Official Gaming Music Topic

[Henry Spencer]

Oh yeah, just remembered he also did all of the music for all of Global Defense Force games too since Sandlot, Spike-Chunsoft and Grasshopper Manufacture are made up of former Human Entertainment guys.

Dunno if you know about him but another favourite of mine is Shinji Hosoe, who is also a master of synth music in games. He is a bit of legend for composing for games such as loads of the old Namco arcade games from the 80's and 90s like the original Ridge Racer (alongside Nobuyoshi Sano), Tekken 1, Tekken 2 (Tekken 3 was handled by Nobuyoshi Sano), Dragon Spirit, Cyber Commando (my personal favourite), Xevious 3D/G.

As well as music for: Bushido Blade, Street Fighter EX series (my personal favourite Street Fighter game soundtracks), Custom Robo series, 999 (DS), Virtue's Last Reward, Fate/Extra, Folklore (alongside Kenji Kawai) and Megaman Network Transmission, amongst others. He's really, really good and has a trademark style that's verifiably his own. I noticed you mention Sano in the past and he's really good too, he was also the main composer on games at Cavia for a while [since Cavia was made up of former members of Namco], such as on Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Drakengard 1 and Resident Evil: Dead Aim (Gun Survivor 4) which all had a very dark sound to them.

Seriously like 80% of the games Namco put out in the arcades had their music provided by Hosoe and Sano, sometimes working together and sometimes solo, always awesome. A shame Sano has fallen by the wayside in recent years, Hosoe has thankfully stayed relevant by working on Uchikoshi's Zero Escape series and Tekken.

[OL]

^^Yes to that entire post. Just one big fat YES to the whole thing.
I don't always mention names with this stuff, because they often escape me unless I see them on a regular basis, but I definitely recognize it when you say something like "the guy who composed for Ridge Racer and Tekken 1&2." Yeah, Hosoe's definitely a legend. I actually don't think I realized he did some stuff for Bushido Blade as well. That had some really fun tracks in the vs. mode. Looking into more stuff by him at the moment.
But yeah, I'm absolutely a fan of Sano, if only for his Ghost in the Shell soundtrack. I think the OST for that game never got the attention it deserved because it had the disadvantage of being based on a show which was scored by Yoko Kanno. And since Kanno has such diehard fans, I think most of them were just disappointed that she didn't work on the game as well, so they kind of disregarded Sano's score. But it just struck me as having such a unique style of synth to it that I latched on pretty quick. It really doesn't sound quite like anything else I've heard, and it likely compliments the game better than a Kanno score would have anyway.
My actual favorite tracks from it are the ending credits theme and the two final boss tracks, but in the interest of posting something different (I'm sure I've posted those before), I always liked the sound of this one from one of the later levels.

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I love the sort of "wind chime" synth that runs through almost the entire thing. Gives it a very Japanese feel (a not-so-cliche one at that) which, as mentioned, compliments the game itself and the story really well.
I also love that the grand majority of music from the game starts with a kind of less-assuming atmospheric sound to it, before popping in a syncopated beat roughly a minute in. Just that little sense of pacing adds a lot to that darker, cyberpunk-y feel that Ghost in the Shell really ought to have.

[Mr357]

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There's plenty of other great tracks in PDS, but these two are my favorites.

[Mr357]

I've been listening to this one a lot lately. I'll probably do another playthrough of Policenauts soon.

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[Rakim]

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I love how he pronounces "wad you up" real fast like its one word. He makes sounds like it might just be some meaningless scat word and that helps create the atmosphere and keep the song from being less interesting. Its those little nuances and oddities that can make a song special amongst the other songs in the same formula.

[Thief]

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[Thief]

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Taking my back almost 15 years with this one. Haven't heard this track in so long.

[Mr357]

For David

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[Monkei]

Playing and enjoying the hell out of Escape Goat 2 at the moment, a fun 2D puzzle platformer. Great soundtrack.

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[Henry Spencer]

My favourite game soundtrack of the year so far has to be Rodea: The Sky Soldier (Wii U/3DS) which was made by former members of Sonic Team at SEGA (including Yuji Naka). Think back to a time when SEGA would make games like NiGHTS and Sonic Adventure, this game's music is very evocative of that time. Call it nostalgia or whatever, I just love that piano synth.

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That classic SEGA sound is very much alive here. It's a thing of beauty.

[Mr357]

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[Thief]

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Kind of reminds me of the interstellar soundtrack in a way... but only just the beginning.

[OL]

Was listening to totally random videogame music just now and happened across this one. Still haven't even played the game, but this is making me want to.

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[Thief]

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Such an underrated game, with great music.

[Thief]

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Sorry for spamming the topic, but this always deserves a post.