This is the Video Game Music Thread

It was all vague and genre constraints fly out the window, just in the face of making music that is fun and/or isntantly memorable. My roommate and I used to guess what genres were present in SNES games. Castlevania IV has some intense free jazz that just comes out of nowhere. Yoshi's Island had a few songs that were perfect combinations of old school metal and circus music.

On this note: www.supermadrigalbros.com!

Almost every song from Mystical Ninja/Goemon [N64 again] is a dead set classic.

And of course WipEout, WipEout 2097, and Wip3out/SE.

Some of the music from from Final Fantasy 2 US reminded me of Debusey (sp).

You can also download it here - http://www.grimfandango.net/index.php?section=downloads&page=music

Which is nice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNF-bRKvbeA

Megadeth covers the theme to Duke Nukem 3D

kirby's adventure bangs

is there any way to listen to 8-bit video game music/chip tune without playing the game? like, compilations? wikipedia lists some composers, but i haven't been able to track down any collections.

i keep replaying the end of 'machine gun' on the new portishead and i'm DYING FOR SOME XX-BIT

http://www.ocremix.org/ has some apps for playback of ripped tracks from roms and such

the pause screen music in battletoads!!! (NES) it's a short loop, but so great

x-post

thanks for the link. i couldn't find anything that wasn't some 'hillbilly remix,' etc. i wish there were a database with JUST the originals. i guess copyright laws sort of prohibit that, though.

oh, jackpot: http://www.vgmusic.com/music/console/nintendo/nes/

Oh god mega man II end credits track. *SNIFF*

http://www.vgmusic.com/music/console/nintendo/nes/Mm2end1.mid

http://www.terrisus.com/pictures/endings/MegaMan2.jpg

hm. listening to all of national themes on Super Dodge Ball is like midi-hymnen.

Get an NSF player and go wild.

That's just for NES, too - there are native rip formats (GYM for Genesis, SPC for SNES, etc.) for pretty much every system ever, and you can listen to them in their all their glory. It's tricky to do the ripping yourself, but most major games have been ripped by somebody already.

It's so weird how you miss the music once you're done with the game. I guess you could find it and download it, but without the context of the game, the effect is of course diminished. It's kind of sad!

Actually, for me, it's the opposite, but I was always into downloading midi and mod remixes of game soundtracks (especially Square's RPGs) back in the day, so I've always had a really positive feeling when it comes to listening to game music outside of the game.

Though I really enjoyed playing Mega Man 2 and 3, I almost definitely have a more fondness for the soundtracks than I do playing the games! In the extreme, I've listened to NSFs of games I have no interest in playing which were great.

Seconding dean's post way upthread re: The Advantage

Actually, for me, it's the opposite, but I was always into downloading midi and mod remixes of game soundtracks (especially Square's RPGs) back in the day, so I've always had a really positive feeling when it comes to listening to game music outside of the game.

way OTM

SMB main theme sounds like bebop with notes taken out.

Switchblade
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=VNDlgd647jE
ingame music from 2:00 onwards is ace.

Oh my goodness, I just downloaded Street Fighter II. Ravey Detroitish-mania all around.

Whoops, I meant to say Streets of Rage II

since there's no need to download midi's or winamp plugins anymore, lets make this the youtube videogame music thread!

resident evil 4 "serenity"

this whole thread could easily be made up of save themes and rpg sleep themes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J67nkzoJ_2M
I feel like there is some basement coldwave artist somewhere making music that aspires to sound exactly like this joint

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnvN_acWq8k

Proggy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jbJSftFr20

can this thread be revived forever plz?

rare's in-house composers (beanland, kirkhope) were really something. here is one of the former's best. i barely even played the game that this is from and yet i find it stunning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVrorgoCrKU

and more recently, this one gets me a little teary every time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mziw3FQkZYg

Aquatic Ambience is an alltime favorite. even beats any remix @ ocremic.org....

I did, very much

the tetris game for cd-i's new age soundtrack is amusing but surprisingly effective

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_SwDWKf-78

i guess i haven't talked about it here, how much great music there is for different versions of tetris. they're all different. hip tanaka did the music for the Nintendo NES version, which is the version the championships are held on. Ján Deák did the music for the 48K speccy Tetris 3 and that's fantastic as well (he passed away far too early in 2014 at the age of 46, I now find). idk who did the soundtrack for "Magical Tetris Challenge" on the N64, but it's some heavy fucking funk, particularly for a game where you're going head to head against Disney characters. peter wagner did the music for T-Maxx, a tetris clone on the Mac. The SAM Coupé version of Tetris has music by Rob Mies that's great (not the Cooking Circle version). and my fave is Wally Beben's C64 version, which is a fucking 26 minute epic and what got me into Beben. Tetris I think lends itself well to music, because it's one of those games where you don't have to worry about the music fitting the game - compare Koji Kondo's music for "Super Mario Bros", which was written to match the music, and Tim Follin's theme to NES Pictionary, which was clearly just a banger tune he had lying around and gave them when they needed a song. Tim Follin is probably the best example of someone who provided great music for crap games, but early game music wasn't particularly tied to the game itself. That's one of the things that made Super Mario Bros. so groundbreaking!