The obligatory "What are your favorite video game soundtracks" thread!

Anything else goes here that doesn't fit in the first two categories.
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ripwfdopplr
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Post by ripwfdopplr »

I noticed Comix Zone was a part of a few people's lists...seriously? I thought that music was AWFUL! And i've listened to EVERY soundtrack that project2612 has to offer (this is an amazing resource btw)... I wont list my favs just yet, but i was just wondering why so many people dig that OST...i've seen it listed on other forums as well...idk, maybe i need to give it another listen...or maybe you guys like it 'cause you like the game? And while i'm on the topic, i think a thread about 'worst soundtracks' would be pretty interesting...maybe...the lists would probably be too big :D

for now, here are games with soundtracks that i was fortunate enough to be exposed to while growing up (in no particular order):

Mega Man 2 and 3 (NES)
Sonic 1 & 2 (MD)
Final Fantasy 2 and 3 (4 and 6-JPN) (SNES)
Secret of Mana (SNES)
Soulblazer (SNES)
Illusion of Gaia (SNES)
Sim City (SNES)
World of Illusion (MD)
Donkey Kong Country 2 (SNES)
LOZ: A Link to the Past (SNES)
Little Nemo (NES)
Castlevania 4 (SNES)
Final Fantasy 7 (PSX)
Chrono Trigger (SNES)
Streets of Rage 1 and 2 (MD)
Breath of Fire 3 and 4 (PSX)
Metroid 3 (SNES)

...many more to include later...i'd say the only game i wished i had played when i was a kid was Mother 2...i watched a friend play it a few times but just thought it was kinda weird and didn't realize how amazing it was until i finally played and beat the ROM when i was 24 years old!
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Ravenfreak
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Post by Ravenfreak »

I have many favorites and here they are in no particular order:
Legend of Legaia- PSX
Mega Man X4- PSX
Mega Man X5- PSX
Mega Man X1- SNES
Mega Man X3- SNES/PSX
Sonic 3 & Knuckles
Sonic 2
Sonic 4 (yes I actually love the soundtrack, I know many people have complained about it but I think it's good. xP)
Mega Man 8 both PSX and Saturn (I personally like the Saturn version a bit more, but Grenade Man's stage sounds better on the PSX version.)
Mega Man Legends
Mega Man X8
Mega Man X7
Mega Man Battle & Chase
Tomb Raider
Rayman Advance (I personally like this version better than the PSX. But I love that version too.)
These are the main ones that stand out, I have tons more but I think my post is long enough. xP
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Dark Pulse
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Post by Dark Pulse »

Ravenfreak wrote:I have many favorites and here they are in no particular order:
Legend of Legaia- PSX
Mega Man X4- PSX
Mega Man X5- PSX
Mega Man X1- SNES
Mega Man X3- SNES/PSX
Sonic 3 & Knuckles
Sonic 2
Sonic 4 (yes I actually love the soundtrack, I know many people have complained about it but I think it's good. xP)
Mega Man 8 both PSX and Saturn (I personally like the Saturn version a bit more, but Grenade Man's stage sounds better on the PSX version.)
Mega Man Legends
Mega Man X8
Mega Man X7
Mega Man Battle & Chase
Tomb Raider
Rayman Advance (I personally like this version better than the PSX. But I love that version too.)
These are the main ones that stand out, I have tons more but I think my post is long enough. xP
I can agree with quite a number of these, mostly the Sonic and Megaman games. Mega Man Legends 2 is also underrated. (Yosyonke Village's song tends to pop into my head when I think of snow, along with SaGa Frontier II's "Naturvolk".)

Nice to see another Legend of Legaia fan. Underrated soundtrack. "Sol Tower" and lots of the battle themes being my favorites. Legaia 2's soundtrack was good, too, with some good enhanced reworks of songs from the original, including the aforementioned Sol Tower, but also some new tracks like "Inaccessible Road" and "Lost Forest."

...Mmm, I should really try to beat it one of these days. Started it, got stuck, never finished it. Have to dig up my copy.

To add a few more soundtracks to my already long list... which, of course, doesn't count the one extra soundtrack I've already added...

- Borderlands (PC) - Great soundtrack through and through. One of my favorite songs is "Trash the Bandits Some More" which is Track 18 on the game's official OST, or if you've played the game, the song that plays while you fight Crimson Lance in Old Haven. Other good songs include the main song that plays through most of DLC1, Jakobs Cove, as well as a set of five songs in DLC2, Mad Moxxie's Underdome Riot:Some deliciously raw, dirty synth in those. I love it. Especially prevalent on the Boss Wave.

- Shadow Hearts I & II (PS2) - Goddammit, does Yoshitaka Hirota really need to get more work. Were I a producer in charge of some project that needed it, I would absolutely call on him. "NDE - Near Death Experience" is an epic battle theme for the Europe sections of the game, as was the mid-boss desperation theme - the interestingly-named "Sicking Fucking." The sequel follows this up with an even more awesome one called "Vicious ~ Europe 1915." The Japan section battle theme is different but good in its own way - "Deep in Coma." Battle themes should be required by law to be this good. Finally, there's also some lighter, nicer songs in the soundtrack - in Shadow Hearts I you get "Coffee with Bullet" (which is actually a song by co-composer Yasunori Mitsuda - yes, THAT Yasunori Mitsuda) and in Shadow Hearts II, later on you get "Anastasia -Going Her Way- ~ The Imperial Princess's Adventure" which has SaGa series scribe Kenji Ito doing some guest duties. If you like the Persona games' settings, definitely consider giving the first two a look, but you may want to skip the third - not by the same composer, and they drastically lightened the tone of the games.

- Odin Sphere (PS2) - Hitoshi Sakimoto has always been a favorite composer of mine. In addition to doing the Legaia 2 tracks above (a game he co-composed along with Yasunori Mitsuda and Legaia 1 composer Michiru Oshima), Odin Sphere is just a pure work of brilliance. Nintendo-hard game, but the sprites are some of the finest I've ever seen, as one would expect from George Kamitani and Vanillaware. As for the songs? The game's main theme, "Odin Sphere Theme", almost never fails to not get me to water up in the eyes, though that may have to do with me understanding the lyrics. A translation:
Imagine the angels singing,
the voice of the wind passes, passes
the silver horizon.

Imagine the wind humming,
think and then dream, dream.
and then remember.

Let yourself be rocked
by the vastness.
Fall asleep in the dreams,
fly towards the sky,
fall asleep in the dreams, dreams,
look at the butterflies flying to the moon
In Arabesque whirls.

Let yourself be rocked
by the vastness.
Fall asleep in the dreams,
and remember that one loves life, life, life...
If this doesn't move you, you're less of a softie than I am, that's for sure.

- Fate/stay night and Fate/hollow ataraxia (PC, also a censored PS2 port) - I've been a fan of Type-Moon for awhile now, but I've only recently begun playing this. The soundtracks are credited to "Number 201", which is the duo of James Harris and Keita Haga. They're not names most people will recognize, but they do some damn good soundtracks. In Fate/stay night there's tunes like "Mayonaka no Hazama" (During the Dead of Night) being the perfect thing to be slinking around at night to, "Kogane no Ou" (King of Gold) being a great theme for a certain antagonist, and "Arashi no Yokan" (Premonition of a Storm) being a good tune for "Shit's about to go down!" Then there's sadder songs that move me in a similar way to Odin Sphere's Theme above, like "Kie nai Omoi" (Ever-Present Feeling) for its unbridled bell-inducing sadness. Finally, there's the "Time to kick your ass" bits like "EMIYA" and its arranged version in Fate/hollow ataraxia, "EMIYA #2." Soundtracks like these are why I like the Visual Novel format a hell of a lot - moving your audience with words is a good thing, but being able to do it with visual, sound, and all... that makes it so much better, so much more memorable, than just mere, plain text. If I had an artist, I'd probably be writing one, in fact.

Anyway, while the number of soundtracks I gave in this post are few, I gave a lot of song examples via Youtube links, and in the case of the Borderlands DLC oggs, ripping them directly from my copy of the game itself. I'll stop here because this post is nearly as long as my original, and because I can't really find good ways to edit my thoughts into a nice, less-block-of-text manner.

...Well, actually, I can, it's just that I'm too lazy right now. Some other time, perhaps.
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WizardTheme
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Post by WizardTheme »

To keep this from going over any text limits I'll try to keep it to the ones I still frequently listen to outside of their respective games.

GENESIS:
Phantasy Star IV
Dungeons & Dragons: Warriors of The Eternal Sun
Ecco: The Tides of Time
Golden Axe 1-3
Sword of Vermillion

The D&D soundtrack is really underrated. In particular the song I got my username from is awesome. :D The second and third Golden Axes are sort of underrated, too--I usually only see people praising the first one, but the music from the sequels is much more listenable outside of playing the games. The Sega CD CDDA version of the GA1 soundtrack (from the 5-in-1 Sega Arcade Classics) is pretty interesting but somehow loses the charm of YM2612 version. Sword of Vermillion is a great soundtrack to fall asleep to, very relaxing.


SNES:
Chrono Trigger
Radical Dreamers
Illusion of Gaia
Jurassic Park 2: The Chaos Continues

I'm pretty sure the first two are obligatory, Illusion of Gaia is another great fall-asleep-to soundtrack, and JP2 is a seemingly unknown gem--in particular "Dark Jungle" stands out. I think I found it in one of the hordes of VG music channels in my subscriptions (does anyone else find new game music this way?).


SEGA CD:
Ecco The Dolphin
Lunar: The Silver Star

Ecco had an all-new CDDA soundtrack. If you listen real close you might notice some similarites with the cartridge soundtrack, but for the most part it was its own thing and was actually a bit better than that one, IMO. Not so sure about the Ecco 2 CDDA. Lunar had some amazing music that was unfortunately SCRAPPED in the PSX remake. No idea if it was readded/remixed in the recent PSP version, but it seems unlikely since that one is based on the PSX remake as well.


NES:
Mega Man 1-3 <-- ultra-obligatory
Tecmo World Wrestling
Solomon's Key
Batman

My main problem with NES soundtracks is that maybe 90% of them are inconsistent, thus, unlistenable as albums. They always have a few great (sometimes absurdly great) songs and then a bunch of filler. A glaring omission for me would be the Castlevanias, since I'm a huge CV fan. The problem with those soundtracks is that the songs have become so iconic that it's hard to listen to them outside of a game setting.


PSX:
Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain
Chrono Cross
Tekken 1-3

I don't believe an official OST for Blood Omen exists, nor a PSF set and it doesn't use CDDA. I had to rip the XA audio from the disc, though I don't think it's the complete soundtrack. Meh... If anyone happens to have a full soundtrack or wants the tracks I have, let me know. Other than that, Chrono Cross is obligatory and Tekken 2 had the best soundtrack of the series, IMO. And after 3 it was all downhill.


NINTENDO 64:
F-Zero X

Yep, thats it. The soundtrack is awesome though. It's like a heavy/power/death metal hybrid. Though the deathy vocals on some tracks get annoying after a while (too repetitive).


Overall I listen to YM2612 stuff the most, and in general when there's a soundtrack I like that has ports on other systems I still prefer the Genesis versions. :D
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Dark Pulse
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Post by Dark Pulse »

I'll throw in some comments and suggestions of my own. Odds are some of these are probably repeated... but meh, oh well.

WizardTheme wrote:GENESIS:
Phantasy Star IV
Dungeons & Dragons: Warriors of The Eternal Sun
Golden Axe 1-3
PS4 was probably one of the first RPGs I ever played (I'm pretty sure Shining Force II was the actual first) and I remember that for the love of me, I could not defeat Zio. To be fair, I was no older than nine or ten when I was trying this, and that's decently far into the game. Very good music, though, and I remembered quite a few songs from it, until years later when emulators began to become commonplace. And of course, now the internet has us and Youtube. :p

D&D: I agree that this was underrated. I didn't play the game too much, but tune I remembered the best was "Azcan Wander." Interesting little tune...

Golden Axe: Obviously, 3 sounds the best - shame it was only a Japan release. Playing as the "Thundercat" was fun. :p Too bad the second one was nothing like the second Arcade one...

Recommendations:

Probably anything I ripped, I like. :p The full list of what I've contributed to Project2612 is as follows. I'll bold some games for particular emphasis as among my real, all-time favorites, and worth listening to if you're not familiar with them - and even if you are:

Ballz
Beyond Oasis
Crossfire
Cyborg Justice
DecapAttack
Devilish
Donald Duck in Maui Mallard
Earthworm Jim 1 & 2
Gemfire
Gunstar Heroes
Jurassic Park
Light Crusader
Mutant League Football
Nightmare Circus
Outrunners
Phantasy Star IV
Pulseman (He's our mascot - you'd better!)
Ristar - The Shooting Star
Road Rash 3
Shadowrun
Shining Force II
Skitchin'
Sonic 3 & Knuckles
Sonic 3D Blast
Sparkster (Rocket Knight Adventures II)
Super Thunder Blade
Streets of Rage 1-3
The Adventures of Batman and Robin

WizardTheme wrote:SNES:
Chrono Trigger
Radical Dreamers
Illusion of Gaia
CT/RD: Of course they're required. Some would also argue IoG is. Some other SNES games you may want to look into, if you're up for recommendations:

Civilization
Equinox
Plok!

Sky Blazer
Spider-Man & X-Men: Arcade's Revenge
Sutte Hakkun
Tetris Attack
The Ninja Warriors

I took the benefit of bolding anything by Tim/Geoff Follin.

WizardTheme wrote:SEGA CD:
Lunar: The Silver Star
I'll throw in one more: Lunar 2. Granted, I never had a Sega CD... but I do own the PS1 Enhanced remake, Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete.

WizardTheme wrote:NES:
Mega Man 1-3 <-- ultra-obligatory
Tecmo World Wrestling
Batman
Agreed on all of these. Impressive to find someone else who knows about Tecmo World Wrestling. And I'll definitely agree on Batman - one of my favorite soundtracks.

A few more to look into, ranging from the known to the unknown:

Akumajou Densetsu (Castlevania 3, Japanese version - Has a VRCVII chip, the US one doesn't)
Erika to Satoru no Yume Bouken
Lagrange Point
Magician
Ninja Gaiden I-III (But mostly Part II)
Sweet Home
Terminator 2 - Another bit of Follin goodness
Whomp 'Em

WizardTheme wrote:PSX:
Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain
Chrono Cross
Tekken 1-3
I'll agree on all of these, but I'll STRONGLY disagree on Tekken 3 - one of my favorites. I will hold that after Tekken 3 it went to hell, though - I only liked two tracks out of Tekken 4, one or two on Tekken 5, and I've yet to play Tekken 6...

More recommendations? Sure, why not? To make things easier, I'll just select stuff that has a PSF set handy. I'll also assume you'll listen to stuff like Final Fantasy 7-9; those are givens.

Ape Escape
Breath of Fire IV
Jade Cocoon - Story of the Tamamayu
Legend of Dragoon
Legend of Legaia
Parasite Eve
Persona (And all of Persona 2's variants)
Racing Lagoon
SaGa Frontier II
Shadow Madness
Threads of Fate (AKA Dew Prism)
Tomba!
Vagrant Story
Valkyrie Profile
Xenogears

WizardTheme wrote:NINTENDO 64:
F-Zero X
Hampered a bit by my lack of N64 experience, but here's a few:

Magical Tetris Challenge (Disney-themed or not, the music's *GOOD!* Plus it's still Tetris Attack, of course...)
Mario Kart 64
Mario Party 1
Starfox 64
Super Smash Bros.
Tetrisphere

...Well, that's... what, my third recommendations post in this thread now? Sheeze...
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PlayerWM86
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Re: The obligatory "What are your favorite video game soundt

Post by PlayerWM86 »

:sonic: In no particular order: :sonic:

Genesis/32X
-Sonic series
-Streets of Rage series
-Shinobi series
-Golden Axe series
-Columns series
-Alisia Dragoon
-El Viento
-Cosmic Spacehead
-Galaxy Force II
-Super Hang-On
-OutRun series (excludes OutRunners)
-Super Monaco GP series
-Vectorman series
-Ristar
-Ecco series
-California Games
-Greendog
-Jewel Master
-Trouble Shooter Vintage
-Knuckles' Chaotix
-Zaxxon's Motherbase 2000
-Tempo

Nintendo 64:
-Blast Corps
-Ridge Racer 64
-Fighters Destiny series

Game Boy/Advance:
-Battle Arena Toshinden
-King of Fighters '95
-Killer Instinct
-Tetris Attack
-Tetris Blast
-Sonic Advance series

PlayStation: 1, 2 & 3:
-Tekken series
-Battle Arena Toshinden series
-Ridge Racer series
-Namco Museum halls/rooms
-Gran Turismo series
-Sonic series
-Pac-Man World series
-Burnout series (starting with 3: Takedown)
-Need for Speed: Underground (1 and 2)
-Virtua Fighter series

Arcade:
-Cruis'n series
-San Francisco Rush series
-Daytona USA/SEGA Racing Classic series

That's all I can think of right now...
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