The Video Game Music Thread

[Ninja Destroyer]

The music from Drakan, so many memories. Too bad that the 2nd one was Ps2 exclusive only. But the power of Pcsx2 came to the rescue. I wonder if the first one can run on Win7.

 

[DraQ]

The music from Drakan, so many memories. Too bad that the 2nd one was Ps2 exclusive only. But the power of Pcsx2 came to the rescue. I wonder if the first one can run on Win7.

Should be workable, works for me.

 

[Ninja Destroyer]

I had some crash-problems on Xp in the later levels, also no sound, will test it soon I guess. Thanks for the info.

Also some Elvira tracks for Amiga version. The Pc was so bad in comparison.

 

[Suchy]

 

[KidBoogie]

This is great


By the way, anyone know of games with combat music that isn't "BIG IN UR FACE EPIC"? That kind of stuff usually just pisses me off, and I end up replacing the game's combat music with stuff like



Oh yeah, almost forgot:

 

[Suchy]

@^

 

[Gragt]

Because we need more Stéphane Picq:







It's a bit sad that Picq's talent was somewhat wasted with Cryo, a studio that made a somewhat large number of games, most of them mediocre or bad with only a few decent ones. But Picq's soundtrack was always the highlight of these games, sometimes enjoyed better on their own. UG has both Dune: Spice Opera and Lost Eden OST in FLAC, for those interested.

 

[Gragt]

A composer I hope to hear more of is Vasily Kashnikov, who did the sountrack for The Void. Unlike Picq, at least his work was featured in a great game:

You hear that music at the very start of the game when you take your first step in the Nameless Sister's chamber:


That one was really heartbreaking:


This one plays when you fight the Brothers:


One thing you do not hear with that music is the Brothers chanting prayers to Colour while they fight:

 

[Suchy]

Take it suckas

 

[Suchy]

The monocle:



The popamole'd:

 

[bminorkey]

Try with this: http://www.rainymood.com/

 

[Jasede]

The feels.

 

[DaveO]

My personal favorite track from Drakan: Order of the Flame. It's my favorite location in the game despite containing the booby trapped Bell Tower.

 

[Jasede]

Wish I'd played Drakan when I was younger; I remember managing to get the demo to run on one of my first computers (either the 486-DX 2 40 Hz machine or the Pentium 2 with something like 133 Hz or so; I genuinely can't remember).

The demo was really, really fun. It was an action game where you could get XP while killing shit, with nice music and great graphics (at the time). Since it didn't run well enough I never bought it, then forgot about it. ._.

 

[LeStryfe79]

Let's get all up in this, I'm pretty sure I mentioned this somewhere before, the Arland trilogy of Atelier series has fantastic soundtracks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lezgynzMpOc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHck9EVZbMk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRGfWr-XqUU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVtCRsnL6ko

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTk4Pnw0s4U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6jv1IwQt14
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nevmajUSrRI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qlk-ob0Z0gU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaJjfl4HrE0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcE81kpqjEo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3BFi56dUqc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7A-fQb0rmiI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jj5v9eTnBkw

Fuck embedding 50 videos on one page. Get the Youtube link title script like a normal person.

Oh fuck yes, I remember the music so well in Atelier Iris when I had to mute the sound to get the ending to play!

 

[Gerrard]

Yeah, I heard Gust has some reputation regarding bugs in their games, and not due to their numbers, but severity.

 

[DraQ]

Take it suckas

So?
DX:HR does have nice soundtrack.

My personal favorite track from Drakan: Order of the Flame. It's my favorite location in the game despite containing the booby trapped Bell Tower.

This would probably be my favourite too if I had to choose.

Wish I'd played Drakan when I was younger; I remember managing to get the demo to run on one of my first computers (either the 486-DX 2 40 Hz machine or the Pentium 2 with something like 133 Hz or so; I genuinely can't remember).

The demo was really, really fun. It was an action game where you could get XP while killing shit, with nice music and great graphics (at the time). Since it didn't run well enough I never bought it, then forgot about it. ._.

You misremember something. There were no XPs in Drakan (there was weapon durability, though).

Second, you certainly didn't run it on 486.
P 2 133? Likely runnable, provided you had enough RAM, and video accelerator.

I actually owned original but my CD shattered in drive once due to minuscule fracture near the hole. Sounded like gunshot and pushed the front panel out a full centimetre or so.


Also, the game featured decent damage system on some enemies, with collision checks for weapon and enemy bodyparts. With a bit of skill you could actually try aiming for severable stuff.

I often "disarmed" spiders this way - two quick attacks and the spider was harmless.

The best I've seen was a friend of mine doing this ridiculously over the top dual front flip chop attack with a greatsword but with about 90 degree spin applied in between the chops. Took an arm and entire snout off a wartok. It just stood there for a while, no arm and exposed brain, bleeding like a fountain, then collapsed.

 

[Jasede]

Are you sure there was no XP-gain in the demo? I distinctively remember a game where you could ride a dragon (hot!) and kill enemies. You played a chick with a bow and the level was a valley or canyon that may or may not have had a river coursing through it at the bottom.

It was this game for sure and I could swear my left arm that it gave XP in the demo or that at least there was some kind of level-up system (simple, like in King's Quest 9).

Yeah, you're right about the PC, it must have been the P 2 133 - and while it ran it didn't ran fast enough to buy it at the time. The 486 was before that. I'm having a hard time remembering my childhood. Whenever I try to reach for a memory it seems to fade into a cold, elusive fog and all I'm left with is emptiness.

 

[Jaesun]

Do you wear black, paint your fingernails black and write bad poetry Jasede?

 

[DaveO]

The Drakan demo sounds like right after you get Arokh in the regular game. There were ballistas, the spider cave, and the flaming sword in that location alone along with some secrets. AI is totally exploitable with bridges and dragon fights.

 

[Excommunicator]

I had a drakan demo CD when I was younger with a magazine showing all the shots of the game and it looked awesome but the demo on the CD never worked. It seems I really missed out on that. At least I was able to get the music to listen to.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVJRWA2EWyU&feature=plcp

That'd have to be my favourite from the soundtrack but they're all quite interesting. It'd sound exceptionally better if it had been recorded in a better quality.


Now why is it that very often anime music has this really strange emotional quality that makes me nauseous listening to it? A lot of the music I've heard shares this quality and is filled with all kinds of sadness and childish happiness and however else you might describe it. The Neon Evangelion song on the previous page made me feel that way. I foolishly downloaded xenogears and vagrant story because they were listed on some top list on a website I got sountracks from (the former has nothing I like and the latter admittedly has a few nice pieces in it) and both share this strange Asian/anime style. It's really hard to listen to after a while. Is the only reason why they use those terrible synthesized strings and other bad synthetic sounds to invoke nostalgia? I admit it's iconic but it really doesn't sound good at all. Even the Demon Souls soundtrack is infected by it. Haven't heard Dark Souls yet.

It's a shame the Drakan music is so low quality that it gives me that feel of an anime soundtrack. It has some more manly western qualities hiding beneath.

 

[Ninja Destroyer]

Drakan still is a great TPP game. The levels are nicely connected to each other, and you can revisit them if you missed something. It wasn't sandbox but the atmosphere was doing that part. Big opened areas turned quickly into the underground labirynths. And there was a perspective, when you flied on Arokh and when being alone on the ground. Fighting the dragons was very diffrent than orcs, spiders and others. Also, I think that weaponry was nicely developed. There were some good ones to find on the road, but the focused player could find great magic ones. And I remember crashes when menaging the inventory, but it was part of the game . Even the custom levels maded by others had some nice ideas. I wish someone grabbed the idea of it and Kickstarted it.

Also, replaying Syndicate, and some obvious tracks.



And wonderful Syndicate Wars Vangelis-like OST.

 

[Machocruz]

Now why is it that very often anime music has this really strange emotional quality that makes me nauseous listening to it? A lot of the music I've heard shares this quality and is filled with all kinds of sadness and childish happiness and however else you might describe it. The Neon Evangelion song on the previous page made me feel that way. I foolishly downloaded xenogears and vagrant story because they were listed on some top list on a website I got sountracks from (the former has nothing I like and the latter admittedly has a few nice pieces in it) and both share this strange Asian/anime style. It's really hard to listen to after a while. Is the only reason why they use those terrible synthesized strings and other bad synthetic sounds to invoke nostalgia? I admit it's iconic but it really doesn't sound good at all. Even the Demon Souls soundtrack is infected by it. Haven't heard Dark Souls yet.

It's a shame the Drakan music is so low quality that it gives me that feel of an anime soundtrack. It has some more manly western qualities hiding beneath.

Aside from audio quality, I don't see it. Are you sure this isn't due to some general anti-Jap bias that you already had? (seems to be common around here). I mean, what are these manly western qualities? And why haven't they saved so much western fantasy music from being generic and unmemorable?

There is something weird about Vagrant Story, but I believe that has to do with sound quality, not composition or instrument. The composer often has a muffled, low-fi sound to his work (see Final Fantasy Tactics, Radiant Silvergun, FFXII). But the music in VS is as appropriately atmospheric and adventuresome as any of the western scores posted here. I'm doing a playthrough now, and happiness is nowhere to be heard.

Games in Japan are mostly for young people, RPGs included. Combined with a huge influence from 80s American fantasy films, a lot of them sound like Labyrinth (synth, sunny charm) instead of Excalibur. And then you have music from the 8 and 16-bit days: if you pay attention, you'll notice a lot of these tracks that are so catchy even today, they're catchy in the same way pop music and some rock was...because they were aping American pop music and rock. The repetition, the hooks, the synth, the simplicity, the optimism.

 

[Suchy]

 

[Executer]

Bending the rules a bit since it's a video game movie, but still worth sharing.