Completely missed out on the EX games that came out on the Playstation and I never even had a chance to try the Street Fighter III games, but was the music to those games as decent as those of the II/Zero series? Thanks and that goes double for GoldFishX.

If you liked the II/Zero series, then you'll probably like SFIII 2nd Impact, but 3rd Strike is wildly different and a bit more hip-hop oriented. Still very good though.

The only EX game I ever played was EX+Alpha (1) which had a sucky Arcade Soundtrack, but a kick-ass arranged soundtrack on PSX. The OST contains the Arcade version unfortunately, but the AST contains some of the PSX tracks, in longer versions.
Dunno about EX2 and 3.

All the EX series games were composed and arranged by Shinji Hosoe, Takayuki Aihara, Ayako Saso, and on EX2 Plus and EX3, Yasuhisa Watanabe (most now "SuperSweep", former Namco staffers). These guys were commissioned on behalf of Arika, the developer who worked on the entirety of the series.

Their sound is very much like what they usually do; a bevy of rock, jazz, techno, and electronica fused into most of their compositions and arrangements. For the record, EX+Alpha was actually the Playstation version of arcade-only EX; which musically recieved an arranged, mostly instrumental treatment.

Amazingu was mainly correct about the EX Arrange Sound Trax; many of those tracks made it onto the later released PS/arranged soundtrack in edited form. And yes, the original/arcade EX, which received a soundtrack, did feature a very poor, outdated soundboard to compose what later became a potential-filled soundtrack.

EX2 returned to the arcade soundboard format, many have discribed it as scratchy/blown-out audio but the core compositions are unique, and melodic. There's much more of a funky techno-electronica influence by the star three Hosoe, Saso, Aihara. If you can find the album, there's a select bunch of EX+alpha bonus tracks on there.

EX2 PLUS followed the idea of EX+alpha except there's hardly any instrumental diversity. The original arcade revision added some of the tunes never released onto CD (like Sagat's Theme/"Before Moon") which later did get onto CD but in a higher quality arranged format later found on the Playstation release. They did an album, which was based off the Playstation version which featured these PS-only remixes/arranges. Those arcade few tracks never got onto CD/release so you'd have to rip them from Zinc or something.

EX3 might be a personal favorite because this album slowly grew on me. Most of the music is actually much more toned down to more smooth electronica with elements of jazz and new-age within. Most of the tunes are very relaxing which is why I find it hard to believe they're in a fighting game. Nonetheless, its a highly underrated album especially if you like that smooth-electronica-fusion sound Hosoe and his crew dish out.

Heh, glad I could help (what did I do...just curious)

XISM covered everything pretty good, so I don't have much to add.

3rd Strike I always found a tad dry as a standalone listen...I found it better ingame, as the themes aren't as distinct as the Zero or original games, but the repetitiveness is good for "finding the zone" in the middle of a match. Can't really comment on the others, since 3S is the only III game I've played.

The EX1 Arrange Album is amazing...lot's of great rock and electronic arrangements but it's a pretty rare find. I personally haven't explored EX2's music a huge deal, but the EX2 OST does have "Precious Heart" from EX1 on it, which was my favorite track from that game. I dislike EX3 aside from a handful of tracks (the opening and a number of the character themes on the back end of the CD, which are barely in the game itself...I think they show up in certain multi-player match-ups)...It really doesn't sound like fighting music and it's a little too smooth for its' own good.

As for the EX games themselves...You didn't miss a thing. The 3D-ness in the EX games is clunky and unnecessary (since you're fighting on a 2D plane still) and the 1P mode in EX3 is a total joke (hell, ALL the modes in that game are a joke...). 3rd Strike's learning curve is gigantic, but it's extremely rewarding once you learn what you're doing and come to grips with the skewed character balance.

EX3's game modes were truly bizarre. Unfortunately, the first bunch of tracks were featured in the single player main game and never rolled quite long enough to hear the entire compositions. I believe the music actually one-ups the game in this case. That kind of goes for a lot of the EX games, their musics are often too long for a few matches. EX2 was flat feeling and well EX3 just fell flat on being uninspired and poorly constructed at the brink of a system launch.

I did have some epic fights with Bison in EX1, where his music actually looped (now THAT was a cheap boss fight). But EX3's themes go for about 2 minutes before a loop and the matches aren't even 2/3, so they averaged...30-40 seconds apiece ingame, unless you dragged the fight out.

I'd probably liken the music's usage to Marve vs Capcom 2...Like or dislike the music, it's hard to say it was actually a match for the gameplay. "Irreconcibility" though (Bison's EX1 theme)...Now THAT was some great boss music.

And if you like SFEX music, i recommend the other "Super Sweep sound team working at Arika" soundtracks, such as "Fighting Layer" (still available for dl at Slightly-Dark) and the "Escape Goat" "demo" album (from which some tracks have been re-used in games tho).

For the comments, advice, and samples on the music for the Summon Night series. Forgot about the topic until I made this one.

Anyway, you guys have made my next couple of VGM purchase decisions much harder to make, now that I'm split between SF music and what I was originally leaning towards. I am also considering snagging a copy of that EX1 game to see what that Bison can do.

Thanks again.

I'm going to give Street Fighter EX3 my solid vote. Like GX said, it's too relaxed to be a fighting game soundtrack, and the songs are way too long for the in-game usage to be worth anything. I don't think that stops it from being an enjoyable album out of the game, though. In fact, I would prefer it that way. Songs like "Move" and "Temptation Gun" are way up on my most played lists in iTunes... great stuff!

Eheh, i would also put Tobal 2 soundtrack in the "lounge-fighting" category.
Although in Tobal 2 it matches the slow, almost non brutal, gameplay (i don't remember about the SF EX games actualy).

TOBAL 2 is a personal favorite and most definitely in that category of lounge music. Actually, I listen to TOBAL 2 when lounging and doing other things - most of which to relax (whilst groovin') too. Tobal 2's music is certainly a gem that's never been done a second time - not even by Nakamura.

Yeah, Tobal 2's music is fantastic, but I also recommend picking up GUIDO's unusual Eletrical Indian arrange of Tobal 1.  Very off kilter, but great all the way.

Anway, as for Street Fighter, I will always highly recommend the jazzy SF3 New Generation Arrange Album.  One of my favorite arrange albums of all time.  So much fun to listen to.

Word. I expected much of his work on Ehrgeiz to end up deeply disappointed.
There used to be 2 great mp3 samples of his recent work on his website [ http://www.kk.iij4u.or.jp/~nakataka/ ] but they must have been lost when he redesigned it.
Later,

Alcahest

Oh i didn't that Tobal 2 composer did Ehrgeiz too.
But then yeah, indeed a big gap between those too.

Maybe he was "directed" for Ehrgeiz soundtrack when he had free composition choice for Tobal 2...