Favorite 5 Soundtracks

[LeStryfe79]

I've taken liberties to include ARPGs.

1. Wild Arms
2. Final Fantasy 7
3. Symphony of the Night
4. Okami
5. Ephemeral Fantasia

This list is no longer valid.

 

[Hoaxmetal]

1. Arcanum
2. Arcanum
3. Arcanum
4. Arcanum
5. Fallout 1 & 2

 

[Kalin]

Maybe something like:

Command & Conquer
Ridge Racer 2
Fallout
SimIsle
System Shock 2

But if we are talking strictly weeaboo, then Shin Megami Tensei all the way.

Sega Mega-CD had the funkiest versions:

 

[SuicideBunny]

1-5: setting music to mute in settings.

 

[Jick Magger]

1. Nier
2. Hotline Miami
3. Fallout 1
4. Persona 4
5. Silent Hill 2

 

[Jasede]

That's tough; there's way too many great ones to rank them or limit it to five; any list of five I come up with falls short. I'll do my best.
Note: being jRPG discussion, this will only consider jRPGs, action adventures and action RPGs from Japan from my part.

1. Nier
2. Chrono Trigger

And now it gets hard as they're all so goddamn excellent.

3. FF VI (6)
4. FF IV (4)
5. FF III (3)


Ugh, this doesn't work. There's just way too many great ones. Mother, Earthbound, Chrono Cross, Lucid Dreamers, Radical Dreamers, P3/4, SMT Nocturne & 1, TERRANIGMA, Lufia II, SECRET OF MANA, EO, Seiken Densetsu 3, I could just go on and on forever and fill a paragraph with titles; there's too many to rank them.

Xenogears, Dark Souls, almost every FF game ever made, almost every DQ game ever made, Demon's Souls, every Zelda (pretty much), it's like a treasure trove of greatness. Wild Arms too, of course. Though first? I love the whistling.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Can't rank them in order.

Planescape Torment
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
TIE Fighter CD
Assassin's Creed 2
Jade Empire

There are so many more I could mention. The Witcher, The Witcher 2, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Fallout, KOTOR, KOTOR 2.... so difficult to limit to just 5.

Edit: Since this was in JRPG I better mention Ni No Kuni, Final Fantasy VIII and Final Fantasy X to keep this on topic.

 

[yes plz]

Strictly speaking for just JRPGs, pretty much everything Yasunori Mitsuda has worked on, especially his Chrono Cross and Xenogears soundtracks.

 

[Invictus]

In no particular order
Occarina of time
Dark souls
Final Fantasy 6
Symphony of the Night
Shin Tensei Megami Nocturne

 

[Damned Registrations]

Chrono Trigger (This is way ahead of the rest)
Phantasy Star 4
Saga Frontier (I'd probably actually rate this higher except it has a lot more to work with than the previous two, PS4 sounds awesome and the sound card is so primitive.)
FF6
Megaman X2 (This loses points for not having as much variety as the others, though thats to be expected for the sort of game it is.)


Almost every decent jrpg has some really good tracks in it, but it's actually hard to find games where none or almost none of the soundtrack is annoying, and the whole thing has a good variety too instead of just being one or two moods or styles throughout.

Edit: Listening to the CT soundtrack again right now. The way the bass in the final battle theme swings from left to right is giving me the creeps. Makes me wish I had proper stereo sound back when I played through the game the first time.

 

[LeStryfe79]

My list needs to be updated.

1. Dynasty Warriors 4
2. Wild Arms
3. Final Fantasy 7
4. Symphony of the Night
5. Okami

 

[agentorange]

 

[Jasede]

Jasede Monocles this.

 

[LeStryfe79]

Yes! We should all follow suit!

 

[Damned Registrations]

I really need to play Okami =/

 

[Hobo Elf]

Not in any particular order

 

[Damned Registrations]

Spoiler

(That one's like 3 hours long, but just click around and compare some of the stuff, theres everything from rocking techno to gloomy orchestral stuff to upbeat folk tunes.)

(Ditto)

/deathbynostalgia

 

[Kz3r0]

Jap only:
Silent Hill series
Onimusha
Metal Gear Solid series
Castlevania series.
Final Fantasy X.

 

[procrastinator]

Not exactly on topic, but I've been listening to Ian Anderson recently and it occurred to me, that this stuff would fit a jrpg like CT just perfect:

Spoiler

 

[Lemming42]

EarthBound (Example)
Final Fantasy VI (Example)
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (Example)
Final Fantasy IV (Example)
DooM (Example)

Put some of the best songs as examples to justify the list.
Honourable mentions to pretty much every single other Final Fantasy game.

 

[Jick Magger]

 

[Kz3r0]

 

[Kz3r0]

 

[Gregz]

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

 

[eric__s]

If we're going to limit ourselves to JRPGs, I guess I like Phantasy Star 4, Saga Frontier 2, Suikoden, probably tons of other things too.

What I like about game music, especially older game music, is that it's just pop. It's really catchy music that, in any other context, would have been played on the radio. Nothing illustrates this better than the music of the Sonic games. The soundtracks of the first two games were written by Masato Nakamura, the bassist for a Japanese pop group called Dreams Come True. For Sonic 3, a bunch of pop artists were brought in to write music, including Michael Jackson. Check out Ice Cap Zone. It was written for Sonic 3 by Brad Buxer, but it's an arrangement of an earlier, unreleased new wave song called Hard Times from his band The Jetzons. Another game I found recently called Wonder Momo has music that clearly draws from the power pop of the late 70s/early 80s. Chris Huelsbeck's music from Bad Cat is straight up Italo disco (and a rip off of Passion by the Flirts. Yuzo Koshiro's Streets of Rage soundtracks influenced countless non-game musicians and in turn drew from tons of pop music inspirations. It's fun, charming music and that's why I like it and became interested in making it.