Video game music

Scorpin200

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Ever since the late 80's games were alot of fun to play, and it's mostly due to the kind of music they are using today. The first video game system to use cd's was the turbo grafx 16
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with it's heavenly music tracks, and even then if the game sucked the music made it worth playing alone. The tg-16 must have been way ahead of it's time back then, because the cheap music they use today doesn't pull you into the game like it use to. I have no idea why they would go from something that sounds like the real thing to crap, and the only other system to have simular music was on the ps1. The tracks on tekken 2 beat the hell out of even the arcade at the time, and from what i remember castlevaina was the only game to have a real symphony. Will these things ever come back? who know's the only people that can bring hope of this is nintendo, because it seems they have gone back to what made them #1 back then in the first place. Now they are releasing out all the old games that made them famous, and are remaking some of the best games to come from c64 too....the rest only a matter of time i think.
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Ragone

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Castlevania always has great music...theres always a few games once in a while with good music but its harder and harder to find these days
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dimsum411

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Shadow of the Colossus, Ico, Valkyrie Profile, Silent Hill (all of them), Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future, Dirge of Cerberus, Rez, Tekken 3, Soul Edge/Calibur all had remarkable immersive music and those were all within a 5 year span. What I don't understand is the nostalgic glorification of yesteryear's chiptunes and 8bit melodies. I forgot to mention Beyond Good & Evil's amazing music.

If you want to hear an inspiring soundtrack listen/play Jenova Chen's Cloud http://intihuatani.usc.edu/cloud/video.htm

edit:
Beyond Good & Evil had great music.

haha! yes
 

Kyoji

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The fact Jeremy Soule exists moots your argument entirely, Scorpin.

Guild Wars
Rez
BG&E
Wind Waker
Ocarina of Time
SoTC
Katamari Damacy 1&2

All wonderful soundtracks
 

kobewan

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Beyond Good and Evil has absolutely amazing music, and I pretty much never notice the music in games.

Also, Metroid Prime 1 was excellent and anything with Zelda in the name.
 

Scorpin200

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Some of those games had good music, but wasn't good enough since it wasn't made the same way plus lacking in alot of missing Instruments. All of those game were made in pcm or what ever sony uses, and tekken 3 come on now even you shold know after tekken 2 the games sucked cause of the music wasn't no good.

P.S You just have to listen to the y's sound tracks or even lords of thunder, and you'll see nothing compares today.
 

shadow1w2

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Sonic Rush has good music
happy.gif

Nanostary had some decent trance/techno music.

Back in the 80s the music was mostly all origonal since there was no way to take recorded music and throw it in without remaking it for that specific machine.
So alot of times we'd here origonal music that was great becuase they were made using that sound board rather than say real instruments. So everything became fine tuned in its own way.
Remember how the SNES sounded so darn great with its really nice Midi board? Now that was good stuff aslong as it was used right. Alot of games used it well, some others just used the basic midi recordings and let the sound board do its thing, wich would play some instruments that didnt fit sometimes.

When the CD games came to the market, everyone was still stuck on the origonal music making front. Development teams still had a sound/music sub-team to deal with that part. Or sometimes theyd go out and get an artist of some sort to make an origonal soundtrack specificly for the game.

Now back when PSX and Saturn started a few games werer starting to use music from bands rather than their own custom soundtrack specificly for the game.
They didnt do it a whole lot but the PSX games did it the most.
To be honest I think its rather annoying how games will use music that isnt origonal. Its like having a piece of your radio on the game. Thats good for some things, but Id rather just turn on my radio while I play in that case.
Now if they had bands make origonal music, it just fits so well.
Like how EA's SSX Tricky had its one oriognal track "SSX Tricky" wich happens to be my most memerable moment in the game. It was good how they edited the other songs to change with the action of the game. That is a good way of keeping things fresh and well fitting with the game. (and Im a non sports game/ non EA game player too)

Now a days they take songs from bands or wherever they can get just to add music to the game when they origonal werent even gonna bother with music.
Its a cheap move to try and get that "golden soundtrack" for the game.
Skipping the whole origonality all together.

From what I see is that companies are trying to go for the cheap and fast route of game developing. Game physics and things are alot bigger and harder to code, I can say its understandable to use someone elses physics code to make things easier, but to just take some random music and throw it in. It just doesnt equal good stuff.

Plus some games with oriognal music arent too great either, but sometimes thats just the band's fualt. Like say how sonic games have Crush 40 for its music. They do some good songs, but some are just kinda annoying, though I do love the games and music anyway (Sonic fan from the beging)

It really depends on a few factors of who makes the music.
If its the same Team that developed the game, alot of times the music will fit the game since they know what they are looking for.

Sometimes they might just take some music they had done already or just make some random tunes or even think the game is like something else and end up with something that doesnt fit. It just depends on how well they work as a team.

Othertimes they might just grab some Band's song and throw it in as well.
Some teams dont even have a music department. They might just have a small one for sounds and just use that bare minimum since they can rely on Band's to make music and just pay a few royalties and what not.

Though sometimes they find music already out there that really fits the game. Wich tends to work out with a little effort.

So to put what Im saying in breif.
Back when games started developers were forced to be oriognal and often times have a team for the music or atleast someone dedicated to making music for the game.

Now a days theres alot more options. You can either record your own songs or get a band to do it, or even just take their pre recorded music and throw it in. MIDI music (having the machine be the instrument sort a speak) has ended up being no longer popular and rarely even heard of now since REAL recorded music has seemed to be most popular. Its alot easier to do since all thats needed is to record the music and play it on cue. No more making the machine make the noises to sound like the real instruments.

Drawbacks are that with REAL music it can open up cheap methods of implementation and sound rather off key with the game action.
Yet it can sound really good and its easier to implement in a game since all you need is a way to play it on cue.

For MIDIs theres more options for control and synchronization. However the sound can vary between machine unless the developer has each sound recorded for playback in sequence to make the actual song. Wich does sound really good, but can take alot more work and planing.
Also with MIDIs they happen to be very controlable. You could have the song play normaly then have programed sequences to change the song during play. Say add more instruments or even go from one point in the song and gracefully phase into the more actiony sound without breaking the flow of the song.
But again, this takes work to prefect.
So MIDIs tend to be the big time taking method, but for games are the best choice in my opion.

Real time music is a cheaper easier method that wasnt avaible in the old days. It can sound good if the effort is put in to synchronise with the game action or simply fit with the mood of the current game situation.

So the only real answer as to why game music must be lacking lately would be only one thing in my opion, the game developers are being cheap and lazy.
Most of the time thats why the music sucks, cuase someone didnt put in the effort to fit it all together.

For me, good music tends to make boring gameplay alot more withstandable. But music that changes depending on whats happening in the game tends to make things feel alot more energetic. And well, ya dont see that method too oftenly well implemented. It just takes too much work for some developers.
 

science

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Shining Force CD was a pretty good game, even though they got rid of the most fun part, the towns. But it had amazing music, performed by a real symphony.
 

OrR

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Beyond Good & Evil had great music.
If anyone has an mp3 of that awesome "Propaganda" song playing in the bar, it would be very nice if they could privately inform me of the source...
rolleyes.gif


I don't think quality of music in video games has been going downhill much... Many games had and have great music, only now you compare every new one with 30 years of history.
 

santakuroosu

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I'm a fan of Castlevania's Bloody Tears.
Katamari Damacy series
Kingdom Hearts 1 & 2
MGS: Sons of Liberty
DDR
WipeOut 2097
Sonic Adventure
Tomb Rider 2.

FF music that made it into The Black Mages 1st album was awesome too.

Edit: The Parodius games for the Nes and Snes had an amazing score.
 

Jax

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Any FF music is good! *thinks of Terra's theme, Aria de Mezzo Carratere, One Winged Angel, Eyes on Me, etc...*
 

Dragonlord

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Problem on todays games are the always returning techno-beats. It simply sounds crap if you play the same "style" of music for all places. I still dig sound tracks of older games ( and less older ones ) like Timeshock Pro Pinball, Deus-Ex or Thief-3. No need for *bum* *bum* stuff but real melodies and catchy sounds. Looks like most devers think graphics are the cure-all
 

Westside

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Castlevania SoN had really good music, Casltevania Lament of Sorrow also had very good music. As for final fantasy, I've onyl heard the music from FFX and FFX-2 (mainly Eternity and Seal of Wind) and instantly loved them.
 

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New games music does suck, I was around when u had speccys and c64`s and such and the music was miles better. The music suited the game and you`d been humming the music even in school. I even remember making tapes of all the music cuz i was well into it. Now the music is same old same old they don`t have a clue on how to pull you into the game. They either give you some crap film type music or some lame dance tune give me a fecking break.

Break out the old skool music and your on the track to a better game.
 

Psyfira

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Call me a blasphemer if you will but I usually play handhelds with the sound off anyway. There's always a TV on somewhere in this house and it gets a bit too chaotic listening to both at once.
 

FAST6191

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I am in the same boat as Psyfira when it comes to handhelds.

As for games there have been a bunch of games like Hitman and Max Payne with awesome music. Other have already mentioned great stuff.

While I agree there was some fantastic music earlier in life rose tinted glasses tend to come with a nice bit of memory loss regarding the utter dross that polluted the air back then (take a look through the megadrive/snes back catalog at some of the less well known stuff).

Then again bad music, or at least the desire to play my own, is why my PC's and those I have had a hand in building have sported mutiple drives (be they physical or virtual) for the last 10 years or so and also one reason I decided to take up rom hacking.
 

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