your panties when you hear it, but it’s important to note that the song was probably selected to appeal to a very wide market of idiots who don’t know good music. That said, I don’t think that all the SFIV tunes are completely awful, but many of them are overproduced which is a quality that modern audiences find desirable for god knows what reason. There are good tracks hidden beneath the garbage.
While don’t expect SFV to go full retard, I expect the soundtrack to sound like the definition of meh.