hi sports fans. my friend has been invited to contribute to a book on the topic of VGM. I ask you: if you were to read such a book, what game(s) would you be outraged not to see included? tyvm
Bastion imo. haven’t played the other supergiant games but pawsibly them too
Chrono Cross
I think I’m terms of “how do you write a book on this and not include X” it’s breath of the wild, Destiny, and Halo.
Lots of obvious picks will probs show up so I’m going to go with:
- The Wild Arms series, which low-key has some incredible OSTs
- Romancing SaGa. kenji ito not being on the same pedestal as uematsu is criminal.
- Blue Reflection, i’ve said this one many times before lol
- Xenoblade (and don’t forget X)
- Minecraft
- FTL
- Super Mario Galaxy
- Metal Gear series but especially 3 and revengeance
the touhou games
undertale/deltarune also
Revengeance such a god tier pick idk how I didn’t think of that one.
ftr many of the obvious ones (your Minecrafts, Legend of Zeldas, etc) are already on the list but shout em out anyway, gives us a better idea of what people actually want to see!
Off the top of my head
Shining Force 2, Rocket Knight Adventures, Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, Vagrant Story, Ecco: Tides of Time, Lagoon, Streets of Rage 3,
And like I get why people wouldn’t think of it but ChoRenSha. I feel like any resource that doesn’t go off the beaten path at least a little is just telling me what I already know
shining force 2’s soundtrack is SO good. haven’t gone near that game in almost 20 years and I can still recall a ton of songs.
this is character development
Oh speaking of X I forgot Mega Man X. Also shout out to the original Donkey Kong Land
The history of Capcom burying its women musicians in the 90s, including Yoko Shimamura
Literally pick an Urmatsu Final Fantasy, 6 or 7 being the big ones.
I would kill people for Yoko Shimomura
If I had to pick one per platform:
- Monty on the Run (C64)
- Turrican II (Amiga)
- Gimmick! (NES)
- Soldier Blade (TG16)
- Thunder Force IV (Genesis)
- Sonic CD (both of them) (SCD)
- Descent 1/2 (PC - MIDI)
- Tempest 2000 (Jaguar)
- Chrono Trigger (SNES)
- Kirby’s Block Ball (GB)
- NiGHTS into Dreams (Saturn)
- Flame Zapper Kotsujin (PC-98)
- Jazz Jackrabbit 1/2 (PC - tracker)
- F-Zero X (N64)
- Final Fantasy IX (PS1)
- Metroid Prime 1/2 (GCN)
- Metal Dust (C64 SCPU)
- Mother 3 (GBA)
- Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii)
- Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky (DS)
hey i just started this! I loved the first one can’t wait to cry
Dandara Trials of Fear Edition OST is one of my favourite games soundtracks and would be my top out of the way pick.
I feel like nobody knows about most of Tamayo Kawamoto’s work aside from Ghouls n Ghosts and that’s tragic. Like, Ghouls n Ghosts is great but nobody should sleep on Forgotten Worlds. Incredible, dynamic score there
There’s should be a section devoted to Capcom’s sound team. In honesty alot of Japanese arcade composers need their flowers cuz they were using the technology to mix in club and dance beats into their albums.
Also Yellow Magic Orchestra and Yuzo Koshiro.