- Joined
- Sep 2, 2023
- Posts
- 39
So I hit a musical wall while working on my current game project because I don't have time to pick up music composition and I ran out of songs to use. As a result, I figured, why not use old songs for my project, that way I can possibly help revitalize interest in them? And so, I've been going through a stupid amount of old video game music lately and thought I'd dump some of my favorites and see if anyone would be willing to dump theirs.
On the western side, there's always Tim Follin. Many of his Nintendo soundtracks, such as Pictionary and Plok! have gone through a renaissance, with the most popular being the boss song from the latter. Supposedly the bigwigs at Nintendo were scouting Plok! to see if they wanted to invest in the IP, and when Shigeru Miyamoto heard Tim Follin's scoring he thought that they had modified the Super Nintendo to produce the sound. They hadn't.
And this was for Pictionary on the NES...
Aside from that, a lot of his other work for the Commodore 64 and Amiga is also amazing and worth checking out as well. If you're not familiar with his work, just look up Tim Follin OST and you'll sure to find plenty of great stuff.
On the Japanese end, my personal favorite composer is probably Manabu Saito. He was extremely gifted and had trained in Europe before getting hired on at System Sacom to write their music. Sadly though, he died at the age of 21 due to kidney failure, if I recall correctly. His magnum opus was the soundtrack for Yami no Ketsuzoku, which was originally published in two episodes for the X68000 and then rereleased later with anime graphics for the Turbografx-16 (and, with all his scores updated!). There are a lot of great tracks from the album, but here's a fairly good one.
Beyond that, practically any soundtrack published by Nihon Falcom is excellent. Out of all early game publishers, they had a dedicated sound team that made music for their games and it really shows. Here's a personal favorite from Ys, albeit I could give a rambling list of more great tracks from their other early works:
And another Nihon Falcom track from Brandish on the FM Towns...
And while not Nihon Falcom, the soundtrack for Princess Maker 2 is also pretty great and worth checking out.
Anyway, if anyone has their own favorite video game tracks, I'd love to hear them!
On the western side, there's always Tim Follin. Many of his Nintendo soundtracks, such as Pictionary and Plok! have gone through a renaissance, with the most popular being the boss song from the latter. Supposedly the bigwigs at Nintendo were scouting Plok! to see if they wanted to invest in the IP, and when Shigeru Miyamoto heard Tim Follin's scoring he thought that they had modified the Super Nintendo to produce the sound. They hadn't.
And this was for Pictionary on the NES...
Aside from that, a lot of his other work for the Commodore 64 and Amiga is also amazing and worth checking out as well. If you're not familiar with his work, just look up Tim Follin OST and you'll sure to find plenty of great stuff.
On the Japanese end, my personal favorite composer is probably Manabu Saito. He was extremely gifted and had trained in Europe before getting hired on at System Sacom to write their music. Sadly though, he died at the age of 21 due to kidney failure, if I recall correctly. His magnum opus was the soundtrack for Yami no Ketsuzoku, which was originally published in two episodes for the X68000 and then rereleased later with anime graphics for the Turbografx-16 (and, with all his scores updated!). There are a lot of great tracks from the album, but here's a fairly good one.
Beyond that, practically any soundtrack published by Nihon Falcom is excellent. Out of all early game publishers, they had a dedicated sound team that made music for their games and it really shows. Here's a personal favorite from Ys, albeit I could give a rambling list of more great tracks from their other early works:
And another Nihon Falcom track from Brandish on the FM Towns...
And while not Nihon Falcom, the soundtrack for Princess Maker 2 is also pretty great and worth checking out.
Anyway, if anyone has their own favorite video game tracks, I'd love to hear them!
