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Dies Irae in video game soundtracks


BlueMeeple
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"

" (Day of Wrath) is one of the oldest known european melodies (read more). It is used in many compositions: classical, pop, rock, movie soundtracks etc.

What about game music then? I started to make a list of VGM that include Dies Irae in form or other. All I remembered right away were these three:

HOMM3 - Necropolis (at 0:23)

HOMM5 - Title (at 0:18)

(at 0:03)

ADDED:

(at 1:35)

(at 0:00)

Final Fantasy IX - Ipsen's Castle (at 0:03)

(at ?:??)

(at 0:04)

(at 15:58)

EverQuest II - Dies Irae (at 0:00)

Do you know more?

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Thanks for the replies! It's nice to know that others have also thought about this subject.

I had totally forgotten the FF9 one. Didn't know about Gauntlet Legends (could you find a better version with only the music somewhere? it's difficult to hear the theme in this link...) nor Zombies ate my Neighbours.

Let's keep the list coming!

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Sorry for the double post but...

YouTube says that my

is blocked in some countries (most likely because I inlcuded an excerpt from The Shining). Now I would like to know which countries are "some countries". I sure hope USA is not one of them...

So could you please check if you can view my video and then post the result and your country as a reply here? Thanks in advance!

BTW, I found a new dies irae piece as a video suggestion to my video, immediately after I uploaded it. :)

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Haha, I remember talking about this at length in this ol' thread (post #72, sorry after all this time I still don't know how to redirect to a specific post).

Clicking the number on the post will give you the link to that post.

You could also just add &postcount= then the number. Like http://ocremix.org/forums/showpost.php?p=841038&postcount=3

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Also, I'm glad you found another recording of the Battle Trenches - I seriously couldn't find anything.

Yeah I found a N64 gamerip in *.miniusf format and with track names (am I allowed to link to it here?). Like you said there are many tracks that inlcude "Dies Irae", modified or not:

01 Opening Theme & Altar of Skorne

05 Mountain Peak

07 Token Room (Minotaur & Sumner)

10 Mountain Dragon

14 Castle Treasury

27 Desecreated Temple & Ending Theme

29 Battle Towers

30 Battle Trenches

92 Unknown

You can also feel its influence (while not so clear nor strong) in many other tracks. Thanks Gario for drawing my attention to this, it's a great soundtrack. Maybe I try the game itself some day.

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@Gario: That's a cool remix! It would work well as a BGM for a new game. Saved on hard drive.

@Retroman: That's actually a different Dies Irae compared to what I'm looking for (no shit sherlock!). Wolfgang Krauser's theme is Dies Irae from "Requiem Mass in D minor" composed by Wolfgang (!) Amadeus Mozart in 1791. Only transcribed to different video game console sound chips.

Requiem in D was one of Mozart's last works and it was left unfinished when he died. One of the biggest researched and argued subjects in classical music history has been (and is still) that to what extent is that piece composed by Mozart and which parts are compleated by other composers. But if I'm not completely mistaken Dies Irae is almost 100% Mozart.

The "Dies Irae" I'm looking for is the one composed in 13th century (maybe by Thomas of Celano) and which is used as a musical joke/game/easter egg by many other composers BUT it'd be fun to list usage of Mozart's Dies Irae in video games aswell.

These I could find with a quick search (beside Krauser's theme):

There are also many other Requiems (and therefore Dies Iraes) composed by other composers, for example Verdi, Dvořák, Bruckner, Stavinsky etc. etc...

is one of my all time favourite pieces of music (that bass drum!) but is it used on video game sountracks? Someone on VGMdb.net forums said that "producers of Kingdom Hearts asked Yoko Shimomura to compose something similar for Destati". Well they do bear resemblance in one place:

Verdi

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  • 3 weeks later...

Sorry for bumping my own old thread but maybe there's now new people around to find more examples (and spread my

) 8-)

ALSO: the dies irae by mozart (and verdi) seems also to be popular in vgm so I started to list them as well

======

Mozart

======

Fatal Fury - W.Krauser Theme (thanks RETROMAN for different versions)

-

-Fatal Fury 2 (???)

-

-

(are the more different ost versions of this one?)

(every piece of this OST seems to be a remix of a classical composition, neat!)

Victoria: An Empire Under the Sun - Dies Irae

(couldn't find a proper youtube video)

(never played, at what kind of place of the game does this play?

=====

Verdi

=====

(yet to be released outside japan)

(yet a again a cool remix!)

(this seems too easy for this piece, but then again I've never played the game...)

(also mozart dies irae seems to be on this "all classical music" soundtrack, I just couldn't find a proper youtube video for it!)

Did I miss anything?

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  • 7 years later...

No one remembered Dies Irae in the Final Fantasy VIII Intro? That's the first thing that pops into my head whenever I hear Dies Irae. Just like when I heard it on youtube maybe 20 minutes ago 

How Remakes Go WRONG – feat. Disney's The Lion King and Aladdin – Wisecrack Edition https://youtu.be/_u5_PJHi3jY?t=161 Starts at 2:40 just in case the timestamp fucks up

Edited by timmyeugeclark
typo
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