Games Soundtrack Appreciation / Discussion Thread

It's probably not that obvious to a modern listener, but that Turrican music was technically impressive. The Amiga had four channels of 8-bit sound, and they were mixing probably at least eight total tracks into those four channels. And they were doing that while loading the game itself, and possibly while *playing* it, although I don't remember for sure on that last bit.

At some point, they hauled the multi-track technology out of the games and put it into actual music programs, which led to "tracker" and "mod" music files. You can still play those on the PC, with the right software.

A modern multi-gigahertz PC barely even ticks over, mixing 8- or 16-track music files, but on a 7 MHz Amiga, there was wizardry involved.

So whether you're going to MAGFest or not, their growing line-up of bands/musicians is one to keep an eye on. Figured folks in this thread might be able to find something new of interest in there.

Songbird wrote:

Final Fantasy Record Keeper
Mysdia (Halloween version)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqQ4...
I should have posted that in time for Halloween, oops.

I recently ran across this group on youtube. Still poking through their videos, but they really should have some more views
Consouls
http://www.theconsouls.com/
Skullgirls
In a Moment's Time

I really dug these two. Thanks for the share.

Planet Coaster Soundtrack is pretty amazing. Playlist here.

Main theme (The Light in Us All):

Songbird wrote:

Final Fantasy Record Keeper
Mysdia (Halloween version)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqQ4...
I should have posted that in time for Halloween, oops.

Well, FFRK is still my mobile game of choice, but I keep the volume off, so I missed this. Appreciated is what I'm saying.

Wow, even though I've had this in my collection forever, I'm hearing it for the first time today.

Liked those Planet Coaster songs, D-Man

Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine
Demi Fiend Battle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0fs...

SMT III: Nocturne
Amala Labyrinth (battle theme)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoSk...

SMT: Digital Devil Saga 2
Brahman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ov62...
I really like this battle song and I never see much love for it.

SMT: Devil Summoner Raidou
A New World
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlmd...

Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon
Decisive Battle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWm6...

I've been meaning to post it all week but kept on forgetting. One of the dungeon themes in Final Fantasy XV sounds incredibly familiar.

At first I thought it was a cover/remix/remake of the summon cave in Final Fantasy IV, but upon actual listen it's clear the two have completely different melodies. Even so, I wouldn't be surprised if the FFXV dungeon was intended to evoke memories of FFIV.

And in other news, someone compiled 70 minutes of wintry Nintendo music (some originals, some covers).

Here's a favorite holiday remix of mine:

Edit: ah, it's at the 30:12 mark of the one above

If you like the work of Michael McCann (XCOM, Deus Ex: Human Revolution), you'll like the new DE Mankind Divided OST. Very much in the same style as his other work, which is good and bad. I find it quite enjoyable ambient music while I work.

Mantid wrote:

Here's a favorite holiday remix of mine:

<3 The OneUps (and related group The Bad Dudes)

I've been meaning to post it all week but kept on forgetting. One of the dungeon themes in Final Fantasy XV sounds incredibly familiar.

I agree that one definitely echoes the other. FFIV has one of my favorite soundtracks all around, and that dungeon theme is one of the best is the series imo. So I am glad to see some in universe love for it. I've linked it already in this thread, so I won't repeat it, but one of my favorite renditions is in the dungeon medley from Bra Bra Final Fantasy

D-Man, I'm a casual listener of the Human Revolution soundtrack, but Mankind Divided feels even more abstract. I agree that it sounds like perfect work music

Shoptroll, did you hear this F-Zero song from album Part Seven?

Not yet, I actually haven't picked up the last two OneUp albums, keep forgetting to do so. That's a great chill track!

Speaking of which, Psychokinetic is out (or should be out soon) and it's a great Mother/Earthbound series tribute album by The Bad Dudes. I haven't seen any youtube previews for it, but you can sample about half of it on their Loudr site

Bra Bra Final Fantasy

That's a fun album, along with the follow up.

I also like the X'mas Collection albums S-E has put out over the last few years. They're much inline with the series of "SQ" arrangement albums, will try and get a couple of my favorites in here later.

I recently found the Pixelated Audio podcast googling for game soundtrack podcasts. I've only listened to the most recent episode (Neo Turfmasters) which is superb and has an interview with the composer. I'd recommend starting with that one because it's great. There are lots of episodes, and I'm looking forward to listening to all of them eventually. The production values on the podcast and website are pretty amazing. Also, both the guys really know music, the tech, and the industry.

I guess I can rate my top 10 game soundtracks of 2016 at this point. It's been a really great year for that at least. The YouTube videos are mostly my favorites from each soundtrack.

1. Owlboy

Edit: Bad YouTube link removed. You can listen to part of it and buy the full soundtrack on Bandcamp.

2. The Last Guardian

3. Samarost 3

4. The Banner Saga 2

5. Hyperlight Drifter

6. Fire Emblem Fates

7. Thumper

8. ABZÛ

9. Final Fantasy XV

10. Stardew Valley

REZ Infinite would probably be on the list except that I'm not a huge fan of that music and the soundtrack came out years ago with the original release. I think the soundtracks to Uncharted 4, Oxenfree, Firewatch, DOOM were also good, but they're not soundtracks I'd want to listen to on their own.

I forgot about he Unravel soundtrack. Darn it! I'm trying to finish that game up tonight. I think this would actually probably fit in my list in between Hyperlight Drifter and Fire Emblem Fates.

This is a good idea and I want in. Tuffalo and I play a lot of the same games, though, so let's see how it plays out...

  1. Samorost 3

    Anything Floex does goes to the top. I'll pick a different track.

  2. Hyper Light Drifter

    Anything Disasterpeace does goes to the top. Below Floex. I'll pick a different track.

  3. Stardew Valley

    Channels the spirit of the best SNES soundtracks. Huge part of the overall lovely package.

  4. Animal Crossing: New Leaf

    The songs become part of my daily rhythm and I find myself humming daytime songs at work, evening songs at night. And you can't beat Cap'n's shanties.

  5. SteamWorld Heist

    The steampunk twang can't be beat. But the songs in the saloons and ones that play after the bosses took it to the stars. Credit, apparently, to the real-life steampunk band behind it, Steam Powered Giraffe.

  6. Terraria

    I've had Terraria songs on my regular shuffle for years, but am finally sitting down this year to finish it and am again impressed by it.

  7. Starbound

    They took a more orchestral/synth route than Terraria's more chiptunes-inspired soundtrack, and it fits the Star Trek shift to large-scale discovery.

  8. Yoshi's Wooly World

    Just started this after Christmas but was getting it stuck in my head earlier this year just from watching the trailers. Playful and cute.

  9. Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition

    I would have placed this higher immediately after playing it, but while I recall it being excellent it didn't stick in my memory like the others. But here's the beautiful main theme:

  10. Candle

    The music stood out as unique from all the other games I played, probably due to the country of origin (Teku Studios in Spain).

I was talking about this a little in the Slack channel and rather than spamming it up, here's some fun "easter eggs" I've found in the Final Fantasy XIII soundtrack that are callouts if not outright lifts from previous Hamauzu OSTs:

I finally remembered to link the Distance soundtrack here. The game is still in Early Alpha and so, effectively, is the soundtrack, but what there is so far is on Soundcloud.

IMAGE(https://i1.sndcdn.com/artworks-000100484689-eoeg61-t500x500.jpg)

So, I'm deep into the Samarost 3 soundtrack at this point. While I don't think it's as good as the Machinarium soundtrack, it's pretty close! I think it's probably better than FLOEX - Zorya album but that needs to be reassessed 2 years from now. I stand by my original ranking, but I've already listened to and enjoyed the soundtrack way more than The Last Guardian or Owlboy. It's the type of music you can listen to over and over again and keep discovering things.

I ordered the green vinyl version off Minority Records. Unfortunately, they messed up and sent me the regular version. Rather than send it back to the Czech Republic to exchange, I was able to get a 10 Euro discount and just put in another order for the green version, so I'll have a backup or giftable version.

I've bought so many records off them at this point. I have purchased 4 copies of the Machinarium soundtrack on vinyl (2 gifts), 2 copies of FLOEX - Zorya, 2 copies of Samarost 3, 2 copies of Botanicula, and 5 or so other records from different artists that aren't games related.

Anyways, I'm pretty sure the best track on the soundtrack is the Monk Planet Main Theme which is sort of the game finale. It's fantastic.

This thread has now floated wayyyyy over my head, perhaps gone to a different planet entirely, but I love how enthused you guys are about soundtracks.

ps. Might be retreading a conversation done to death, but how many of you shut down soundtracks in multiplayer games? Battlefield 1's soundtrack lasted about 3 days for me.

Just popped up in my news feed that Sega has dropped a whole bunch of game soundtracks onto Spotify. Just having a listen to Jet Set Radio in the office.

Kotaku UK there's a list of the tothers included...

Fantasy Zone
NiGHTS
Outrun
World Club Champion Football
Skies of Arcadia
Chain Chronicle
Shinobi
Kunoichi
Virtua Fighter
Virtua Fighter 2
Virtua Fighter 3
Virtua Fighter 4
Virtua Fighter 5
Space Harrier 2
Rhythm Thief and the Emperor's Treasure
Samurai Bloodshow
Gunblade NY & LA Machineguns
Alex Kidd
Power Drift
Sonic Unleashed
Golden Axe
Sonic Rush Adventure
Galaxy Force 2 and Thunder Blade
Super Hang-On
Sonic the Hedgehog
Sonic Rush

Thought might be of interest to some here...

I think they've been discussed previously but Square-Enix announced recently there's a 2017 Brass de Bravo (or Bra Bra for short) concert series in Japan:

Also, a 3rd album is coming out in March. Hopefully it hits iTunes like the other ones!

(Source)

So I run video game tunes as the background music for my podcast, but I tend to favor select franchises or games because they made a big impact on me. Squenix, Donkey Kong Country 1+2, Mega Man X, Super Metroid, these are basically some of my go-to's with some outliers like EarthBound or Metroid Prime. So I'm hoping to outsource to you guys to see if I can get some cool songs to use so I don't get repetitive.

Era I'm looking for is SNES/Genesis, Playstation/N64/Saturn, with maybe some GameCube/PS2/Xbox Original thrown in. Looking for ambient tracks or something upbeat but not overly so.

Here are examples of tunes I've used:

The first time I heard this, it made me laugh so hard. Genius!

ccesarano wrote:

So I run video game tunes as the background music for my podcast, but I tend to favor select franchises or games because they made a big impact on me. Squenix, Donkey Kong Country 1+2, Mega Man X, Super Metroid, these are basically some of my go-to's with some outliers like EarthBound or Metroid Prime. So I'm hoping to outsource to you guys to see if I can get some cool songs to use so I don't get repetitive.

Era I'm looking for is SNES/Genesis, Playstation/N64/Saturn, with maybe some GameCube/PS2/Xbox Original thrown in. Looking for ambient tracks or something upbeat but not overly so

My VGM knowledge is a bit rusty, but off the top my head, here are some that might fit the bill:

- Almost anything from the Ecco: Songs of Time soundtrack! (sorry for a YT link to the whole album, but I was getting frustrated attempting to find a video of the first track, Abyss, that was actually the correct track)

- You mentioned Squenix; how about Einhänder?, Most of the tracks are pretty intense, but there are a few that are a bit more subdued, such as Breakthrough, Zero Gravity, and Earthlight

- Radiant Silvergun! Although most of the tracks are rather vibrant, a few might be suitable (plus, it's hard to go wrong with Hitoshi Sakimoto!)

- From PS2 and full of ambient tracks, there's the R-Type Final soundtrack. It's possibly a bit obscure (not R-Type itself! but specifically Final's soundtrack), and some tracks may be a bit /too/ ambient, but there are lots of nice tracks there.

- Potentially up for some Amiga (or MS-DOS)? Turican II: The Final Fight has one of my favorite soundtracks. The Great Bath in particular comes to mind as a good ambient one with an upbeat feel, and there are others, too:

I hope that helps!

ccesarano wrote:

Era I'm looking for is SNES/Genesis, Playstation/N64/Saturn, with maybe some GameCube/PS2/Xbox Original thrown in. Looking for ambient tracks or something upbeat but not overly so.

Xenogears?

and of course the best final boss music ever (in the history of ever)

Actually you can basically pick anything Yasunori Mitsuda did in the SNES/PSOne era and I think it all fits the bill:

(One of my personal favorites from Chrono Cross)

EDIT: I forgot the best menu (elevator?) music ever

ccesarano wrote:

Squenix, Donkey Kong Country 1+2, Mega Man X, Super Metroid, these are basically some of my go-to's with some outliers like EarthBound or Metroid Prime. So I'm hoping to outsource to you guys to see if I can get some cool songs to use so I don't get repetitive.

Era I'm looking for is SNES/Genesis, Playstation/N64/Saturn, with maybe some GameCube/PS2/Xbox Original thrown in. Looking for ambient tracks or something upbeat but not overly so.

Well if you want some stuff that's new to you from the Squaresoft library during that time period, might I suggest looking at the OSTs for the games that never released here? I can't make any specific track recommendations off the top of my head but I strongly suggest seeking out the following games on YouTube when you've got a chance:

Live A Live - Yoko Shimomura before she did Mario RPG. Lots of different styles here due to the game's anthology nature.

Treasure Hunter G - Hitoshi Sakimoto and his crew did this somewhere between Tactics Ogre and FF Tactics.

SaGa Frontier 2 / Unlimited SaGa - If you like Masashi Hamauzu's work on FF XIII or Legend of Legacy you'll like these.

Front Mission - Yoko Shimomura and some others did this. Has a slick almost but not quite cyberpunk feel to some of the town themes. Also a great bar jazz piano theme.

Front Mission Gun Hazard - Uematsu and Mitsuda team up again after Chrono Trigger. Really good stuff.

(This one has a similar percussion pattern to Drowned Valley from Chrono Cross)

Seiken Densetsu 3 - Kenji Ito. I know you like Mana so you'll probably find something in here.

EDIT: Going to break the above theme and drop some Parasite Eve in here as well. So good.

ccesarano wrote:

Looking for ambient tracks

For ambient, maybe some of Another World. Cold Echo as an example...

ahrezmendi wrote:

Just wanted to note that this is one of my favorite video game tracks ever and it doesn't get enough love.

If you want a more obscure, overlooked corner of Squeenix I recommend the Brave Fencer Musashi soundtrack.

Man, this music brings back such memories. I love this game. This game has a lot of fun tracks, check out the whole OST!

If you're willing to go into the GameCube era, and you want music that's fun and upbeat, you simply must have the Paper Mario Thousand Year Door OST:

Also you mentioned Genesis but not the king of Genesis music, Sonic.

If you're okay with PS2 you gotta have these:

I have to stop now before I get all nostalgic.

For anyone living in or near Atlanta, the Cobb Energy Center will host The Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses on November 16th. If you're interested, you can find more about the performance here.