Double Dragon 3: The Rosetta Stone

[Source]
  Double Dragon 3 / The Combatribes
  Scitron/Pony Canyon  PCCB-00065  Jun 21, 1991
[Generator]
  MAME 0.164 mod by Valley Bell

For the third installment of "Double Dragon",
Technos Japan Corp. set the Lee Brothers on a
quest for three magic stones scattered
throughout the planet to take on their
strongest opponent yet. All is not well,
however, for Technos handed the reins to East
Technology, a little-known Japanese development
studio that mostly made games for Taito. The
result was a beat-'em-up in the series' usual
style, except for optional shops for bonus
characters, power-ups and weapons... that
required real money to use. Naturally, in those
pre-microtransaction days, American players
weren't pleased with this brazen attempt to
empty their wallets, so the shops were cut from
the Japanese version altogether to salvage the
game's reputation in its homeland.

All of which belies an incredible soundtrack.
One YM2151 chip and two OKI M6295 sample
channels result in a smashing soundtrack that
manages to evoke the Lees' world-spanning
journey, and even the supernatural antics that
ensue when they visit Egypt for their final
test. When separated from the (frankly) rather
awkward game, it is a powerful listen. It is
thankfully among the few aspects of the game
that made it to Technos' NES port, albeit
downgraded to fit in the NES' weaker sound
chip.

On that note, one song, track 26, goes wholly
unused in the arcade version, but turns up in
the NES version as the theme of Mission 5-3.
There are also versions of three of the stage
themes without their intros that were perhaps
meant to play when you leave a shop, but the
game just plays the regular versions. Finally,
in the Japanese version, the removal of the
shops means their music goes unused, but their
data is still present. This nevertheless means
that none of them show up on the official
soundtrack... and neither, for some reason,
does the Game Over music.

Because the Japanese and US versions differ so
starkly, I've provided two playlists. The
regular one is for the Japanese version, which
arranges the first 20 songs as they appear on
the "Double Dragon 3 / The Combatribes" CD, and
the rest as appropriate. The other is for the
US version, and places the shop music in the
track list as appropriate.

Enjoy!

(Special thanks to GTheGuardian for donating
 his sound test cheat so I could make this!)

— The Golden Horse

Source: VGMRips