Best video game composers

[Darth Canoli]

Posting in the gayest thread of April 2019.

I have to agree.

Where the fuck is Ralph Thomas ? (Dark Sun, Fantasy General ... )

 

[DraQ]

There are multiple great choices possible here:

• Kiril Pokrovsky (RIP)
• Alexander Brandon & Michiel van den Bos (I list them together because thanks to all the great Unreal engine games they melded together to form a single entity in my mind)
• Frank Klepacki (for old Westwood stuff)
• Mark Morgan

I would probably rate the first two options higher when forced to choose, but I see one newer, yet very strong contender missing:

• Gareth Coker (the guy who made Ori and The Blind Forest soundtrack).

 

[Astral Rag]

No Russell Shaw?





Kevin Manthei?



Andrew Sega?

 

[The_Mask]

 

[alyvain]

I think Andreas Waldetoft who does shit for Paradox doesn't get enough credit

 

[Dorateen]

George Alistair Sanger, also known as "The Fat Man", composed music for the Gold Box games, as well as the intro to Might & Magic III

https://synthbard.bandcamp.com/track/pools-of-darkness

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Also the Deus Ex duo of Brandon and van den Bos.

...with extra tracks by Dan Gardopee and Reeves Gabrels (yes, the one who worked with David Bowie).

Although here's a funny anecdote. A few years ago I played kill.switch (one of the early examples of cover-based cancer, but fast-paced enough and with decent AI to be considered as a decent novelty) and couldn't help but notice that two tracks sound too similar.



I asked Kevin Manthei about this and according to his response they just took one of the samples from the same sample library.

 

[Black]

Ugh, so few mentions

 

[PorkBarrellGuy]

What was it with Westwood giving their RTS titles such amazing fucking soundtracks? God damn.

 

[luj1]

 

[DJOGamer PT]

Jeremy Soule is overrated.

While there are a lot of OST's I love, their composers unfortunately most times don't produce music with that level of quality. So those tracks are single instances of decency in a list of unforgettable work

That's why I only voted for Koji Kondo. He is the only composer in that list (and that I can remember off the top of my head) that consistently puts out excellent OST's.
Any OST from the Zelda games he worked on wipes the floor with 99% of RPG OST's, it's a shame he has so little votes.
of the Codex I guess.











And so many others tracks, along with his work on other games

 

[aweigh]

poll listing is just random names with no real japanese composers in it????

i don't get it

 

[DraQ]

Jeremy Soule is overrated.

While there are a lot of OST's I love, their composers unfortunately most times don't produce music with that level of quality. So those tracks are single instances of decency in a list of unforgettable work

That's why I only voted for Koji Kondo. He is the only composer in that list (and that I can remember off the top of my head) that consistently puts out excellent OST's.
Any OST from the Zelda games he worked on wipes the floor with 99% of RPG OST's, it's a shame he has so little votes.
of the Codex I guess.

And so many others tracks, along with his work on other games

Jeremy Soule IS overrated (I actually prefer some of the Daggerfall tracks, especially after a bit of repolishing from MIDI quality) but those tracks are hardly a competition for him.

Try something like this instead:

(Gareth Coker, Orin and The Blind Forest)

And speaking of RPG soundtracks, this poll also direly needs Paweł Błaszczak and Adam Skorupa who composed glorious OST for Witcher 1:

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Jeremy Soule IS overrated (I actually prefer some of the Daggerfall tracks, especially after a bit of repolishing from MIDI quality) but those tracks are hardly a competition for him.

You do realize that Jeremy Soule had nothing to do with Daggerfall?

 

[alyvain]

Jeremy Soule may be overrated but he wrote this best piece of music in gaming history

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

Ben Houge is missing.

Yeah this is the only vidya composer I'm aware of who actually wrote real music, everything else is a poppy joke by comparison

If I had to guess, he's probably not even a "vidya composer" but just a freelancer who happened to be hired to write music for this one game

 

[Mexi]

At anyone voting the plagiarist Mark Morgan. Jeremy Soule is the best for anyone that isn't a bias, Cuckdex phaggot.









I could go on and on with great songs after great songs, but this message would be too long. Anyways, the whole GW: 1 soundtrack is fucking amazing. Only soundtrack I've ever actually spent money on to buy. It was that good.

 

[DraQ]

Jeremy Soule IS overrated (I actually prefer some of the Daggerfall tracks, especially after a bit of repolishing from MIDI quality) but those tracks are hardly a competition for him.

You do realize that Jeremy Soule had nothing to do with Daggerfall?

The opposite would make preferring Daggerfall music over his stuff rather difficult, yes.

 

[majorsoccer]

when i played Dragon Quest 3 for the first time i was impressed by how good the soundtrack is !







composed by Koichi Sugiyama

 

[Alpan]

Another neglected artist is Arnaud Roy a.k.a. FlybyNo, who makes the soundtracks for the Endless series of 4X games. The soundtracks are extremely meaty and almost uniformly great.

Samples:

 

[Machocruz]

poll listing is just random names with no real japanese composers in it????

i don't get it

Because they actually make memorable, spirited music, not Hollywood wannabe ambientshit which most people have become accustomed to. Kiril Pokrovsky is dope though.

Anyway, Michiru Yamane's work on Symphony of the Night alone puts her in the top 3 of any VG composer list.

 

[Durandal]

Hitoshi Sakimoto

All his pre-00's material is GODLIKE. But like Jesper Kyd he's abandoned his FM synth roots and is all orchestral RPG music nowadays. Which I hear is still good, but I'm more strongly biased towards his arcade game soundtracks.

 

[Machocruz]

Hitoshi Sakimoto

All his pre-00's material is GODLIKE. But like Jesper Kyd he's abandoned his FM synth roots and is all orchestral RPG music nowadays. Which I hear is still good, but I'm more strongly biased towards his arcade game soundtracks.

Was going to mention him. Strong body of work, been around for a while, but his orchestral stuff is more on the ambient side.

And he got the Genesis to do this:

 

[Jasede]

Who are all these shitty people? No greats from the C64/Amiga days? No Nobuo Uematsu? Fuck off. But you had room for Soule and Zur, both painfully average specimen. Pathetic!

 

[what am i doing]

Zur isn't average, in my opinion. His work is noticeably and distinctly bad.