Let's share some game music

exodus

everybody loves that monkey chant - including meeeeeeeeee

◉◉maru

Hamauzu has gone insane in some of those FF7 remixes and new tracks. The stuff early on is rather faithful and predictable (which is not an issue in itself as the whole soundtrack is overall excellent) but then he gets really comfortable a bit later on and explores more original sounds. I assume he tackled the famous pieces first, which is why they are more conservative, and got both more creative and more confident into expressing his own style once he got to tackle the lesser known pieces.

Due Recompense and its battle variation below are not pieces most people would expect to hear in a mass-audience RPG willed into existence by a flock of adoring consumers wishing to relive their tween fantasies. (It’s also a nice trick that they blend into each other any time as a battle breaks out and concludes.)

Other notable stuff from the more experimental side of the soundtrack. A lot of these tracks are found around the same point in the game, visiting Wall Market. Unsurprisingly, it is also the part I liked the most about the game.

And here is a last one with a very Richard Jacques-y tribute since he was discussed here earlier.

I’ve read that Hamauzu got some help from Suzuki Mitsuto for the soundtrack but you can definitely recognize some of his early stuff in these more laid back tracks. I sometimes wish he hadn’t been absorbed in such a huge franchise and then perceived as a RPG composer because he clearly could tackled way more genres of video games.

MazoPanku

Some music for *happy campers*

exodus

Yeah, this FFVIIR stuff is cool - I like when folks find a way to play a bit with big franchises like these, sometimes it can lead to them having a bigger moment later. Like Keiichi Okabe, who was doing… pretty generic tekken stuff, but sometimes threw something interesting in there. then nier came along and he really got to show what he could do.

Though I guess in Hamauzu’s case he’s had plenty of experimentation opportunity with things like SaGa, so maybe this is his comfort zone?

JJSignal

While not quite a thrilling game by today’s standards, R.C. Robot Construction had a fantastic soundtrack.
The premise of the game was to construct battling robots with various parts affecting their mobility and ways to attack, then form teams and let the AI battle itself out. The soundtrack was composed by Masashi Kageyama who, prior to this, was the composer for GIMMICK! I first heard the music on AccelJoe’s youtube channel and tried the game out after that.

What’s wild is, Electric Sheep’s site is still up and has a little page for the game!
http://www.electricsheep.co.jp/rc.html
Looks like they even have a new Robot Construction game for mobile, now.

More recently with the PC Engine Mini, it made me aware of the music in Tengai Makyo 2 Manji Maru. Listening to the opening in its attract mode made me spring up and say to a colleague “Man, they’re heavily channeling into some Joe Hisaishi here…” As it turns out, he did compose the theme I was listening to! Because of course he did. This sound is unmistakable for him.

This opening theme gets me so chuffed. I’m ready for a wild journey.

The next one is from a Pinball game specifically, Dr. Dude. I really liked the main theme for it quite a bit (00:00-01:52).

gdri

T’s Music (company)

James-

gdri I love this so much.

ohfivepro

exodus

I’d never heard of Dirtfox, thanks! The scaling and rotation stuff in here is super fun. Not a superscaler but a super rotater? Dirtfox is a great name for a game, too.

Figured I’d share a little of Katsuhiro Hayashi’s PC Engine output. Somehow he would put one AMAZING song into a soundtrack, surrounded by a bunch that were just alright.

This terraforming song is absolutely tops. The rest of the soundtrack is fine.

Then we’ve got this track from hihou densetsu.

my opinion: get Hayashi doing jazz fusion all day long and leave the rest alone.

JJSignal

Aah, that Hihou Densetsu one is really good.

For something jazzy, I’m reminded of the music of MaBoShi Arcade Wiiware game. The game itself is pretty addictive, but the music and sound make it feel very satisfying. Especially Bar None.

The menu music made the game sound more serious and intense than it actually was (it kinda could get a little intense, though, and did a good job with that by having CPU mii’s compete a long side you if no one else was around to play)

The whole soundtrack is really good in general, and there were even DS variants, as it had a mode that let you connect your DS to download a version of their games with more simplistic graphics and music.

exodus

I’m definitely into these! Especially the first one. Music is pretty cool.

exodus

I don’t love the Vasteel soundtrack these days, but at the time I think it’s part of what got me into light jazz/fusion stuff back in the mid 90s. Still like this song quite a bit

the soundtrack is kind of all over the place, with bits of electronic fusion, some regular game music stuff, and then a few tracks that were clearly meant to evoke a kind of Lupin situation, like this one:

gdri

Katsuhiro Hayashi and Koichi Namiki worked on Virtual Open Tennis (Saturn), so it’s no surprise “9H_08” sounds like something from Galaxy Force. https://www.zophar.net/music/sega-saturn-ssf/virtual-open-tennis (Unfortunately, there’s nothing on Youtube.)

Renfrew

I played Xenogears for the first time a few years ago and the song One Who Bears Fangs at God latched onto my mind and still hasn’t let go. Listening to it a bunch on YouTube led me to find these awesome guys.

James-

Renfrew The whole Xenogears soundtrack really does the trick for me. I don’t know if it’s the fact that it’s a relatively limited number of songs for the massive length of the game or what, but they stick in my mind in a way 75% of the soundtrack from any given Final Fantasy fails to do.

That is an amazing version of that song.

Renfrew

James- yeah, the whole soundtrack is really something special. Most video game music doesn’t really have any impact on me, but I do think just about the entire Xenogears soundtrack, small as it is, is quite beautiful and really elevates the game.

Whenever video game music gets brought up, I also like to Troy out this one. I think I first heard it in a very early selectbutton music thread. I don’t really know anything about the game, but this song does some mind bending stuff.

robokick

fortninety I love this bit about Frost Walrus too. I think the only Mega Man game to do that again was Mega Man 10. Wily Stage 1 starts like this:

Then after you beat the mini-boss it kicks into gears and I just love it:

I came to appreciate the X series more after the two recent collections were released, though I still prefer the Classic series. The X series introduces new music styles to the series that really excite me. My favorite is probably this MMX5’s Tidal Makkoeen stage theme, which is a remix of Bubble Crab from MMX2. I don’t recall the series ever “remixing” a stage theme like this before:

Pasokon Deacon

Nitta and Sasai’s work on Xak II is excellent, but especially cool when arranged for Redbook CD audio. They took a lot of risks with adding some comic touches and campy elements to these tracks which sounded great in FM-synth already.

◉◉maru

@Pasokon Deacon Speaking of MicroCabin, if you could share the soundtrack of the FM Towns version of Genei Toshi / Illusion CIty, that’d be swell! Either FM or MIDI (why not both?). It’s my favorite MicroCabin game, via the Mega-CD version. Not the most memorable soundtrack, but it does have a few killer tunes (notably the “Home” theme in TienRen’s flat).

You can easily find the MSX soundtrack.

You can easily find the PC-98 soundtrack.

But no luck regarding the FM Towns soundtrack.

Pasokon Deacon

◉◉maru I did some snooping around and found Illusion City for FM Towns, which has no added CD audio. It’s basically the same music as in the PC-98 version, which makes sense given that Takeru published basically the same port across PC-98, X68000, and FM Towns. So, unlike some other Micro Cabin games which got new CD soundtracks on FM Towns, Illusion City’s basically unchanged.

JJSignal

I began to play Shining Wisdom on the Saturn a year or two ago. Was always curious about it because I would frequently see the box art while passing the games section in Toys ‘R’ Us, and really dug how it looked. Unfortunately the game didn’t look quite as cool. It did sound really cool, though, especially this song that plays when you first exit your home.

Lazy and playful. Really into the cold sounding bell? I’m not sure what that sound is, but I love it when I hear it in things.

Another fun starting-area related song that frequently gets stuck in my head, and also includes a handful of sounds I really like, is the OPNA version of, Morning, in Grounseed for the PC-98. Ryu Umemoto’s sound is so unforgettable.

The finger snap and vocal “uhn” are so good.

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