The Video Game Music Thread

[Darth Roxor]

High Gothic is Latin with all the grammar thrown out the window, basically. Take English, replace all words with Latin equivalents with no attention to case/gender/whatever and you have High Gothic.

 

[Horus]

I remember the first time i got into vault 13 in second game,this one played and made me shit in my pants,i got out of vault 13 and re-entered it again just to calm down,well dozens of deathclaws helped too but this track gave me a feeling of terror and emptiness.
Most of the soundtrack of the fallout gave that feeling but this one is the best.

 

[Valestein]

Currently hooked on Persona 4's boss theme.

 

[eric__s]

Burntime PC

Great picks. Burntime had a great soundtrack and it's a shame that the music was so sparse in the PC version. I'm a big fan of FM synthesis and Burntime is a good example of well-done Western FM.





It's hard to believe this song was done with the same sound chip that Adlib used.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

 

[G.O.D]

The good stuff has already been posted, but:



Had lots of fun with it, and good memories.






For a SNES game it was really good for atmosphere and also quality wise.

 

[Excommunicator]

I will now use this opportunity to post some great pieces from some under-appreciated (or at least under-mentioned) sources

That is one of the tragedies of working on a multimedia product like this, I think, that if the product itself is not up to standard in other areas or is simply not known well enough, then those who have still contributed in their own exceptional ways will never get the recognition they deserve



Sacrifice Persephone Theme. An interesting mix of orchestral with a strong tribal beat to it. Certainly my favourite from the game. I love the ominousness of the choir. A great piece to go along the much less conventional music in the rest of the game.



Vampire the Masquerade: Redemption Theme Song. I love dark sounding orchestral music, and this is a great example of that. It picks up a bit around the middle with drama and intesnity something clearly inspired by more modern action-movie soundtracks but without losing the orchestral feel. Really like it.



Stronghold Crusader - Sandalmaker. My favourite from the game. This is a great piece that doesn't have a hint of game music to it. The melody almost gives off a western 70's rock feel even though it's also clearly very middle eastern in flavour. Too good to be shoved into the corner of some not-so-well-known game.



Call of Cthulhu Dark Corners of the Earth - City of Dreams. Honestly I don't even remember this music from the game but I always listen to this soundtrack when I'm working. I love how experiemental with the sounds the composer has been, it gives a really alien, difficult to comprehend feel, exactly what you want for Lovecraft. The music is clearly very electronic and modern which is unlike Lovecraft but very effective in that he has tried to align most of the music to the cosmic Old Ones rather than the people living in the era of the story. Fantastic atmosphere.



Spellforce 2 Plain in Shadows Theme. My favourite from this game. The game was pretty lacklustre but the music is very good orchestral that clearly tries to emulate the Lord of the Rings style which was so popular at the time, but I think it manages to sound sufficiently different. A lot of it is composed very slow and with relatively minimal use of instruments at a time which helps you to not get bored of it over long periods. I really like the sinister build up with the harp and Glockenspiel towards the end.

 

[Excommunicator]

Ultima IX Skara Brae Negative Theme. I love the dark, desolate atmosphere in this piece. It has very distinct feel with the use of instruments and it all flows really smoothly without anything too sharp or jarring (something important to me). I can sit write with this music in the background for long periods at a time.



Stronghold Legends. A strangely entertaining but rather imbalanced game. This piece has a sinister (You can probably see it's a recurring theme by now) feel but it does it in a playful and non-pretentious way. I love the build up which makes you really anticipate something dramatic happening towards the end.



Gothic 3 Ruinfields. The singing in this piece is amazing. Such emotion. Unfortunately even though I enjoyed the game the area in the game doesn't do this piece of music justice (nor that silly Gothic humour). So much feeling in such a short piece. I want to hear more like this from Kai Rosenkrantz .



Also worth noting that I couldn't really find the relevant pieces from Sacred 1 (Hell/Way to Hell), the original Alone in the Dark music (it's all obscured by this damn modern remake stuff) and Dark Sun 2, all of which are great. I guess this proves my point about these things being lost in obscurity

I was not going to list any midi music because midi music when pulled out of its context and put alongside modern recordings is likely to be underwhelming to new listeners, and probably lose the point of proving its quality. There are countless that deserve to be listed though

 

[Sceptic]

Dark Sun 2

Remind me to rip the music from the CD version into MP3 and I'll upload it.

 

[Excommunicator]

Actually I have it all in MP3 on my computer (I must've done it a long time ago) I just couldn't find it on youtube, and won't be uploading it to my own youtube account to link back here. I may or may not even have a youtube account.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Have any of you guys noticed that Kenny Chow has done a remake of his old One Must Fall 2097 theme?

 

[Ion Prothon II]

Dreamweb

Holy shit, what an atmosphere this game got.



Reunion



Prisoner of ice



Nowe bękarty nie pamiętają

 

[Transgressive Grenadier]

Grant Kirkhope. His Kingdoms of Amalur soundtrack was a recent incline.

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAF4BF177A0573CFA

 

[Chateaubryan]

Saga Frontier 2 (arranged) soundtrack is some heavy, heavy shit. I put it easily on the same level as Arcanum's.

 

[lightbane]

Saga Frontier 2 is simply awesome, it's an one-of-a-kind jrpg, with a non-epic plot, interesting characters and no emo-faggotry.

Since jrpgs count, have a bit of NIER:

 

[Chateaubryan]

More Violin & Piano incline : Rule of Rose





And another Saga Frontier II arranged piece for two pianos :



You owe this to your ears, bros.
I'm dead serious.

 

[Excommunicator]

I like this "Rule of Rose" music and it is great for listening but I can't help but think it fails to do its job on some levels. Did the composer of this survival horror game have no knowledge of the rest of the game material, or just have no interest in matching the music to the visuals?

As an example I have used before, let's look at Jeremy Soule's Forest 1 piece for Neverwinter Nights.



Listen to the music whilst looking at the image. There is a clear matching of the two parts, and that image is visually the same as what is presented in the game itself.

In fact I think the Rule of Rose music fits this image better as well.

I don't know, maybe it is some kind of intentional juxta-positioning by the composer and I would have to play the game to appreciate it properly, but I always think that if there isn't a hint of the game instilled into the music, then it is weaker than it could be.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Maybe it's intentional, since the theme of the game (cruel children) creates that weird feeling too. Then again, maybe the composer just didn't want to follow the norm and create a "scary" soundtrack.

-

 

[Chateaubryan]

I like this "Rule of Rose" music and it is great for listening but I can't help but think it fails to do its job on some levels. Did the composer of this survival horror game have no knowledge of the rest of the game material, or just have no interest in matching the music to the visuals? [...]

I don't know, maybe it is some kind of intentional juxta-positioning by the composer and I would have to play the game to appreciate it properly, but I always think that if there isn't a hint of the game instilled into the music, then it is weaker than it could be.

As a matter of fact, I think that RoR music is a perfect fit for the game. As you guessed, you have to play it to appreciate what it does : the game's narrative is very abstract, even when compared with other survival games that rely heavily on subtext to tell their story (like, say, Silent Hill 2), so music is crucial to convey a certain mindset and mood to the player (AKA the correct key to interpret what's going on on the screen, at least on an emotional level.)

So yeah, the dissonance between the music and the survival-horror genre is intentional. For example, the use of "I'm Singing in the rain" scene in A Clockwork Orange, or the mystical chants in the "Making of a Cyborg" of Ghost In The Shell are good examples of music that doesn't "properly" fit the scene to draw a distinct, deeper feeling from the viewer.

If you have the curiosity the play it, I recommend you do : the game is very rewarding on a story-level if you pay attention to every detail, but I must warn you the gameplay is not the most satisfying.

Here is the main theme, also kicks ass :



And now, for something completely different :

 

[Wyrmlord]

Agree with this choice.

But just one thing. With me forcing myself through Morrowind recently, I just can't help but feel like I have heard the entire track before. Jeremy Soule sounds the exact same in some of his games, and the resemblance between parts of the NWN soundtrack and the Morrowind soundtrack is stunning. I swear, I once double-checked several tracks of Soule until I found two tracks from different games that sounded almost exactly the same.

I did this also. Keep in mind, the biggest similarities can be found between the Dungeon Siege, Morrowind and Neverwinter Nights soundtracks, with their release dates being 5th April, 1st May & 18th June respectively, all in 2002. So we have 3 sword & sorcery fantasy games all released within a couple of months by different studios using the same composer. Some of it actually uses the exact same underlying sequence, and it doesn't help that he continually reuses the same instruments in the same instrument libraries again and again. Under the circumstances I am hardly surprised that it turned out that way, but there is never an excuse for that sort of thing in the final product. It is a matter of either accepting the money and taking on the extra responsibility and difficulty or turning something down and maintaining the standard as a composer. Even though I like all three of the soundtracks, and he obviously worked under great pressure at the time, I don't think a self-respecting composer should make decisions like that.

I think I found another track of (bare) similarity.

See 1:50 of Peaceful Waters


And see Maugrim's theme


They both evoke that same feeling of venturing inside a volcano or into the depths of a dangerous place.

 

[Destroid]

 

[Idiott]

Couldn't find this in proper parts:

 

[Atomic]

Krater have some nice music..

 

[Infinitron]

Can't stop listening!

 

[SCO]

Its not the actual pieces of music that I dislike, they are fine and some sound very cool (I love the endboss theme from DX:HR too ) - its the sudden change of pace that I dont like. :p

"The group of adventurers, ranging from level 14 to 19 making them pretty much demigods, traverses the slums of Sigil, haunting tunes are playing. SUDDENLY! A level 2 thug attacks the group, the tunes get dramatic as the party fights the thug in an epic fight worthy of a note in the old testament and eventually defeats the opponent after 1 hit."

BG combat music eventually makes one search for termination options after 10 2 hours.

They're going into the melodic continuous infinite ambient then, every 5 paces, BAMMM bombastic tastlessness.