Appreciation of VG Music 11: Original Soundtracks

[Capa Langley]

Theme #11: Regardless of which era or genre, pick your favorite non-arrangement soundtrack as a whole.

What is required from you:

• Link a stream or youtube video of your favorite original track that must correspond with the current theme. Not limited to just one.
  
• Explain why you like the specific track. Don't just say you like it.
  
• Some favorites will often be shared between more than one persons. This means someone else will likely post a track which you like. So instead post your 2nd favorite or so forth. No duplicates. The idea here is to spread as much different tracks as possible.
  
• Or, you can post a track you've never really listened to before and write why it should be enjoyed.
  
• Participation is key.
  

Previous sessions:

1. Battle Music

2. Game Boy

3. Vocals

4. Scary Theme

5. Sad Theme

6. Live Instruments

7. Guitars

8. Character Theme

9. Summer

10. Main Themes

[ocre]

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles!

- This soundtrack really does an excellent job of establishing the celtic/fantasy vibe for this game with interesting instrument choices that really give the locations their character.

From the bleak '

' to the carefree(and Lord of the Rings Shire-like) '

, the game delivers magical tracks that take you to another world.

Additional tracks:

and

[Ivan Hakštok]

My favorite OST is probably Radical Dreamers (I bet nobody saw that coming).

Even though it's rather short (15 songs, if I'm not wrong), at least the half of those would rank pretty high if I ever wanted to do a "My favorite VG songs" list, and each song fits the game perfectly, which was quite necessary as the game has minimal gameplay, so every other aspect had to immerse you into it.

Though I love all the tracks there, my favorite is definitely

. I promised myself this will be the song played at my funeral, because in my mind this is the perfect song to say "The End"

[Chernabogue]

[Rexy]

Though I do like a good non-arranged OST every now and again, very few end up on my iPod for my travels. However, only two soundtracks have had that distinction for me.

Mention #1: Bust A Groove

Notable Mentions:

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Back in the day, Bust-A-Groove's soundtrack faced a huge acclaim from game critics. And why not - the tracks themselves have this great dancable charm that fits the era of release remarkably well and adapted so well to the characters that were represented, from the bad boy nature of Strike to the food junkie that is Hamm through to Hiro's chauvanist portrayal to even adding a sense of cuteness to Shorty - you can't help but see how much attention was paid to the lyrical writing. It was even one of those rare occasions in which a japanese vocal track would remain in game (Frida's theme) and thus would be my first exposure to the Japanese language; though 3 of the other Japanese originals faced some quirky translations and the fifth, Kitty-N's theme, received this EPIC Eurodance makeover. A lot of the songs are on my iPod rotation right now, and rightfully so as it brings back some wonderful memories.

Mention #2: Katamari Damacy

Notable Mentions:

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Another great, creative soundtrack that received huge acclaim was that for Katamari Damacy. With its upbeat score, it no pulling no punches to the amount of silliness it can provide even on a musical basis ("Cherry Blossom Color Season" is a great example of it using an ensemble of children to perform on it!) and providing this great feeling of unity and joy all around while still maintaining great jazz-influenced production values that don't veer it too far into cutesy territory. Even in later sequels that stance was maintained, with one of the more notable aspects of it being a medley of songs from the original title being re-created with farm animals!

There we go, that's my contributions

[SuperiorX]

I have to agree with Rexy, that I usually only put arranged VGM soundtracks on my iPod, but I do have a few purely original soundtracks that I love dearly:

#1: Wild ARMs

Fav songs:

,

, Battle Zeik

Luckily this OST just got a lot of lovin' with Jade's OCR album (of which I am so grateful for), but before that I hadn't seen a lot (in terms of remixes at least). This soundtrack is full of emotional charged songs, with most of them wrapped around this quasi-western & orchestral vibe. Very unique and enjoyable in my opinion. My favorite OST of all-time

I also want to say I completely love the Wild ARMs 2 (2nd Ignition) OST too. I don't feel like looking for source links right now, but that soundtrack has just as many memorable and unique tunes as the original did. I feel like the series dropped off a bit after the 2nd installment, but anyone looking for something that's not quite your typical VGM (or even typical RPG) soundtrack should check both of these out!

[jnWake]

One of my favourite soundtracks is the one from Mother 3. This underrated game is one of the most emotional RPGs I've played, and a big part of that is due to the amazing soundtrack.

Now I'll show some of the songs I like, even though I recommend listening to the entire OST, since it is just awesome. It makes me sad that there isn't a single OCRemix of this game.

- Nice piano version of one of the main themes of the game.

- This game is notable (like Earthbound) for having many different battle themes. This is the theme of the first big boss of the game.

- Dat organ.

- I like this theme because of the instruments it uses.

- Song from one of the saddest parts of the game.

- One of the coolest battle themes of the game.

- Chiptune madness!

- Ending theme.

Sorry for putting so many tracks, but the OST has 245 amazing tunes

[Mirby]

Shin Bokura no Taiyou: Gyakushuu no Sabata or in English, Boktai 3: Sabata's Counterattack

The Boktai series has some great tracks, but I picked the third one because there's a few ones in it that I love.

- I've always loved this track since the first time I heard it, and it has great energy to it.

Dark Boy's Revenge - It also holds an arrangement of Dark Boy from the original Boktai (a track I got remixed in the FBRC2010 thanks to Moseph), so I shouldn't need to say how much I love it.

Pirate Island - Great dungeon tune, nice pace. Had a great adventurous feel to it.

Bike Battle - The game also features Bike Battle stages, most of which are completely optional. They're pretty fun too, and the music has a great pace to it.

Crossover - The games also had crossover functionality with the last three Battle Network games, though due to this game not coming out in the states the functionality was removed from Battle Network 6.

It's a great soundtrack (all the games have their gems), and I love it.

[Garpocalypse]

(I hope I have a rare one here)

In my opinion, VGM was at it's best when it made up for around 50% of the experience of any game. The soundtrack could make or break a great game and vice versa.

So, I love it when a soundtrack is so good that it makes up for a horribly mediocre game This was done by Tenpei Sato who would go on to do the incredibly good Disgaea OST.

- Stage 1 *Epic long before everyone used that word to describe the breakfast they had that morning. Among other things.

- Stage 2 *Listening to this was every bit as ground shaking as Sonic CD's US OST when it hit waay back in the day

Stage 5 * This level was awful but it's one of my favorites due to the music. bloohayerdchix ftw

This was for the PCE(Turbo Grafx-16) and is not a rearranged version.

wai rther nomor bloohayerdchix n' gaimezzz??

here's the game, as much as I love it (for some reason) i can't deny it's crapiness