This is the Video Game Music Thread

The No Man's Sky soundtrack is to date still the best thing to come out that project, an superb bit of tech-friendly post-rock that stands with anything by Fuck Buttons et al. While the OST album is fairly conventional, the construction in game is far more varied. Dave Wolinsky: No Man’s Sky Lets Players Scramble the Core Genome of 65daysofstatic’s New Album

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

yeah, this is lovely; thanks for reminding me to finally try it

listening to Jun Chikuma's soundtrack for Bomberman Hero, and it's really fun -- smooth drum & bass with some spacey, sci-fi leads that give it retro-futuristic feel. Probably fans of Pizzicato 5 would like it, but what I'm loving about these game soundtracks is that since they don't have to work as club bangers necessarily, they can focus on melodic themes, and be over without the need to open up for lengthy breakdowns. Basically, bite size 90s electronica that sounds like cartoon aliens made it

yes that soundtrack is so relaxing!

love the weirdo garbled pop songs in splatoon

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFG6770beMc

'Sorcerian', an awesome action RPG from the early 90s (PC), had excellent music. So did SEGA's beat-'em-up 'Streets of Rage II'. I was pleasantly surprised when I found out, years later, that the same guy was behind both (Yuzo Koshiro).

Another 90s RPG with excellent music: 'Darklands'. Great matching of mediëval melodies with original themes.

yeah Yuzo is a god. i recently bought the Revenge of Shinobi soundtrack on vinyl and it is so sick.

that yamaha ym2612 in the genesis made some beautiful sounds

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8Tid2htBlE

The lyrics are a problem but god DAMN this is a catchy tune.

I think this stuff by Carsten Bohn's Bandstand was originally written for German radio plays but was also used as loading music for some Atari 8-bit games.

The code would be on one channel and the music in the other would play through to the output while the game loaded. This means they were mono tracks so the stereo mix here has been reconstructed from two different game tapes and you can hear the code towards the end of the clip.

https://youtu.be/mpcBmyWa4DE

thinkin about this tonight

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlkO3OJhjYE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cj6q2rMcz3s

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvBla5NUlvk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3egbaw-VK4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbBCBM2tluc

https://www.gameinformer.com/2018/09/19/legendary-composer-nobuo-uematsu-ceases-work-due-to-health-issues

I saw that, it sucks, I hope he gets to relax.

Splatoon 2’s music is infectious

I have not played the game but the Sonic Mania OST is really great, really feels like it was beamed in from Sega's late 90s heyday. Probably even better than the original tracks really. Thank you RYM

I liked the New Jack Swing track on that.

I recently replayed Icewind Dale and found the soundtrack to be as integral to the experience as ever.

speaking of great Sega music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWnzfA9AqrA

I have probably watched this video like 30 times. how can you not love it

speaking of great Sega music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42pszbJgRGE

silent hill soundtracks 1-3 absolutely the best music ive heard in games, aside from castlevania

Agreed on the Silent Hill soundtracks. Wish _Silent Hills_ hadn't been cancelled.

Loved the beach tune from the latest Yakuza.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVWd-8sjLx0

thanks for that daytona vid; it's pretty magical

(COME ON!)

listened to some sega tunes from the early 2000s today, particularly a few on the gamecube that apparently all shared a composer, hidenori shoji. the super monkey ball soundtracks certainly had their share of clunky, forgettable filler, but when they hit, they hit. love the bright, airy house tracks that appear here-n-there, and some of the more aggressive, mechanical-sounding stuff is pretty good too. the second game in the series had the better soundtrack imo, certainly with more highlights.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5bUpJ5mGoI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2rP5GFwcaw

f-zero gx's soundtrack, despite having a decent amount of synthesized hard-rock shite, was probably the most noteworthy out of all these. one of the really amazing, immersive features about it was how many tracks would seamlessly leap to a new level of intensity as soon as you reached the final lap of the race. i adore this one in particular: the final-lap transition comes in around the last 50 seconds of the clip.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=De7XH0sVcbg

(yeah i know f-zero is a nintendo property but that particular entry in the series was developed by a division of sega)

sorry, you invoked f-zero gx & music so now i have to post this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5M8XeFEHRCI

f-zeeeero, f-zeeeero

RetroThon 2019 runs right now at RetroGamingLiveTV on Twitch.

Retrothon is our 8 day celebration of retro speedruns.

Find out schedule here: http://retrothon.net/schedule/

I just finished replaying Final Fantasy III on the SNES and want to give a shout out to Kefka's theme, possibly the greatest expository piece of video game music ever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O11KHKlGxmM

the practice of running out a character's theme song every time they make an entrance is classic and not enough rpgs have stuck with it

i thought this was a really good analysis of "dancing mad" and its relation to kefka's theme

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRHyH824KIM

that soundtrack slaps

A lot of Final Fantasy soundtracks are now up on streaming services

thanks for that; though you may have to apologize to my partner when she gets tired of me blaring FF7 all day

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrPYGSm2YsM

before i make this putt, let me first listen to "birdie try"

*2:02 passes*

he sinks it!

I was thinking about Kefka's theme just the other day and I love how it starts off a little cheeky, a little scampery and mischievous before taking a darker turn. You're right Crut.

Think I posted this on another thread, but this is a playlist of SNES and Ghibli-ish soundtrack music I use as concentration music quite a lot https://open.spotify.com/user/1153731601/playlist/1LArAWIwZLQmH7tnhS0ZnO?si=UKft3l8PTZiBacpn6UZA5A

age of mythology had a v legendary soundtrack. tenchu another classic

Almost every song from Mystical Ninja/Goemon [N64 again] is a dead set classic.
― Autumn Almanac (Autumn Almanac), Tuesday, April 20, 2004 5:45 PM (fifteen years ago)

this game is insane in all the best possible ways! and the music is incredible

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4kjYyI5b_o

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-t9y0Hcp5U

i came across summer carnival '92 a couple weeks ago and was pretty blown away. it's late in the famicom lifecycle but this shit is still being done on a famicom. i mean, i've heard the VRC6 Akumajou Densetsu and even the VRC7 used on Lagrange Point (such a good sound chip it sounds as good as the Sega Master System's built-in sound chip!), but this song is on a completely different level. the whole game is basically a crazy technical masterpiece. hats off to you, noboyuki shioda.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJZ0QCKqhRA

that is awesome, thanks!

A detailed old article about C64 music and composing, put together by Karen Collins:

"Loops and bloops": Music of the Commodore 64 games (2006)
- http://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes/VOLUME08/Loops_and_bloops.shtml

"Some composers were adventurous with the coding, and included random number generators into the code which would select from a group of loop options, something not seen on the NES. For instance, Times of Lore (Martin Galway, Microprose 1988) used a selection of guitar solos that were randomly selected for the eleven-minute duration of the song. In this way, the game's ten songs — over thirty minutes of music — could fit into just 923 bytes, and sound a lot more varied than it was. [16] A similar random generation was used in California Games (Epyx, 1987), and in Rock Star Ate My Hamster (CodeMasters, 1988), a rock management game which has the band practicing, with a tune which picks from a random combination of sixteen sequences, intentionally out of tune but improving as the band practices (Figure 5)." - (Soundscapes.info)
http://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes/VOLUME08/IMAGES/Loops_and_bloops06.JPG

Something that would also have fitted in 'chip music' : the new punk. / Music made from computer game sounds - a nice track by Linus Åkesson that was first posted by Camaraderie:

Lunus Sakesson's 256 byte(!) Commodore 64 demo "A Mind Is Born"
Explanation: https://linusakesson.net/scene/a-mind-is-born/
― Camaraderie at Arms Length, Tuesday, April 25, 2017 10:52 PM bookmarkflaglink

[From the video description]
"A tiny demo for the Commodore 64. 1st place in the Oldskool 4K Intro compo at Revision 2017.
(Yep, what you hear and see is generated by a program that is no larger than 256 bytes.)
Kudos to Lemming for the video capture!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWblpsLZ-O8

that was one of my favorite songs from that year!

that's really great