SoulCalibur Music is SEVERLY underrated. Top five best video game and fighting game series soundtracks ever IMO! ^All those just merely scratch the surface!
My daughter has been playing Hollow Knight for some time now, and the music for this game is impressive. It goes from some rather jaunty classical scores to some seriously Dark Souls-ish power orchestras.
My nomination for top OST goes hands-down to Legend of Mana on the PS1: Definitely some of Yoko Shimomura's finest work. While the game itself is somewhat polarizing due to its formula departure from the previous Seiken Densetsu games (and probably setting up the franchise's steady downfall after that point), its idiosyncrasies actually contribute heavily towards how fantastic its soundtrack is. See, unlike the linear story paths of the previous Mana games, Legend tells its story non-linearly, in a fairly episodic way. Locales are wide and diverse, and have their own unique identities. As a result, Legend of Mana mostly eschews ambient mood-setting tracks, and is instead filled to the brim with big, lively, characterful pieces. That means there's tons of good stuff to like. Big highlights though are definitely the big, bombastic boss themes where Shimomura definitely seems to channel her previous work on the Megaman X franchise, but then kick it up even further as appropriate for a gig at Squaresoft: Pain the Universe Meridian Beast Irwin on Reflection The Darkness Nova Other highlights: Port City Polpota Memory of Running City of Flickering Destruction Holy Power of Mana Runner up on my list is Final Fantasy XIII I know that people were up in arms over the loss of Nobuo Uematsu, but Masashi Hamauzu crafted a masterful soundtrack and brought his own unique flair. There's no doubt that Sakaguchi could bring the epic, but outside of his big, bombastic pieces, I find his soundtracks to be a "product of their time". Back in the days of limited soundchips, Sakaguchi's soundtracks could be seen as a form of pantomime: broad, often chirpy and comic sounds to accompany the broad cartoony antics of the exaggerated sprite animations they accompany. So while he's remembered for giving us iconic songs like FFVII's "One Winged Angel", or FFVI's "Decisive Battle", his soundtracks are also full of slapsticky sort of sounds that don't really work outside the context of the games. Hamauzu's FFXIII soundtrack, as a modern game with sound production rivaling any Hollywood movie is not bound by those constraints. Rather contrary to my top nomination, the FFXIII OST is filled to the brim with wonderful, layered ambience. Rather than go big and in-your-face for most of its themes, the music instead creates a trance-like feeling, drawing you into the sights and sounds and moods of the game as they happen, as an extension of the game's atmosphere. But when it goes big, it certainly brings the noise. Hamauzu's soaring string arrangements are to die for. I relished long fights if they would just let me hear more of "Blinded by Light". Highlights: Blinded by Light Gapra Whitewood Will to Fight Saber's Edge Snow's Theme Dust to Dust Also, IMO, the best Chocobo theme in the franchise by a huge margin: Pulse de Chocobo Final Fantasy XIII-2's soundtrack felt mostly like an extension to XIII's (although it mixes things up a bit to contribute to its time paradox theme, by throwing some Devil May Cry-style death metal stuff in there for its bad future angle, and some more electronic instruments for its utopian future segments), so I'm just going to throw in a few highlights rather than go all out on it: Knight of the Goddess New Bodhum (RIP Origa) The Ruler of Time and Space Eternal Fight Invisible Depths As an honourable mention, IntiCreates' work on the Megaman Zero and Megaman ZX sountracks was fantastic, but unfortunately let down by the poor soundchip quality of the handhelds the games were on (ZX faired a bit better than Zero, with the move to DS over the GBA, but both are a bit "tinnier" than desirable). Thankfully they saw fit to remaster the soundtracks in full for our enjoyment: Megaman Zero (highlights: Theme of Zero, For Endless Fight) Megaman Zero 2 "Idea" (highlights: Departure, Awakening Will) Megaman Zero 3 "Telos" (highlights: Cannon Ball) Megaman Zero 4 "Physis" (highlights: Caravan - Hope for Freedom, Max Heat) Megaman ZX Gigamix (highlights: Green Grass Gradation, Trap Fanatics)
Hironobu Sakaguchi was the creator and longtime director/producer of the FF series, but he did not compose the music. I assume you're referring to Nobuo Uematsu? Anyway, I agree that the music in FFXIII is underrated. The funny thing about it is, my problem with the music in FFXIII has nothing to do with the actual composition, but the game itself. When I played through the game, the music was REALLY quiet, to the point where I could barely hear it, and there's no option to increase the music volume (at least, there isn't in the X360 version I played). It's hard to appreciate the game's soundtrack when I can't hear it I didn't really appreciate the music until I heard it by itself. Also, it's hard for the music to have any emotional impact when I care almost nothing for the story or characters (unlike most people, I have no problem with Vanille, but those annoying bozos Hope and Snow can go jump in a lake). But, now I'm getting into a discussion about the merits of the game itself, which is beyond the scope of this thread
OMG!! I remember being SO PUMPED watching this on my PS! Guile's theme is amazing, and probably my #1 overral VG song. Also up there is Ken's theme. CS Symphony of Night has some great themes as well.
First time venturing into these parts of the forums; I haven’t gamed in years nor do I keep up with new gamemusic. FFXIII is actually the last game music album I bought (yes I buy) but I never quite warmed up to it. It was a bit eh overproduced for my tastes; it felt like Hamauzu was (understandably) going for a more mainstream sound with this. Anyway (some of) the very best - that I have heard - are Ys III (PC-E redbook), Panzer Dragoon Azel & Orta, Xenogears, Star Trader (X68k rip), Gungage, FFXII, Aquales, Saga Frontier II and Gungrave. Nowadays I mostly listen gamemusic on youtube (most of which has either no OST or is ridiculously rare). Metal Sight, the Shining Wisdom and Gungriffon OST's and Megaman 9 are recent favorites. Hmm, I wasn't impressed by what I sampled from the Genesis album, but I should really give it a proper listen. It's just that for me the original is perfect and pretty much in my blood now. It's also one of the few SNES soundtracks that still holds up imo (that is, outside of an occasional trip down memory lane).
Oh gosh, where do I start. Okami, Hollow Knight, Cuphead, Shadow of the Colossus, Transistor, Journey...
First Rome Total War game OST with the Forever song. The series music never got better than Jeff van Dyck.
Obviously theres alot of games with great music but to me the Tekken series comes to mind. Probably my all time favorite as you're facing Kazuya,the main protagonist from Tekken 1 which is now a boss in Tekken 2. This music alone has always stuck with me. Few from Tekken 5. And few more favorites from Tekken 7 And yes. I love Tekken lol Cheers!
Ok, so I was chillin' listening to the RDR2 soundtrack, when this came on: And I realized this was the best song in the whole soundtrack. I could listen to it for HOURS on end. It's so good.
The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild's soundtrack is amazing! https://youtu.be/GA3H8Ws8b3Q https://youtu.be/05iWG29me7M
Always Kingdom Hearts for me. It speaks to the sheer skill of Yoko Shimomura and her crew that they can constantly take themes and rework them into something fresh and new and sometimes even better than before. She took the final boss themes of three games in the series and remixed them into one single piece to serve as the penultimate boss theme and gave me one of the most epic, pathos-driven fictional moments of my life. I also really love Kevin Sherwood’s music for the Treyarch COD zombies series.
While this is far from the absolute best OST. I'll take this time to nominate DBZ: Dokkan Battle for the "Being Greater Than it Needs To Be" award. Here's a couple of my personal favorites. Seems like par for the course, right? What if I told you that this all came from a MOBILE GAME? Not much of a shock or surprise, but nice to see how music is always a priority?