Justice High Schools: Legion of Heroes Original Soundtrack

Although the soundtrack to Justice High Schools (known as Rival Schools in the U.S.) uses a familiar synthesis system, the style is completely different and refreshing from Capcom's other recent fighter soundtracks (especially a welcome change after the bland X-men vs. Street Fighter, Darkstalkers and Cyberbots soundtracks). It's primarily composed of guitars and organs, which seems odd but comes off pretty well.

The first few songs on the CD are the introduction and title tunes, most of which are based on the same theme. Then comes the unimagitively named stage themes, which are pretty much the meat of the CD. As in many of the better fighting games, they're fast paced and upbeat. A few sound too cheesy to really work in a game like this, but it does complement the bizarre attitude of the game. My favorite would have to be "On the Rooftop of Sunshine High School", with its powerful synth guitars. An arranged version of this tune with real guitars would be seriously awesome.

After these twelve or so tracks, the overall quality starts to drop off a bit. Next are the themes used for each school during the intermissions, and while they're interesting and capture the spirits of the schools, they're also really short. Following these are the ending songs, which are mostly alright but kind of unmemorable (save for Sakura's ending tune, which is a nice lighthearted remix of her Street Fighter Alpha 2 song).

There are a few bonuses, mainly a short drama track right at the end of the CD and an 18-minute sound collection (which is pretty useful for recording sound effects - I absolutely love Batsu's voice.) There's also a "school anthem" for the Taiyo High School, sung in Japanese, of course.

The biggest disappointment, however, is the lack of the vocal songs found in the Playstation version of Rival Schools. I really enjoyed the J-pop opening and ending themes, and was hoping to find extended versions of them on this CD - but to no avail. I was told that these songs were released as singles in Japan, but I haven't been able to find any other information on them. Oh well.

While Justice High School OST isn't a must-buy Capcom soundtrack like, say, Marvel vs. Capcom, it's still a pretty fun addition for fighter fans.