Video game music

[wulfenlord]

Phew, finally a new page, now I can post the next part without straining the forum too much :3
Also I'm thinking of working on 20 more episodes, since I had my playlist up to 60 entries, but got distracted by changing my workplace.

11 Mega Man X 6
Now, where to start with Capsule Computers... ah, I got it! Take the first 3 letters, and you'll never look at the company name the same way again :3
The presented maverick theme here comes from Naoto Tanaka AKA Akemi Kimura - he is responsible for most of the Mega Man X soundtrack since 5, and parts of Phoenix Wright.
And yeah, I struggled to pick the X entry to showcase here, with X and X2 being close runner-ups. One last funfact: Ekkusu's name isn't Megaman or Megaman X, but just X, as Dr. Light intended him to be a variable with unlimited potential.

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12 Das schwarze Auge: Nordlandtrilogie - Schicksalsklinge / Realms of Arkania 1: Sword of destiny
Now here's a gem all you anglos might not get behind - well, you could, as the franchise has been translated to "Realms of Arkania". You had your D&D, us Germans had our 'Black eye' (named after an elven artifact of power) - it was clunky, it was full of min-maxing, it was glorious. The PC game, by the short-lived Attic but developed under direct supervision from the pen&paper studio FanPro, could be compared to the Might & Magic franchise, but with the micromanaging level cranked up to 11- if you play on professional mode, that is, and who DOESNT? Who DOESNT want to spec each of the FIFTY stat rolls for each of dozens of skills every time one of the six party members levels up? Or who DOESNT want to spare some of his precious weightload for an extra pair of shoes, because your equipped shoes BREAK OVER TIME, causing your character to take damage each step? Or who DOESNT want to get ambushed at camp because in your duty of managing the camp orders you only selected the characters to hunt for provisions/water/herbs, but forgot to set up guard duty? NOONE, that's who! We're MANLY MEN! If it's cold, we rub our beards together like STEEL WOOL!

Anyway, just listen to the lovely DOS-soundtrack of the skilled troubadour Rudolf Stember (also a parting note: Drakensang does a really good job to capture the essence of the old games in a 3D environment, complete with punishing combat if you expect mindless hack&slash, and the very likely possibility to ruin your skilltree if you level up without thinking - just stay clear of the remake of the original Nordlandtrilogie, they are a dumpster fire)
Thought of the day - Merles Kopf ist wie in Watte gepackt. Wollt ihr wirklich ohne Hosen die Stadt betreten?*

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* 2 often-seen prompts (well, the second one if you are a sick german freak) - the first informing you that after a nights rest one of your party members feels sick (which happens OFTEN, as they are a bunch of girlscouts rather than adventurers) - the second is to inform you if you "really want to enter the town without wearing any pants?", which you can do (after unequipping them first of course) to hilarious results (townspeople won't open the doors for you, townguards will fine you, beggars will insult you as scum)

13 Star Fox
Funfact: us Germans received the games branded as Star Wing / Lylat Wars for copyright reasons until the N64. The rudimentary polygon graphics may have aged poorly, but the bombastic synthscapes of Hajime Hirasawa have not.
Directly after the games release in '93 Hirasawa left Nintendo to form his own company where he offers soundtracks as a freelancer.
Thought of the day - Do an aileron roll

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14 Earthworm Jim
1994 was a phenomenal debut year for Shiny Entertainment (reformed to Double Helix Games in 2007). Series composer Tommy Tallarico is also known as co-initiator of "Videogames Live". Though something about this guy rubs me the wrong way, because I searched far and wide for his vita, and several pages credit him for work he clearly did not do, while at the same time not providing any sources (including wikipedia itself). I have a really strong gut feeling that he is the games music equivalent of Todd Rodgers.
Thought of the day - groovy!

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15 Psychonauts
One of my Top10 games of all time, the staged tabletop battle against Napoleon is not only my favorite game episode, but pays a wonderful musical hommage to Pjotr Iljitsch Tschaikowski's 1812 Ouvertüre. Peter McConnell can be heard in old Lucasfilm Games like Monkey Island 2 + Day of the Tentacle and more recently in Hearthstone.
Thought of the day - who told you about the milkman?

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16 Tomb Raider
Today the Western publishing arm of Squeenix, Eidos in the 90s dominated with franchises like Deus Ex, Legacy of Kain, Hitman and Commandos (and to complete your nerd-lore, one of its core founders was Ian Livingstone - yes, of Games Workshop fame). Though the franchise surrounding Lara Croft wasn't originally Eidos' work, but that of the '96 aquired company Core Design. Before the aquisition, Core was mainly involved in Atari-, Amiga-, and DOS-Computer games or the odd SEGA Genesis title (Impossamole, Heimdall, Chuck Rock, various Asterix-entries).
Series composer Nathan McCree was also responsible for Tomb Raider II & III afterwards, whereafter he founded his own companies to offer sound design, most recently active for Silent Hill: Downpour.
Thought of the day - trap that stupid butler!

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17 LOTRO / Lord of the rings online
Since 2007 Middle-Earth can be conquered online, since 2010 as a F2P model (though with noticable incentives to purchase extra content, and once you reach the level 30 regions, it is de facto required to spend cash to be even allowed to do quests). In todays streamlined MMORPG experience (especially if you come from action oriented games like Neverwinter or Elder Scrolls) the gameplay is antique, but with good friends the game can be enjoyable for its atmosphere. The games music was written by multiple talents, but my absolute favorite is from Chance Thomas, who also worked on Unreal 2, Police Quest and the Quest for Glory series.
Thought of the day - Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul, ash nazg thrakatulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.

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18 Anno 1602 / 1602 AD
In the year of our lord 1998, we have witnessed the most succesful German gaming franchise of all time, under the banner of Sunflowers, up until 2007, where the series got capsized by Ubisoft, but even their woke team of various faiths and gender identities could not ruin it.
Funfact: The year used in the title always has to have a checksum of 9.
For me personally the music by the great Markus Pitzner is to a large extent responsible for the games phenomenon of "Just one more hour - oops, its morning already". Pitzner can be found on his own YouTube channel and his homepage Dreamweaver.at, where he campaigns for license-free music.
Thought of the day - euer Volk wächst und gedeiht*

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* Your populace grows and thrives (one of the audio clips throughout the game, dunno how they actually did translate in the english version)

19 TMNT (NES)
Nintendo came out the glistening new champion from the burning remains of the game crash of '83, and with their new device to captivate children they ruled with an iron fist their monopoly of who got to release how many games on their console (Pro-tip: it was 5 games per year).
To push this limit, Konami forged several faux-companies to effectively double their output (Ultra Games for the US of A, Palcom for Europe).

After 1992 Nintendo (rightfully) feared antitrust- and monopoly-lawsuits and lowered their entry-bar for releases, so Konami in turn buried their Ultra Games & Palcom businesses and released their whole catalogue under the Konami-name (their name being the first syllable of the companys' founders).

Anyway, Turtles. Composer Jun Funahashi did mostly collaborative or small work, other than the totally radical TMNT soundtrack you should check out Castlevania 3.

Thought of the day - COWABUNGA DUDE!

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20 Final Fantasy IX
Yo, this is the only part after 7 and before 15 not to be shit. objective fact
Normally I only pick out the original arrangement, but this remix is done really well, and it fits the style of Nobuo Uematsu (with his 2+ rock bands)
Thought of the day - kupo!

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Afterthought: Yes, I had the pleasure to witness him live in 2009 (as well as Yoko Shimomura, Hiroki Kikuta, Yasunori Mitsuda), sadly the grandmaster staid seated during One-Winged angel, instead of jumping up with his electric guitar and rocking out

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21 Lotus Turbo Challenge 2
As promised in ep. 2 we get treated to more Barry Leitch from his time with Gremlin 1981. His most recent contributions are prominent in Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow and Drakensang, though you can follow him in person on soundcloud for instance *wink wink nudge nudge*

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22 Zool
We stay at Gremlin Graphics, but fast-forward to 1992, following the adventures of a ninja from the nth dimension throughout candyland (sponsored by Chupa Chups no less). And yes, he was set up to be the mascot for Amiga to, in theory, rival Sonic. Scored with a straightforward title track to make you ready for action by Patrick Phelan. Turns out the action you should be made ready for consists of blind jumps into spikes, unfair enemy placements, and a camera that can't keep up with the movement, yay. Another connection to the last ep. about Lotus Turbo Challenge is that Phelan got in charge to manufacture the soundtrack to Lotus 3. With several other remaining victims of the Infogrames/Atari fuck-ups, Phelan joined Sumo Digital in 2005.

Now what became of the ant? (Black, segmented body, fuck the "gremlin" excuse of a story. It's an ant)
After a commercial disaster which was Zool 2, where ZOOL GOT A GIRLFRIEND SO PROGRESSIVE!, the game license holders pitched a 3D Zool game to Data Design Interactive. After seeing how Bubsy 3D-bad the game looked, they pulled the license. DDI, wanting to release something, repurposed everything to make Ninjabread Man. Methink it funny that this is defacto Zool 3. Sure this info can be googled in 5 minutes, but with a business aquisition history as convoluted as anything touched by Infogrames its difficult to follow, and it's not like this is common nerd-lore like DiD YoU KnOw SuPeR MaRiO 2 iS AcShUaLlY DoKi dOkI PaNiC?

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23 Sacred
I really dig this game, not because of muh grfx (though they are pretty to look at, I actually like if I see what is happening on screen, vibrant colors help there. I also didn't understand the bitching & moaning about the Diablo 3 artstyle like BAAAAW muh grimdark!), nor because the soundtrack is especially epic (even Gothic 3 has that job covered better, if nothing else), but because it is fun to play and it is even more fun with friends, especially when the game bugs out, and oh will it glitch the fuck out (save often). It seems hackneyed, but grab a couple of beers, watch the game glitch as your character rides on thin air instead of his horse, and have a good time.

Noteworthy is its development history, which began with Ikarion Software (nerds with similar age might know them from the PC port of Demonworld). Ikarion worked on a PC port of the ill-fated tabletop spin-off "Armalion" of the pen&paper system "Das schwarze Auge", up until their own bankruptcy 2001.
The game, which was around 70% complete was picked up by Ascaron and reworked to Sacred.

The search for the composer is adventurous as well. Ascaron never named any, and soundtrack databases list a couple of websites, where the names Dag Winderlich and Matthias Steinwachs are listed. Problem is, those web pages are in part written by themselves, so take from that what you will. Both are known composers though, Winderlich worked on Port Royale 3 & Patrician 4, while Steinwachs did the music to Blue Byte's classic DOS RPG Albion.
Thought of the day - Schniepel!*

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* Expressive that gets lost in translation. The nearest english word would be "Pee-pee". It's an insult the low-level goblins hurl at you at the start of the game, and it cracks me up every time.

24 Breath of Fire II
1994 was especially good year being a Capcom-stan: Super Street Fighter II Turbo, Demon's Crest, Mega Man X 2, Mickey Mania, Mega Man V for GameBoy and the first entry in the Darkstalkers-franchise.

But now is the time for the best part of this underrated RPG-franchise (closely followed by BoF 4). Composer Yuko Takehara (sometimes listed under her maiden name Kadota) did the music alone, which is fairly rare at Capcom.
A summary of her most prominent work are the theme for Boomer Kuwanger and Charlie's and Rose's theme from Street Fighter, she also worked fulltime on Mega Man 6 and 7. 2010 she quit right after working on Mega Man 10.

Now, I did struggle with my favorite from this game, and it's certainly not as often-cited as the overworld or Fight music, but I still remember having a spare save slot in Windia just to listen to this relaxing tune.
Thought of the day ~ Nap time, Yua!

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25 Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island
Now, I should not have to tell you about Koji Kondo or his importance in video game music, should I? But, I simply must share the talented OG neckbeard that is Tom Brier, ragtime & sightreading genius, may he recover someday.
Funfact: The game was at first supposed to receive a pre-rendered look, like the beginning cutscene.

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26 Super Mario RPG
Up until 1996, Square & Nintendo were still BFFs, then the split over the ULTRA64 betting on catridge-based games happened, and my take on that is that the break-up was so bad, that Square only came crawling back after overlord Hiroshi Yamauchi stepped down in May of 2002.
The game was Yoko Shinomura's breakthrough as accepted composer and she should become a main staple for the series Parasite Eve, Kingdom Hearts, Mario+Luigi, and lastly Final Fantasy XV.

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27 Extreme-G
Probe was a subsidiary studio of Acclaim, mostly known for Forsaken, Re-Volt, the GameBoy ports of Mortal Kombat, and this... let's call it "motorcycle racing game", shall we?
Coming out 1 year before F-Zero X & wipEout 64, it blew the childish Mario Kart 64 away, its electro trance soundtrack conveying a sense of dread and speed, done by Stephen Root & Simon Robertson.

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28 World of Goo
It's hard to say who exactly initiated the indie game boom of the Noughties, a contributing factor at least was this clever game by 2D Boy. Kyle Gabler and Ron Carmel split from EA / Maxis, and its a good thing they did.

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Free soundtrack, yo:
https://kylegabler.com/WorldOfGooSoundtrack

29 Overlord 2
Those silly dutch guys from Triumph Studios with their world domination schemes, be it Age of Wonders or this "Sauron-Simulator using a Pikmin engine".
The fact that composer Michiel van den Bos (aka Mike Boss) was also responsible for the Unreal soundtrack can be heard throughout this theme, if you phase out the minions mucking about.

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30 Solstice
British company Software Creations (later a part of Acclaim until their demise) was the domicile of 2 highly gifted pair of brothers, the brothers Pickford (who will be in a later featurette subtitled "The exploding man") and the Follin Bros. Tim Follin (with help from Geoff) was tasked to write a little intro tune to this 1990 NES title. What happended instead is better summarized using my favourite YouTube quote: "Christ Tim you just needed a title theme, not a damn 8 Bit movie soundtrack for a Lord of the Rings movie". What is squeezed from the measly NES-soundchip is 'fantastic' in every sense of the word.
Thought of the day ~ MUSCLE WIZARD CAST FIST!

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edit: methinks spoiler tags are in order, as the website cache is still chugging noticably

[VoiceOfReasonPast]

It fills my rotten heart with joy to see so much German representation here. These games are like edged into my brain.

12 Das schwarze Auge: Nordlandtrilogie - Schicksalsklinge / Realms of Arkania 1: Sword of destiny
Now here's a gem all you anglos might not get behind - well, you could, as the franchise has been translated to "Realms of Arkania". You had your D&D, us Germans had our 'Black eye' (named after an elven artifact of power)

Actually, there are multiple Black Eyes (or rather Dark Eyes in the official translation, because the English "black eye" translates into something we Germans call "blue eye", confusingly enough), with at least the first one being a dragon invention.
They're effectively bootleg Palantirs, who barely have any impact on anything (I doubt there's even a single one in the entire Nordlandtrilogie) and who literally only exist because their first draft of the game was deemed to have too boring of a name (Aventuria, named after the main continent).

[Complicity]

I wasn't sure about posting this here or in the "what are you listening to?" thread, because it's an arranged album.
So here's the Arcanum OST too:



I don't know why Sseth said that he would rather listen to different music while playing in his review, the game's atmosphere is made by this score.

[Tig Ol Bitties]

16 Tomb Raider
Today the Western publishing arm of Squeenix, Eidos in the 90s dominated with franchises like Deus Ex, Legacy of Kain, Hitman and Commandos (and to complete your nerd-lore, one of its core founders was Ian Livingstone - yes, of Games Workshop fame). Though the franchise surrounding Lara Croft wasn't originally Eidos' work, but that of the '96 aquired company Core Design. Before the aquisition, Core was mainly involved in Atari-, Amiga-, and DOS-Computer games or the odd SEGA Genesis title (Impossamole, Heimdall, Chuck Rock, various Asterix-entries).
Series composer Nathan McCree was also responsible for Tomb Raider II & III afterwards, whereafter he founded his own companies to offer sound design, most recently active for Silent Hill: Downpour.
Thought of the day - trap that stupid butler!

Nice underrated selection here. It's not some pounding Hans Zimmer tune, but the old Eidos theme is a classic.

[wulfenlord]

Actually, there are multiple Black Eyes (or rather Dark Eyes in the official translation, because the English "black eye" translates into something we Germans call "blue eye", confusingly enough), with at least the first one being a dragon invention.
They're effectively bootleg Palantirs, who barely have any impact on anything (I doubt there's even a single one in the entire Nordlandtrilogie) and who literally only exist because their first draft of the game was deemed to have too boring of a name (Aventuria, named after the main continent).

Yeah, the primordial dragon race, never a fan of them, neither there nor in Chrono Trigger. Right on with the false friend black/dark/blue, but as there are also white eyes, I wanted to emphasize the color of the poor-man's Palantiri. Now that I remember, there was only low-level loot in the games, even the fabled Sternenschweif was literally just a Shortsword+2, so my knight still used his trusty Rondrakamm (Flamberge for non initiates).

Nice underrated selection here. It's not some pounding Hans Zimmer tune, but the old Eidos theme is a classic.

Hell yeah, guess what background music started automatically on my first homepage in 2000

[wulfenlord]

Done with the rewrite of my last original material from way back when. Expect a much slower release schedule from here on out


31 Knights of Xentar / Dragon Knight 3
Having an early floppy disk release 1991 for the superior nihongo rival machines to IBM computers (NEC PC-9801, PC-Engine CD, Fujitsu FM Towns and Sharp X68000) by ELF Corp., aka élf (who sadly disbanded 2015, but were only ever known to purists). The great success of the title allowed for a fully voice-acted CD-version with a worldwide publishing, done by Megatech and Softgold late in 1994.

Though the gameplay was way outdated even for simple RPG standards then (you could min-max your stats by saving shortly before a level-up, then reloading any bad rolls), the humorous and frivolous gameplay was pure bliss for any pubescent boy out there.
The music was coded by Hiroaki Sano and Manabu Kunieda, but only Sano is still busy as a composer, his last notable credit working on the 16th Porkyman movie. Well, enough talk, now onto the tune of the first town, then if anyone feels the urge for a reinstall, I may still have the uncensor patch on my HDD :3
Thought of the day ~ Du bist in Elendssenke!*

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*shoutouts to the annoying boy in the starting town, who always gets in the way, and ALWAYS triggers his damn dialogue! Fuck you!

32 Mystic Quest Legend / Final Fantasy USA
Squaresoft pleased those stupid, untalented Murricans with FF1 to moderate success in 1990 and FF4 in 1991 (redubbed FF2 to the joy of every continuity lover, looking at you @JamesRolfe), but didn't get the expected sales numbers with FF2/4 even though they went straight from NES to Super Nintendo.

While the titles were gobbled up in the motherland, being instant million-sellers and causing business-men to take holiday leave to get in the queues on release date (something only Dragon Quest managed before that, which is why DQ titles are traditionally released on Saturdays, as not to harm the grorious japanese industry with too many workers taking leave).

The upper management came to the only viable conclusion: american children are vastly inferior in terms of intelligence, so we need to educate them. Give them "Babbys first RPG"!

And so it came to pass in 1992 for the Americans, later 1993 as Mystic Quest Legend the for the PAL regions (named in this fashion because we poor Germans did not even have a Final Fantasy at that point, but we did have >Final Fantasy Adventure<, only we called it "Mystic Quest").

Ryuji Sasai is personally my favorite composer for the SNES, and his powerful heavy metal is simply a revelation. Staying with Square until 1998 for his last project Bushido Blade 2, he left videogames, and is only active as a bass player in small rock groups.

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33 Shadowrun (for the SNES, the Genesis has a completely different game)
The australians from Beam Software made this RPG gem in 1993, its composer Marshall Parker would also work his magic on the other Nintendo hit games True Lies and Smash TV , and he stayed during the companys restructurings, first 2000 the merger with Infogrames/Atari (where Beam got renamed to Melbourne House) and then in 2006 to Krome Studios. At last he shifted to Ubisoft Singapore in 2013 where he was responsible for the Sounddesign of Assassin's Creed 4.
Thought of the day ~ bring back your love to me baaaaaby

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34 Hearthstone
They started small, quirky, creative, in 1991 as Silicon & Synapse with their first (and last) original IPs Lost Vikings and Rock & Roll Racing (which, tobyfairy, is a copy of their own RPM Racing, which, tobbeefeehr, is a copy of Nintendo's RC Pro am. But hey, 1 out of 2).

Since the renaming to Blizzard in 1994 they had not one creative bone in their bodies, ptooh!. Blackthorne is Prince of Persia with a shotgun, Warcraft & Starcraft are directly ripped from Warhammer, and the world would have been a better place had GW crushed them under their heels. Diablo is a blatantly generic dungeon crawler with mythology ripped from the bible and storytelling from 14 year old boys, full of skulls & gore & succubi.

Heroes of the Storm is a stolen cashgrab from better MOBA and Blizz is still assmad that they birthed the genre but can't profit from it, Overwatch copied Team Fortress and any other cooperative team shooter, and lastly, this. For this, Richard Garfield would rotate in his grave, if he were already deceased.

But hey, biggy up for Peter McConnell, of Psychonauts-fame. Applause, everyone

Thought of the day ~ Yahaha Mon. Taz'dingo!

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35 Lufia 2 - Rise of the Sinistrals
Not Borderlands popularized the "Pre-Sequel" but developer Neverland with their Estpolis-franchise. Even though they had big publisher support from Taito, Natsume, Ubisoft and Nintendo themselves, the series was never a huge commercial success (Germany only got Lufia 2 and the lousy GameBoy Color part).

Though Neverland did yield some further success with its Rune Factory titles, most of the programmers jumped ship to the company Marvelous when Neverland went bankrupt in 2013.

Composer Yasunori Shiono did the score for nearly every Lufia game, and if Redditeur's song pick didn't rock your socks off, this one will

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36 Okami
There once was an inhouse team at Capcom, founded in 2004, known as Studio 9, or Clover Studios respectively. Their first work of art was Viewtiful Joe. But they felt their creative juices were strangled by Capcoms internal policy that 4 out of 5 developed titles had to be sequels instead of original creations.

Thus nearly the whole team went rogue in 2006 under the name "Seeds Inc." now better known as PlatinumGames. As per usual with Capcom work ethic, the score is a collaborative effort: Masami Ueda, Hiroshi Yamaguchi, Rei Kondoh and Akari Kaida.

At first slated to be a PS2 exclusive, with the current HD releases & re-releases absolutely noone has an excuse not to have played this Twilight Princess-clone in feudal/mythological Japan :3

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37 Tetrisphere
The small Cucknadian developer H2O Entertainment originally had plans to release a game called 'Phear' on Atari Jaguar. The games beta ran at CES '95. Nintendo execs saw the games potential, and poached H2O with wads of cash (promises of fame and/or hookers are likely, too) directly off the exposition booth so to say.
The game was then, with official blessings from the Tetris Company, reworked to an N64 title in 1997.
As those were the olden times where everything was still operated by steam and made from wood, I can't find much more intel about H20, other than them releasing 2 more N64 games.

Anyhoo, the music is on another level still, with strong DnB and techno influences. Composer Neil Voss is an oldschool C64 nerd at heart and active in the chiptune scene, thus its no wonder you can activate a whole hidden soundtrack in-game full of bleeps 'n bloops with a cheat code. I wonder if he felt inspired by the MOYSE-code from Link's Awakening.

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38 Last Ninja 2
System 3 from the UK brings us joy since 1982. Well, if you consider the Constructor & Super Putty Squad game series to spark joy, mostly. But that's enough sarcasm, their early trilogy of culturally appropriating japanese assassin tradition is bloody awesome. In a brilliant marketing strategy the limited edition release of the 1988 second part in the series included shuriken, which meant the release got "limited" really quick. Despite (or because of) that the whole series was a smash hit, with statistics ranging from 2 to 6 gorillion sold copies.

As the C64 'only' sold between 10 to 30 million times (according to whose numbers you trust), and not everyone got their games through official means (Yo, don't copy that floppy bro!), it is speculated that the game ran on every other C64 computer.

WARNING:
What you are about to hear is the soundtrack by Matt Gray. It is advised you are sheltered, because otherwise your unprepared ears will start to bleed from 0:25 onwards from the pure awesome. Also, if you should be participating in road traffic, your car will transform into a Lamborghini Countach.

Gray is still active on any social music platform under the sun (Bandcamp, Soundcloud, you name it) and for a couple of years now he gets paid top dollar on Kickstarter, re-releasing his old work in new editions, but deservedly so in my opinion.

Additionally, he was part of the early 90s techno scene, using the pseudonyms EQ and Westworld, and wrote several hit songs, for instance for Danii Minogue, and 'Believe' for Cher.

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39 DuckTales (NES)
Hiroshige Tonomura was responsible for one of Capcom's, nay, video games best soundtracks, with the presented theme "The Moon" being so good, it appeares twice in the game, and regularly tops the Top10 list of any YouTube kid out there.

Mr. Tonomura, who also goes by the alias' Tono, Piroshiki, and Perorin, left Capcom in 1990 to work for Taito, where his last project has been RayForce in 1994.

DuckTales saw a GameBoy port and an NES sequel, both without Tonomuras skills, but 2014 small cult developer WayForward (Shantae) got permission to develop a remaster for Capcom. Its music is not as poignant and doesn't have the same drive as the original, but you can feel that the composer is trying his best to honor the NES soundtrack. This submission and devotion of his could stem from him being Jake 'virt' Kaufman, who should be known to everyone browsing the site VGMix back in the 2000s, you could say from quacks to riches :3

Thought of the day ~ DuckTits, Woo~ooh!

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40 ActRaiser
Quintet has been developing creative RPGs in the early 90s (most known for their loose trilogy "Soul Blazer - Illusion of Time/Gaia - Terranigma") with strong ties to Enix as a publisher. but even the most creative minds can be burnt out with having nothing more to say, and this was long before Enix' arranged marriage with Squaresoft. Though never officially closed, sadly the company chose the way of the Spoony One after the release of Mystic Heroes, closing their bulletin board in 2002, not posting anything ever again, and quietly shutting down their webpage in 2008.

Here we have their first game, a better God sim than anything the hackfraud Peter Molyneux could ever dream up, with soundtrack done by freelance composer Yuzo Koshiro (whose company Ancient is also a household name). Koshiros opus is too wide to list here, so I'll just name the main franchises he graced with his presence: Ys, Shenmue (which is also one of the last games with Quintet supporting the development), Etrian Odyssey, and lastly the Secret of Mana Remaster.

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edit: methinks spoiler tags are in order, as the website cache is still chugging noticably

[VoiceOfReasonPast]

Very depressing to hear about Quintet's fate. Sad.

And as much as Mystic Quest (the "Final Fantasy" one, not Seiken Densetsu 1) gets shit on for being Baby's First JRPG, I dare say it does have a catchier OST than some of the actual Final Fantasy titles.

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I also couldn't help but notice your lack of Castlevania.

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I'm slightly biased, can you tell? The omni-directional whip might make Super Castlevania 4 one of the easiest pre-Metroidvania ones, but the OST is beyond reproach.

[wulfenlord]

Yeah, Akumajo Dracula was always too hard for me as a child (also why I didn't include Ghosts 'n Goblins or Contra :3). I only got back into it with SotN & Lourdes of Shaddouwe. Funnily enough, I blasted through Battletoads on one set of lives.

Quake 2
Meet Sascha Dikiciyan, German child of armenian immigrants, going by Sonic Mayhem in the industrial music clique. Being a fanboy of Quake, he sent in a bootleg soundtrack. John Romero was so impressed by this, that he asked specifically for Dikiciyan to be his bitch for the new "Strogg" soundtrack (aside from Rob Zombie getting credited with the title track). What is Strogg, you ask? Well, it should be the new hot Sci-Fi IP after Quake's rather lovecraftian horror theme (twobyfour, there were several working titles, including Lock & Load, and WOR). I fucking love this soundtrack, it really gets you pumped up to shoot up some alien bastards, and I remember leaving the CD in my computer even when not playing because the game disc doubles as a soundtrack. Dikiciyan lately doubled-teamed the soundtrack to Prototype and Space Marine, together with Cris Velasco.

[Guest]

Like Twisted Metal, Blast Chamber is A MOTHERFUCKING GEM from the early days of the PSX. You zoomer newfags (and oldfags like Kugel with his Sega Genesis) wouldn't understand.

[wulfenlord]

Nice underrated game (and the only real reason to get a multitap for PSX, other than Blaze & Blade), but I liked Jeehun Hwang better in Mechwarrior 2 ( plus he did the score for the Quake mission packs, to tie it to the last soundtrack)