The late great arcade racing series, Ridge Racer, is dead. It died a horrible death thanks to the mishandling of the license by its creator, Bandai Namco, with resulted with two abominations – Ridge Racer Unbounded and Ridge Racer Driftopia (F2P). Ugh, I feel dirty even thinking about those two games. A racing game that was a staple release title for many PlayStation consoles and one that gave racing game fans something to cheer about as we zoomed around various tracks at a breakneck speed. Those were the days, weren’t they? Now the series is dead, done and sadly there’s no way it’s coming back. Yet, the music – the high tempo, kick-ass music that was synonymous with Ridge Racer still lives on.
In fact, I’m listening to some of my favorite RR remixes/arranges as I type this out – All from VGM remixer, RoBKTa. In all honestly, I wanted to give RoBKTA some props on this amazing project and to spread the word to anyone who hasn’t heard this album.
Released back in 2015 (Edit: for some reason I put 2012 – my mistake) and under the Gamechops label, RoBKTA released 6-track album called “Ridge Racer Forever”. Included in the album are several arrangements from tracks made famous by Nobuyoshi Sano, Ayako Saso, and Hiroshi Okubo. While the names may not seem favorite, you’ve definitely heard their works before in not only the Ridge Racer games but also through Tekken, Ace Combat and even Street Fighter EX (Ayako Saso). If you thought the tracks sounded great before wait until you check them out after RoBKTA applies his personal touch to them. But don’t believe me, check them out for yourself, below.
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/playlists/137895464″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /]Like what you heard? Well, RoBKTA has more tracks to listen to over at his Soundcloud account and don’t forget to check out https://loudr.fm/release/ridge-racer-forever/YKRmp if you want a copy of Ridge Racer Forever to listen to over and over.
Seriously folks, check out his Soundcloud account, tons of good stuff there. Including several other Ridge Racer tracks, including an arranged version of “Move Me“. What are you waiting on?
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