I used to be such a Square whore....

The Core RPGC Main Forum
1

How things have changed.

Some of you would recall that I once owned every single SquareSoft soundtrack album from Final Fantasy to Front Mission 4 and then some…

I’ve likely owned at least 250 albums at a time… only recently has it been reduced to the reasonable number of 25.

So let’s see what I’ve found to be “keeper” material in a 12 year span of collecting many, many, Game Music albums.

2197

Easily one of the best “omnibus” style albums out there. Every track has something unique.

Ai Cho Aniki

While Koji Hayama’s original is equally awesome, this one manages to edge out because of higher quality and better composition. Way to go, Taku Iwasaki !

Akumajo Dracula Best 2

One of my earlier VGM purchases back in '99 I think. Just plain good Castlevania music !

Burai Prototype

Best 2$ I ever spent ! Show-Ya manages to bring out all the good things that came with the’80s.

Carnaval

Takayuki Aihara’s take on the bossa nova style of music. So. Damn. Good.

Chaos Field Sound Track

Easily the best work by Nagata and Hayashi. Great album to get me pumped up for just about anything.

Daiva

One of the earliest arrange albums. All done on Yamaha synthesizers too ! Woah, this is quite good considering it was made back in '87.

Dance!

Ayako Saso brings on the groove here ! Great partying music !

Driving Emotion Type-S/Bushido Blade Original Soundtrack

Solid, solid, solid music by Hosoe, Saso and Aihara all around. What’s not to like ?

Final Fantasy IV Original Sound Version

Vintage Nobuo Uematsu. Need I say more ?

Freedom Fighters Original Soundtrack

Jesper Kyd at his finest. Great mix of orchestral, choral and electronics.

Gaia Crusaders Original Sound Track

Toshikazu Tanaka taking a mostly oriental approach here. Fantastic melodies regardless.

Gran Chaser

Koji Hayama’s best original game soundtrack. The action-packed racing themes are timeless.

Kaiser Knuckle

Yack’s best Taito work IMO. Lots of unique and original themes here.

Let’s Tap Soundtrack

The best rythm-based soundtrack in a while. Love the Basiscape and Supersweep tracks.

Mushihimesama Double Arrange Album

Cave’s biggest and best arrangement project thus far. So many arrangers, so many styles of arrangement.

Myst V : End of Ages Soundtrack

Tim Larkin struts his Jazz stylings along with Myst’s ambience to give us one of the best american OSTs in a very long time.

Ninja Blade Original Soundtrack

East meets West done just right. Easily one of the best examples where high production values really does something special.

Perfect Collection Ys I & II : Complete Works of Ryo Yonemitsu

Classic Ys arrangements. These are simply perfect. Not even Ys I & II Chronicles managed to outdo this.

Raiden II

Vintage Go Sato. Catchy melodies with an infectious beat. It’s that simple.

Silent Hill 2 Original Soundtracks

100% Emotional. 100% Instrumental. 100% Yamaoka.

Street Fighter EX -Arrange Sound Trax-

If rock is what one wants, this album offers it quite generously.

Super Mario World

Yummy Jazz arrangements on Disc 1 is already a great reason to own this. The enormous nostalgic goldmine on Disc 2 makes it complete. Easily the best Mario album ever released aside the Super Mario Galaxy OSTs.

Tommy Tallarico Virgin Games Greatest Hits Volume One

Love or hate him, Tallarico knew how to rock in the day. Shame he no longer does many tracks in this style.

Ys Origin Original Soundtrack

The new Falcom JDK Team is on the right track with this album. I’m especially fond of the various dungeon tracks here.

Whew ! So this is it. If this isin’t a varied collection, I don’t know WHAT is.

2

So…do you listen to any music that isn’t video game soundtracks? Not a troll, just genuinely curious.

I think the only video game soundtrack I ever liked was Amon Tobin’s Chaos Theory album…though to be honest I never played the game for which it was made, nor do I even know the name of said game.

3

Actually,

I had my share of Metallica, Iron Maiden, Guns n’ Roses, Deep Purple, Pink Floyd, etc… music along with my smaller VGM collection… Now I have the Dark Crystal Film Soundtrack album and Cyborg’80s (A Japanese Synth-Pop band) albums that give some variation to my playlist.

4

I used to have a huge collection of music on my PC (most of it downloaded with Limewire) of all kinds, from classical to rap. Until I got a virus that nearly wrecked my computer earlier this year.Since then I have limited myself to watching YouTube videos. Some of those are actually pretty good, like this take on Aeris’ Theme with made-up lyrics, check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-as6Kbcj4c

5

Those of you whom have grown up in the '80s… you might remember this particular TV commercial…

McDonald’s Super Mario Bros. 3 Happy Meal/Toy combo… Those were the days ;_;

Nostalgia… coming back… sob

With all due respect Wil, I prefer official arrangements when available…

If only I could remember the album title that had those 3 orchestral takes…

Edit : Found it ! FFVII Reunion Tracks

Enjoy and weep !!

6

Wow, 250 VGM CDs? I thought my CD collection was big… mind you I do have a lot of CDs, but they are mostly varying styles.
I think my favourite video game OST is Einhander. That is one happening score. I like a lot of older SNES and NES soundtracks but I don’t think I would bother hunting them all down.

7

Red Faction 1 & 2 have pretty neat soundtracks. I think that is what this thread is about, anyway.

8

Oh god! I still have two of those toys kicking around.

Of course, there were the cartoons as well, many of which can be viewed on places like Youtube and Hulu nowadays.

Do the Mario!

9

Oh man ! This also takes me back ! Sure by today’s standards it’s likely goofy and cheezy… but I’m sure many of us had a blast watching these back in the day.

Let me get something really neat out here for everyone to enjoy…

One of the best arrangements on the Super Mario World album. It’s the original underwater theme. It’s sweet !!

10

I’m a great fan of people who take VGM to different styles, like the Video Game Orchestra or Press Play On Tape. I’m also thinking about buying my friends some albums from PPOT for Christmas.

11

Speaking of Square game music, and Youtube, look what I found! The OST to SaGa Frontier!! Man, this takes me back. I’d forgotten how much I liked this game’s music, especially the Boss Themes!

12

Yeah, Kenji Ito really had the knack to write outstanding battle tracks… shame the rest of his repertoire isin’t quite as exciting.

Here’s a non-Square theme that is just as good : Dio’s Battle Theme from World Heroes 2 on Neo Geo CD.

If that ain’t a rockin’ battle track, I don’t know WHAT is.

13

After many, many, many, many, many changes… I’ve finally found my 35 keepers.

1st row Chaos Field, Kaiser Knuckle, Final Fantasy IV, Silent Hill 2, Let’s Tap, Raiden II, Gran Chaser

2nd row Driving Emotion Type-S/Bushido Blade, Gaia Crusaders, Ai Cho Aniki, Super Mario World, Akumajo Dracula Best 2, Ninja Blade, Ys Origin

3rd row Super Darius II, Salamander II, Tempest 2000, Giants Citizen Kabuto, Headhunter Redemption/Headhunter, Tommy Tallarico Greatest Hits Vol. 1, Myst V : End of Ages

4th row Freedom Fighters, Daiva Image Album, Street Fighter EX Arrange, Raystorm Neu Tanz Mix, Burai Prototype, Ys I & II Perfect Collection, Mushihimesama Double Arrange Album

5th row Claymore, Blind Spot, Dance!, Carnaval, 2197, Lost Files, Battle Garegga CD/DVD Set

So 17 Japanese OSTs

6 Western OSTs

6 Japanese Arrange albums

6 Japanese Original albums

It may not look like much… but I’m quite satisfied with my choices.

No other albums will be acquired. Ever.

14

HAHAH! Yeah, good luck with that. Many collectors say that, only to say it again and again. Nothing wrong with collecting music.

15

How come you don’t have Symphony of the Night? That’s arguably the best damn game soundtrack ever.

16

In my personal honest opinion, Castlevania : Symphony of the Night’s soundtrack pales in comparison to Super Castlevania IV’s. Akumajo Dracula Best 2 has that, as well as the two first Gameboy Castlevania soundtracks.

It’s about compositional quality, not sound quality.

17

I, too, miss Tallarico’s heydey.

I still pop in the Wild 9 PS1 game in my CD player and crank up the volume every so often.

18

I’ve always liked Warcraft 2’s music. And of course Total Annihilation’s soundtrack was fantastic, especially considering it was composed for a game.

19

I still own a large number of soundtracks myself (Though a large number of them were sent by you, DG). I tried to get physical copies whenevrr possible, provided they weren’t ungodly rare or expensive to get. Luckily, there’s a place near here that deals in retro gaming and merchandise outside the usual fair, so some of them I managed to get. The ones I’m extremely happy with are the Chrono Cross, Legend of Mana, and Wild ARMs soundtracks. Never get tired of those. Except WA4’s. That one can go fuck the devil in hell.

20

Well… what follows are items that I had stashed away in the bottom of my closet. When I decided to clean up… I stumbled upon these…

Ys III Perfect Collection

2 CDs of Ys III music is definitely awesome… while it does not contain the excellent Turbo Duo arrangements, it can still stand on its own.

The Legend of Xanadu OST

I’m willing to bet this didn’t make it to our shores back in the day. Regardless, this OST is amazing to those who can appreciate chip music.

Music from the Legend of Heroes III

Similar to the album above, with slightly better synth.

Sorcerian Super Arrange Version II Plus Sorcerian System Vol. 1

Some really, really sweet synth arrangements with an equally sweet chip-based soundtrack.

XII Stag & Trizeal Perfect Soundtrack

Some rather dissapointing games with some decent music. Nothing out of the ordinary, yet still good.

So that brings up the count to 40 albums.

And since I have 6 Falcom albums, does that make me a Falcom whore ? :stuck_out_tongue: