What was the first video game soundtrack that you were drawn to?

[Skyline Drop]

Most people already know the smell of fresh-cut grass, but sometimes it's still nice to whiff it once in a while.

Slightly off topic, but did you know the smell of freshly cut grass is actually the grass releasing cyanide in an attempt to kill whatever is attacking them?

So, yeah. Don't whiff it too much

[Geoffrey Taucer]

Slightly off topic, but did you know the smell of freshly cut grass is actually the grass releasing cyanide in an attempt to kill whatever is attacking them?

So, yeah. Don't whiff it too much

Is that actually true? If so, it's completely awesome.

[Drayzon]

For me, the first soundtrack I actually shelled out cash for was Dark Cloud 2 (PS2). Looking back on it, I'm not certain why, as it's not that fantastic of a soundtrack, but it really resonated with me.

[duskvstweak]

It was Ocarina of Time, all the way. I was 12 and it was the first time I really noticed how awesome the music was.

Goldeneye helped as well.

[tidus9605605]

Final Fantasy X was the first ever video game soundtrack that I bought. After that, I pretty much got hooked with Nobuo.

[A-RoN]

Donkey Kong Country. I remember putting a tape-recorder in front of the TV speaker and pausing the game just to record the music. I then started listening to it and a friend walks by and insultingly asks, "Why are you listening to Nintendo?"

I'll be he's gonna eat those words if he ever comes across this site.

[OceansAndrew]

The original Final fantasy.

It was one of the first games I played that had a very lyrical approach to a lot of the melodies, with memorable melodies. There are a lot of games that had very recognizable music I had played beforehand, like Mario and Zelda, but FF1 was the first game that really made me pay attention, and the first game where I just let the game sit and I'd read or draw while listening to the music.

[Less Ashamed Of Self]

Donkey Kong Country. I remember putting a tape-recorder in front of the TV speaker and pausing the game just to record the music. I then started listening to it and a friend walks by and insultingly asks, "Why are you listening to Nintendo?"

I'll be he's gonna eat those words if he ever comes across this site.

Yeah maybe...

[lordofnothing]

The ones I remember the most were without a question Megaman X and the Donkey Kong Country series I was around 8 at the time but I could really hear that this was a different kind of music,nowadays I still have the soundtracks.

[Calpis]

I think my first was FF4. I remember reading a GamePro and they were raving about how great the "Synthesized Music" was. My Dad is a sound engineer and had several synthesizers/keyboards around so I had to check it out, even though I wasn't quite sure what a synthesizer was at the time. I remember thinking that I'd never heard music like that from a videogame before.

And THEN I rented FF6, and had to record it. So I lugged my Dad's sound equipment upstairs and recorded the entire soundtrack (as in going through the entire game and recording each new track as it came on, trying to minimize the amount of SFX that might play during that scene/area) directly via the RCA inputs on the back of the tape player.

[Dj Mokram]

The very first Megaman on the NES was probably the first game for which the VG tunes would stay stuck in my mind even hours after playing.

So much apparently, that it subconsiously turned me into a huge Rockman music (and game) fan along the road.

And judging from the number of Rockman ReMixes posted here, I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one in that case.

As far as paying attention to the soundtrack more than the game, I would say without hesitation Revenge of Shinobi on the Sega Genesis.

It was the first game for which I would turn on the console just to get into the sound test and chill to Yuzo Koshiro's awesome work.

But that was back when soundtracks weren't easily availible for purchase, so I had to record the music on tapes in the darkness of my room.

Then I was able to listen to them on the walkman any time, which added a more nostalgic factor to Sega games music in my mind.

But I'm not sure many people went through that hassle just for VGM at the time...

Finally, the first proper game soundtrack I bought on cd was Final Fantasy Tactics.

Surprisingly, it had imho compositions and audio quality much more groundbreaking than FFVII, yet was released the same year.

Still one of my favorite OST to this day, not to mention that Sakimoto has been (and still is), by far, my favorite composer ever since.