Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time - Brilliant Beginning to end, it feels perfect, it looks perfect, it sounds perfect, its moving and unconditionally inspiring. This my friends is the 8th Wonder of the World.
Super Metroid - Concise, atmospheric and provides an unrivaled sense of joy in just exploring.
Chrono Trigger - The pinacle of 2D RPG's and Square games in general that still rivals all RPG's since. This title perfected everything good that came before it and removed silly things like Random Encounters that still plague RPG's today.
Ico - Need I say more on this game? The most beautiful and artistic game ever made. Poetry in motion.
Super Mario 64 - Unrivaled playability, even surpassing my 8th wonder of the world in that reguard. No game is more fun.
Metal Gear Solid - There was something wrong with this game? The one title that needs NO explanation. Kojima at his finest hour. Pure genius.
Rez - Few words can describe this game... and none would do it justice. Kandinsky-esque art is brought to life with vivid surealism. This game instils more emotion into the gamer, than perhaps all games combined, this title blurs the lines of reality.
Planescape Torment - The most immersive game I have ever played. You dont simply "play" this game, you ARE this game. I WAS the Nameless One..... Everything in this game is perfect right down to the choice of fonts. People tell me books are inheritantly more immersive than games *could* ever be. I just point them towards PlaneScape.... things have only just begun.
Deus Ex - There is something to be said about a game that not only tops casual gamers lists but manages to score highly with the hard core gamers too. This is the game Doom should have been.
This was
Jeremy Soule (
Total Annihilation,
Morrowind,
Icewind Dale,
Guild Wars,
Dungeon Siege,
Neverwinter Nights) first video game soundtrack work and is his finest and most creative. (from wiki, but I wrote it :P) Secret of Evermore's score differed greatly from all previous Squaresoft games by incorporating organic environmental sounds like wind blowing and rain into the music and utilising a more mellow tune for ochestral music contrasting completely the epic scores of
Secret of Mana and
Final Fantasy VI.
Because of the limited success of Secret of Evermore Squaresoft produced only a small number of albums, making it to this day the rarest Squaresoft album produced and is highly sought after by collectors, im glad I have my copy...
Ecco was an amazing game by Sega and it was a very high profile title. Sega even went to the extent of paying money to zoos so their animators could spend hours watching Dolphins and drawing pictures of them. Sega tried to make Ecco as classy as possible and tried to make it appealing to the US market by outsourcing the brilliant
Boris Vallejo to do the promotional artwork and Sega carefully selected the very European sounds of
Spencer Nilsen (this was his first game as well) which made Ecco into the brilliant piece of cultural collaboration that it is, and the soundtrack was one vital aspect of that.
What can I say, an arrangement of the beautiful score by
Koji Kondo found in OoT that is largely faithful to the OST, but places a strong focus onto string instruments (and ocarinas of course), which gives a unique sound to the entire score. The album also does include one special treat that arranges all the major renditions of the Zelda Theme into one incredible emotive track. It also includes one of the rare tracks that was excluded in later versions of the game itself for sounding to similar to the muslim prayer song.
What can I say, im not a huge fan of the game, but the soundtrack is incredible... Is that Scottish / Irish music I hear? Very Brave Heart like... very cinematic and most of all captivating.
Marty O'Donnell at Total Audio who has done all of Bungies games just keeps getting better and better with each project he takes on, starting with
Worms,
Riven,
Myth,
Oni and all the way up to Halo. Highly recommend.
Ahh, a true gem. The famed
The Fatman's most prized work. The Fatman is one of the true geniuses out there and in the video game music industry is up there with
Nobuo Uematsu. Here I even have listed his work above that of Nobuo! It's unfourtnate that the 7th Guest never released a full soundtrack besides this sampler for the CDi... but 'such as life' and the Fatman does arrangments of his own work over at Remi Overclocked.org So I highly recommend people listen to anything he has made from there.
The Fatman at OCRemix.org
Hmmm speaking of
Nobuo Uematsu, this is his finest work, and I personally believe he has just been rehashing alot of his old work ever since. I still would love to hear his band (
The Black Mages) play in concert though! Captivating opera in the limited sounds of 1994 consoles is difficult but Nobuo made it not only possible but executed it beautifully. A lesser man would of crumbled.
How Quintet managed to squeeze the range of sound fonts and depth into this soundtrack amazes me to this day. Truly a work of art, clearly the composer was very talented at maximising whatever he has to work with.
The first Final Fantasy score not entirely done by Nobuo Uematsu, in fact I hear he only worked on a few theme's and his name was there more for symbolic reasons and for the guidence he provided to the two new Square hotshot composers
Masashi Hamauzu and
Junya Nakano. The PS2 opened up the scope the Final Fantasy score could have and one person simply wasnt enough to handle the entire project.
In my oppinion since FFX was naturally inclinded to be played on the Piano a forced arrangment of a few key tracks played only using a Piano was just natural and I believe is this album is the ultimate rendition of the score. Nobou states he is most proud of the work he did on FFX.
Chrono Trigger a beautiful all rounder. Many consider this to be Nobuo's best work, it's exceptional but not his best. The range of this particular album is great because the tracks are based on the PlayStation Chrono Trigger cinematics, so a really classy album.
Beautiful melodic sounds that fit the theme, gameworld and gameplay.
Stuart Chatwood created and arranaged this album, and it shows he has handled almost everything with care, sadly a few tracks are only circa 30 seconds in length and were not arranged into full songs or even given much attention, but the tracks that were given Chatwood's love trully shine.
Honourable Mentions
Megaman 2 - Won many awards at the time for it's music and still stands as one of the most remixed games in existance and is often played by bands like
The Minibosses. If a decent soundtrack was released this may be my number 1.
Entomorph - Ahh, what can I say, an obscure RPG that shipped on
CD-ROM, and developers at the time didnt know what to fill the CD's up with so was at that era where they just included CD quality music directly on the CD. Entomorph spared no expense on the audio. One of the finest game soundtracks around, but since people could just play the game cd in there own player no official soundtrack was ever released, I remember I did ^^
Crusader: No Regret and
Crusader: No Remorse - Particarlly No Regret, the whole soundtrack had this electronic industrial sound, very unique even to this day for a video game, very much when against the grain. Even had brilliant installation music.
Metal Gear Solid and
Metal Gear Solid 2 - Both were exceptional albums. For the PS2
Hideo Kojima wanted to make the soundtrack as hollywood and epic as possibly so went to hollywood to outsource
Harry Gregson-Williams who in almost all cases produces high quality music on demand.... His work on MGS2 is some of his finest.
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time - Brilliant Beginning to end, it feels perfect, it looks perfect, it sounds perfect, its moving and unconditionally inspiring. This my friends is the 8th Wonder of the World.
Super Metroid - Concise, atmospheric and provides an unrivaled sense of joy in just exploring.
Chrono Trigger - The pinacle of 2D RPG's and Square games in general that still rivals all RPG's since. This title perfected everything good that came before it and removed silly things like Random Encounters that still plague RPG's today.
Ico - Need I say more on this game? The most beautiful and artistic game ever made. Poetry in motion.
Super Mario 64 - Unrivaled playability, even surpassing my 8th wonder of the world in that reguard. No game is more fun.
Metal Gear Solid - There was something wrong with this game? The one title that needs NO explanation. Kojima at his finest hour. Pure genius.
Rez - Few words can describe this game... and none would do it justice. Kandinsky-esque art is brought to life with vivid surealism. This game instils more emotion into the gamer, than perhaps all games combined, this title blurs the lines of reality.
Planescape Torment - The most immersive game I have ever played. You dont simply "play" this game, you ARE this game. I WAS the Nameless One..... Everything in this game is perfect right down to the choice of fonts. People tell me books are inheritantly more immersive than games *could* ever be. I just point them towards PlaneScape.... things have only just begun.
Deus Ex - There is something to be said about a game that not only tops casual gamers lists but manages to score highly with the hard core gamers too. This is the game Doom should have been.
This was
Jeremy Soule (
Total Annihilation,
Morrowind,
Icewind Dale,
Guild Wars,
Dungeon Siege,
Neverwinter Nights) first video game soundtrack work and is his finest and most creative. (from wiki, but I wrote it :P) Secret of Evermore's score differed greatly from all previous Squaresoft games by incorporating organic environmental sounds like wind blowing and rain into the music and utilising a more mellow tune for ochestral music contrasting completely the epic scores of
Secret of Mana and
Final Fantasy VI.
Because of the limited success of Secret of Evermore Squaresoft produced only a small number of albums, making it to this day the rarest Squaresoft album produced and is highly sought after by collectors, im glad I have my copy...
Ecco was an amazing game by Sega and it was a very high profile title. Sega even went to the extent of paying money to zoos so their animators could spend hours watching Dolphins and drawing pictures of them. Sega tried to make Ecco as classy as possible and tried to make it appealing to the US market by outsourcing the brilliant
Boris Vallejo to do the promotional artwork and Sega carefully selected the very European sounds of
Spencer Nilsen (this was his first game as well) which made Ecco into the brilliant piece of cultural collaboration that it is, and the soundtrack was one vital aspect of that.
What can I say, an arrangement of the beautiful score by
Koji Kondo found in OoT that is largely faithful to the OST, but places a strong focus onto string instruments (and ocarinas of course), which gives a unique sound to the entire score. The album also does include one special treat that arranges all the major renditions of the Zelda Theme into one incredible emotive track. It also includes one of the rare tracks that was excluded in later versions of the game itself for sounding to similar to the muslim prayer song.
What can I say, im not a huge fan of the game, but the soundtrack is incredible... Is that Scottish / Irish music I hear? Very Brave Heart like... very cinematic and most of all captivating.
Marty O'Donnell at Total Audio who has done all of Bungies games just keeps getting better and better with each project he takes on, starting with
Worms,
Riven,
Myth,
Oni and all the way up to Halo. Highly recommend.
Ahh, a true gem. The famed
The Fatman's most prized work. The Fatman is one of the true geniuses out there and in the video game music industry is up there with
Nobuo Uematsu. Here I even have listed his work above that of Nobuo! It's unfourtnate that the 7th Guest never released a full soundtrack besides this sampler for the CDi... but 'such as life' and the Fatman does arrangments of his own work over at Remi Overclocked.org So I highly recommend people listen to anything he has made from there.
The Fatman at OCRemix.org
Hmmm speaking of
Nobuo Uematsu, this is his finest work, and I personally believe he has just been rehashing alot of his old work ever since. I still would love to hear his band (
The Black Mages) play in concert though! Captivating opera in the limited sounds of 1994 consoles is difficult but Nobuo made it not only possible but executed it beautifully. A lesser man would of crumbled.
How Quintet managed to squeeze the range of sound fonts and depth into this soundtrack amazes me to this day. Truly a work of art, clearly the composer was very talented at maximising whatever he has to work with.
The first Final Fantasy score not entirely done by Nobuo Uematsu, in fact I hear he only worked on a few theme's and his name was there more for symbolic reasons and for the guidence he provided to the two new Square hotshot composers
Masashi Hamauzu and
Junya Nakano. The PS2 opened up the scope the Final Fantasy score could have and one person simply wasnt enough to handle the entire project.
In my oppinion since FFX was naturally inclinded to be played on the Piano a forced arrangment of a few key tracks played only using a Piano was just natural and I believe is this album is the ultimate rendition of the score. Nobou states he is most proud of the work he did on FFX.
Chrono Trigger a beautiful all rounder. Many consider this to be Nobuo's best work, it's exceptional but not his best. The range of this particular album is great because the tracks are based on the PlayStation Chrono Trigger cinematics, so a really classy album.
Beautiful melodic sounds that fit the theme, gameworld and gameplay.
Stuart Chatwood created and arranaged this album, and it shows he has handled almost everything with care, sadly a few tracks are only circa 30 seconds in length and were not arranged into full songs or even given much attention, but the tracks that were given Chatwood's love trully shine.
Honourable Mentions
Megaman 2 - Won many awards at the time for it's music and still stands as one of the most remixed games in existance and is often played by bands like
The Minibosses. If a decent soundtrack was released this may be my number 1.
Entomorph - Ahh, what can I say, an obscure RPG that shipped on
CD-ROM, and developers at the time didnt know what to fill the CD's up with so was at that era where they just included CD quality music directly on the CD. Entomorph spared no expense on the audio. One of the finest game soundtracks around, but since people could just play the game cd in there own player no official soundtrack was ever released, I remember I did ^^
Crusader: No Regret and
Crusader: No Remorse - Particarlly No Regret, the whole soundtrack had this electronic industrial sound, very unique even to this day for a video game, very much when against the grain. Even had brilliant installation music.
Metal Gear Solid and
Metal Gear Solid 2 - Both were exceptional albums. For the PS2
Hideo Kojima wanted to make the soundtrack as hollywood and epic as possibly so went to hollywood to outsource
Harry Gregson-Williams who in almost all cases produces high quality music on demand.... His work on MGS2 is some of his finest.