mediocre games with slamming soundtracks

NoJoTo

I actually haven’t played most of the games I listen to music from, so I’m going of what I’ve heard or assumptions… hopefully none of these are good games:

about half of alpha’s channel probably fits this thread

seasons

NoJoTo yeah DD crew hasn’t aged well but the soundtrack is fun. My head was bobbin up and down to this while mindlessly dropkicking everything.

As much as I like the genre, beat em ups might be a good source for this thread.

gdri

I suppose some would call Guardian War for 3DO mediocre…

exodus

◉◉maru yeah, wow, they really are trying to make final fantasy here! the game has gotten quite pricey lately, so I guess somebody (collectors) found a reason to care.

@autoNamed this is good! but doesn’t fit the brief since as you say Advance Wars is not mediocre :o better served by the “let’s listen to some game music” thread or whatever it’s called.

the rest of these are indeed definitely mediocre, though I think some people like Air Race (and I’m not sure about Hot Chase either… and I’m pretty sure Emergency Call Ambulance is a mess but legit). Still, good tracks here

ahodori

Centre Court Tennis was a Hudson Soft game that released in PAL and JP only, so it’s probably just obscure, not mediocre. But I definitely think the quality of Hayato Matsuo’s soundtrack is out of proportion:

exodus

This entire youtube channel seems to be exactly this, as I discovered while trying to look up the entire devicerein soundtrack (I can’t find it). https://www.youtube.com/user/GundamExiaSetsuna/videos

just chilling through this whole uploads playlist here, with tracks like this:

(There are some legit games in here too of course, but quite a lot that fit the brief)

fugazi57

exodus alpha’s channel rulesssssss

rejj

I think a great example of this for me (sorry to move away from the older console soundtracks) is the game AirMech. It is a thoroughly … ok … mech tactical combat whatever game, but the soundtrack is amazing.

The soundtrack is entirely composed by one of my favourite industrial bands, Front Line Assembly. Here’s the title screen music

It’s a bit of a slow burn, but give it until at least 2m 05s if you cue it up.

..or just listen to the whole dang soundtrack. I love it.

or on bandcamp, if you prefer that:
also on apple music, probably on spotify, etc etc

exodus

How did these people get Front Line Assembly!? money or blood relation would be my guess.

captain

Now that the pandora’s box of modern stuff has been opened:

I suppose the purpose of this thread is to bring to light stuff which few have heard of, and everyone’s heard of Akira Yamaoka. Hmmm. Still if you like me enjoy the A.Y. sound and have also like me never played Silent Hill Homecoming this may be for you.

SHADOWS OF THE DAMNED & SILENT HILL: HOMECOMING

Fudging the rules even further but this provides an opportunity to talk about one track from Castlevania Lords of Shadow 2:

The rest of the OST is pretty disappointing. The first LoS soundtrack teetered on the edge of Generic Lord of the Rings Ripoff but I felt it was able to get away with it most of the time. LoS2 on the other hand is pretty boring and falls into the WHOA DUDE EPIC sound more than its predecessor. “Titanic Struggle” starts off pretty Zimmer-like, but around 1:20 what I can’t quite identify as arpeggios or runs start up in the violins, and a synth arpeggiator comes in around 2:10; from there I feel the juxtaposition of those elements makes for a satisfying listen. This track plays when you hover over the launch icon in the PS3 menu—when I really started disliking the game the more I played it I would stay on that menu longer and longer…

the only reason anyone should look at the game in 2021.

(Persona 5, 3DS Fire Emblems)

2501

Deep Labyrinth, a quirky but not amazing DS game (adapted from a cell phone game), is most notable for having one of the better Yasunori Mitsuda soundtracks of the 2000s (and a surprisingly raw story by Masato Kato):

Speaking of 00s Mitsuda tracks - I would not exactly call the first two Xenosaga games “good” but the first one had Mitsuda composing for the London Philharmonic Orchestra (!!!) and the second one had Yuki Kajiura doing the cutscene music:

And another DS game scored by Squaresoft royalty: Heroes of Mana may have been all but literally broken as a game, but it had one of the GOAT Yoko Shimomura OSTs:

kory

connrrr I stumbled upon that first Opoona track you posted years ago as part of some Soundcloud mix and listening to it has become one of my most consistently joyful experiences since then. I actually went and bought a sealed copy of this game just so I could some day experience it in context, but the more I think about it the more I realize I might be ok just enjoying its understated beauty on its own.

It was around this same time that I discovered the OST for Musashi Samurai Legend, a game I know absolutely nothing about and confidently assume is mediocre. These two tracks, specifically, evoke that same wistful joy for me:

connrrr

kory I felt so turned off by that game’s cover art when it came out, it’s gotta be Nomura at his most unhinged.

But those sure are cozy little tracks! I love Masashi Hamauzu.

Punzai

I think you could argue that most British game composers spent their entire 1980s careers doing amazing soundtracks for mediocre games.

I used to listen to David Whitaker’s Glider Rider soundtrack on pause and not play the, slightly boring, game.

Tim Follin seemed to be drawn to mediocre games. His Spectrum 1-bit music he did when he was 16 was remarkable. None of these games are up to much and really don’t deserve what he was doing with a tiny speaker and no sound chip.

Chronos:

Agent-X:

exodus

100% on the early british computer games. that scene was fantastic for music and I feel like in some ways that’s what keeps the games in people’s minds. I’d never heard this spectrum stuff he did, so thanks for that!

copySave

Yeah those European Amiga and C64 soundtracks can slam. Never know when you’re going to stumble upon greatness when exploring their libraries.
Take this C64 Batman game where I can’t get past the first screen.

TFX barely works on the Amiga but holy crap that music

And while I like Turrican, it is pretty mediocre but the music by Chris Huelsbeck is amazing

I’ve already mentioned this in another thread but Midnight Resistance is worth another post

gsk

Midnight Resistance is a Data East joint, but given how popular the micro conversions were, I guess it can claim dual citizenship.

The Mega Drive port’s audio was handled by Hitoshi Sakimoto, and one of the commonly-held untruths about the port in Japan is that it used a custom chip for enhanced audio, but it’s just Sakimoto’s custom “terpsichorean” sound driver (and, true to the topic of this thread, it was almost entirely wasted on thoroughly average games and conversions).

kory

Thank you @NoJoTo and @exodus for introducing me to alpha, this is a real treasure trove of chill beats to work to on this fine Sunday morning! My previous go-to for this kind of playlist was SupraDarky’s excellent “Relaxin’ with SD”

NoJoTo

kory SupraDarky’s cool, but tends to do stuff less obscure than alpha. (SupraDarky introduced me to Ridge Racer Type 4’s soundtrack, though, so that’s not a complaint).

Shaneus

Super Adventure Island, the thread?

TheBeigeKnight

I see someone already covered Mystic Quest, so I’ve got another one to drop. This one is a bit interesting; X-Kaliber 2097, a side-scrolling action platformer for the SNES that is mid at best, with a very forgettable soundtrack.

However! In Japan it is known by the far more awesome title Sword Maniac and has music by none other than Hitoshi Sakimoto of FF Tactics fame and Hayato Matsuo who worked on many title including FF 12 and Shenmue.

Definitely worth a listen in my opinion, so pretty funky tracks in there!

« Previous Page Next Page »