Shadowgate on the NES had great music. It was creepy in all the right places.
Oh, totally!
Chrono Cross is one of the best games of all time and the music plays a huge role in that. I still listen to it.
I wish they had re-recorded it with an orchestra and actual live instruments.
You’d have to have been asleep when The Getaway was released to have missed the ad campaign. There were TV spots that appeared to be actual news reports about how London had become a warzone with Yardies running around everywhere spraying everyone with Tec-9s, full-page ads in almost every magazine in sight (I remember seeing it in* TIME, Maxim, Stuff* and Car & Driver)… Never played it, though. Didn’t have a PS2.
I know I’m always going on about F-Zero in the console threads, but the second track (Big Blue) had a terrific theme. I must not be alone in thinking so, because there are dozens of YouTube videos of people playing the song on guitar.
There were tons of Amiga games with awesome music - Apidya had some great early-90s style electronica, Shadow of the Beast had great music, although it sounds a bit dated now, and Lotus Turbo Challenge in its various incarnations had the best music of all. (downloadable tracks from tons of Amiga games are available here, although you’ll need the .ogg codec).
Super Metroid and Metroid: Prime had great atmospheric stuff. I’m particularly fond of the opening theme from Metroid Prime; I just wish they’d done more with it.
Loaded for the PS1, a vastly underappreciated Gauntlet-style shooter, had a bunch of original tracks by Pop Will Eat Itself that ended up being the basis of Dos Dedos Mis Amigos, which was their last real album. 'Course, if you don’t like PWEI, and apparently lots of people don’t, you won’t like the soundtrack.
The Instinct, the opening theme from Killer Instinct, is probably my fave video game “piece” ever. It’s a bit cheesy with very anime-sounding flourishes at the end of each bar but otherwise it’s a brilliant piece of synth-rock.
If you really like videogame music you’ll love OverClocked ReMix, which provides free hosting for remixes of video game music of all kinds. There are some truly brilliant musicians posting stuff there.
Add me to the list of Chrono Cross and Final Fantasy soundtrack lovers!
FF fans, have you heard the Black Mages’ stuff? It’s Nobuo Uematsu (the composer) and a full backing orchestra doing rock versions of songs from the game. I highly reccommend “Those Who Fight Further (Battle Theme From FFVII)”.
Just gonna chime back in here with a few comments.
Mega Man 2 has simply the best music ever for the NES. The band I was a member of in college covered Crashman and Dr Wily Stage themes. Shadowgate also has some great NES music (as does Uninvited, a similar game), as well as my favorite OC Remix of all time (it takes about a minute to get going to the recognizable part, but trust me on this one…it’s a great example of how you can take a simple 8-bit tune and turn it into something totally crazy). Enough cannot be said for Chrono Trigger’s soundtrack (the composer was 22 years old when he wrote, which really gave me a reality hit as I was 22 when I discovered this), but the Brink of Time album is a must-have listen - it takes 13 songs from the game and arranges them as Acid Jazz … Chrono Corridor (the floating continent theme) is one of my favorite arrangements EVER.
I LOVE the Black Mages! You can really tell that the composer is living out his dream.
I’m the same way, the soundtrack is amazing. I love this video, with Miyamoto bopping along to the orchestra.
I don’t like drum n’ bass generally but that is cool.
You know that one tune from Metroid 2? It’s been intermittently running through my head for years now.
I rarely notice video game music.
But the one that’s always stood out and made me love it was the funky drums and scratches from ToeJam and Earl. I could just leave that game on and do something else easily to it.
Homeworld had some truly extraordinary music - the thing that made the scene where your homeworld gets attacked is made genuinely gut-wrenching through the use of a really great cover of Barber’s “Adagio for Strings”.
I’m gonna chime in with another vote for Final Fantasy VI. It’s still the only VG soundtrack for which I’ve paid good money to import and buy. The way Celes’ and Locke’s themes mingle in the final song is just epic.
There’s a pretty fantastic remix of the main theme with dual electric guitars, called “Terra in Black,” up for listen on OC ReMix.
Of course, anything by Yasunori Mitsuda (Chrono Trigger/Cross, Xenogears) gets full props in my book. I’ve still got “Emotion,” the overworld theme to Xenogears, as one of my ringtones.
And I guess I’m unique in that I prefer the songs in Mega Man 3 to any other in that series - the title theme especially. Maybe I just have a thing for Protoman…
ETA: Forgot to mention: the remix album for Xenogears, called ‘Creid,’ has a song of the same name that features beautiful vocals, strings, and oboe (I think) making up what is still the most beautiful song I’ve ever heard.
If you dig Final Fantasy and video game music, check out THIS guy, he tours the geek conventions doing piano renditions of game/anime music.
You said more than you probably realized. Metroid 2 only has one tune. Once you beat the first section, the rest of the game is ambiance, game-boy style, rather than music.
Great, now that tune is in MY head too!
I remember it. It was a pretty fun game, I thought.
The game Outlaws has one of my favorite soundtracks ever. It’s kind of like Ennio Morricone’s spaghetti western scores.
And I just discovered it’s freely available online!
This brings back memories. I’d been thinking of buying the game again on eBay to get the soundtrack since I lost mine years ago.
My favorite tracks and the ones I’d recommend checking out are:
Outlaws, the main theme
Sanctuary, which starts slow but picks up at 1:33
Anna’s Theme, which is beautiful. Anna is the main characters wife and was killed at the beginning of the game
Sanchez the Outlaw
Showdown
There are some other good ones too. There are also several that are more ambient, like The Shack, which is creepy.
Oh, this is great. I was looking to see if anyone ripped the cutscenes from Outlaws and put them online, and sure enough, someone has.
It’s a wmv file that’s over 170 mb and clocks in at 23 minutes and 23 seconds, but hopefully someone will watch it because it’s great even if some parts haven’t aged too well. It has one of the best villain death scenes ever, beginning at 13:15.
Here’s a link to a link to the file.
[/hijack]
All three of my husband’s faves were mentioned in the first two posts! I completely agree on FF4. Not yet mentioned is Earthbound, my pet favorite video game, which spawned a huge remix project found here.
I’ll always love Sonic (botht he old sonic and the newer music), Zelda (Twilight Princess sountrack is actually inspiring my composition for music theory somewhat), and Megaman (especially the theme for Megaman 3).
That was pretty awesome.
sniffle