Soundtracks of games you haven’t played

So…I’m curious. At least for me, I think it’s a bit hard to enjoy a game soundtrack if I haven’t played the game…so I have to like the music quite a bit. What does everyone think? Is it the same for you?

Here are the ones I have gotten into recently that I haven’t played the actual the music was written for:

Castlevania (I, III)
GrimGrimoire (Hitoshi Sakimoto)
Jewel Master (Motoaki Takenouchi, who did Shining Force II)
Katamari Damacy (which i just got and LOOOVE, but after listening to the OST)
Batman Return of the Joker (NES) (Naoki Kodaka, Nobuyuki Hara, Shinichi Seya)
Tales of Vesperia (Motoi Sakuraba–who I don’t really like sometimes, but I liked this one)
TMNT IV: Turtles in Time
Revolter (Sakimoto, Masaharu Iwata)

100% agreed. Most of the time,it really helps to have some sort of visual imagery to go with the song. But if I haven’t played the game in question,the song is not really engraved in my subconscious on that deep of a level,so it usually doesn’t create that feeling of immersion and familiarity. Unless,of course,it’s something really catchy. =)

I’ve been listening to a bunch of recommendations from the A-Z thread lately,though. =) Emperor:Battle for Dune in particular is totally great.

I guess that I will be the odd man out on this one. I really like to listen to all of the music I can get my hands on (both anime and video games). I will actually play a game or watch a show just because I listened to the music first and liked it. I guess I just like listening to music, though.

That’s cool. I bet there are a bunch of people on both sides of this one. My idea with this thread was to 1) Get a sampling of people’s opinion on this, 2) See the soundtracks that were good enough to be listened to if you are one of those who doesn’t typically listen to many soundtracks of games you haven’t played.

Depends. I heard the FFXII soundtrack a year or two before I played the game and I loved it from the moment I first started listening to it. I haven’t played the following:

Any of the Mana games (Legend of Mana, etc)
Torico
Napple Tale
Virtual On (Dreamcast)
Breath of Fire 3 & 4
Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross
Soul Calibur 2-4
Sudeki
Radiant Silvergun
Legaia Duel Saga
Kameo

I’ve been listening to a bunch of recommendations from the A-Z thread lately,though. =) Emperor:Battle for Dune in particular is totally great.

Is that the same game as Dune 2000? If not, I defo recommend you check out the music for Dune 2000. Tis fantastic.

I’ve been listening to a bunch of recommendations from the A-Z thread lately,though. =) Emperor:Battle for Dune in particular is totally great.

Isn’t it, though? Seriously, one of the most underrated/unheard of soundtracks I can think of.

As soon as I read that Klepacki was involved,I knew I had to hear it. =)

Thanks,Dom. =)

As far as I know, Klepacki was only involved with the music for the Atreides house… the other two were different composers.

But his work is the best anyway. 🙂

For me too is also difficult to enjoy a soundtrack if i didn’t play the game, because if I listen to the soundtrack on it’s own I could completely forgot about how was any song. But I found some OST’s that I really enjoy even if I didn’t play the game.

Just to name a few.

Legaia 2 Duel Saga – Featuring Oshima, Sakimoto & Mitsuda
Zone of the Enders 1st – Featuring Norihiko Hibino
Tsugunai – Featuring Yasunori Mitsuda
Granado Espada – Featuring many people to remember all. xD

From Sakimoto:

Ogre Battle:March of the Black Queen
Valkyria Chronicles
A.S.H: Archaic Sealed Heat – Also featuring Masaharu Iwata
Radiant Silvergun

Right now I’m Listening to Ys Soundtracks and they sound pretty good by it’s own!

Just to name a few.

Legaia 2 Duel Saga – Featuring Oshima, Sakimoto & Mitsuda
Zone of the Enders 1st – Featuring Norihiko Hibino
Tsugunai – Featuring Yasunori Mitsuda
Granado Espada – Featuring many people to remember all. xD

From Sakimoto:

Ogre Battle:March of the Black Queen
Valkyria Chronicles
A.S.H: Archaic Sealed Heat – Also featuring Masaharu Iwata
Radiant Silvergun

Right now I’m Listening to Ys Soundtracks and they sound pretty good by it’s own!

I know Yuzo Kushiro did Ys, but i’ve never played the games or heard the music to any of them, i’ll have to check those out.

Most of the Sakimoto soundtracks I see have Masaharu Iwata listed. How much of the composing does he actually do, or does he just edit, or does it vary from title to title? Does anyone know?

I hadn’t ever heard of Archaic sealed heat OR radiant silvergun, i’ll have to listen to those as soon as i get through these other ones people have mentioned. Thanks, guys!

I wish I never played Braid and just listened to the music. Since the music to Braid is a hundred times better than the actual game. I mean if the creator of Braid actually composed the music, I’d give the game props. He just stole peoples music instead and placed it on his terrible game.

Ugh, sorry for going off on a tangent.

I’ve been listening to the Gran Turismo 4 music recently and I’ve never played the game. Good easy listening.

I’m ashamed to say I’ve never played Jet Grind Radio or Jet Set Radio Future, but love the music.

Most of the Sakimoto soundtracks I see have Masaharu Iwata listed. How much of the composing does he actually do, or does he just edit, or does it vary from title to title? Does anyone know?

I hadn’t ever heard of Archaic sealed heat OR radiant silvergun, i’ll have to listen to those as soon as i get through these other ones people have mentioned. Thanks, guys!

Most of the times from what I can tell is that they divide the composing, in Final Fantasy Tactics Soundtrack you can see this very clearly. Besides from that, remember that Iwata is also part of Basiscape, Sakimoto’s company for VGM.

The vast majority of VGM I listen to, I’ve never played the game. Like I’m a big Sakimoto fan, but I’ve only ever played FF Tactics and 12. All the other music of his I’ve found, and I hunt down whatever I can, I pretty much only know the genre of the games they’re from. I tend to stumble upon a composer I like one way or another and then find more of their work. I also keep up with reviews to see if something sounds like it’d be my kind of thing. So there are too many game soundtracks I’ve listened to and love to even have time to go back and play the games they were made for.

And to answer the question about how much does Iwata write, it really is on a case by case basis. There are some soundtracks Iwata takes the lead role on, like Ogre Battle and… are there any others? Some Sakimoto does but the work is mostly split, like Tactics Ogre or FF Tactics, and some with none of Iwata’s involvement like Breath of Fire V and Vagrant Story. And since Basiscape started I think the only two that they have mostly split the duties on without notable input from anyone else have been Stella Deus and A.S.H., but there have been some Sakimoto has done with little or no help from Iwata like FF12 or Valkyria Chronicles.

Damn, was that more detail than was necessary? Sorry, if so.

I tend to hunt as well soundtracks when I stick to one Composer, but sometimes it gets me, when you really know the game and the music you can enjoy the experience much more deeply, it happened to me with FFXII. As Sakimoto said in an interview, Music is 60-70% of the gaming experience.

I heard the FF12 soundtrack first and got to know it pretty well before I played the game. That was actually a large part of why I wanted to play it, and I’m happy I did. Tracks I hadn’t paid much attention to before I got to hear repeatedly and with context and things that felt off or not quite right made more sense once I heard them in-game, like "Seeking Power" and "Time for a Rest". And it got me thinking those things that felt weird outside of the game were what made it so cool. I think it adds to the character and atmosphere of the game in a way that is unique to it. Who but Sakimoto, and to a lesser extent Matsuo for his contributions, could have written something like this? And I know a lot of people think all Sakimoto’s stuff sounds the same, but really FF12 is similar to but unlike anything else he has made.

I don’t think a lot of people have given it its fair shake. I can tell from reading some reviews, particularly the one from IGN, that the reviewer did not know what they were reviewing very well. It is valid if you simply don’t like something, but I didn’t get the impression most of them grasped the soundtrack as a whole, like when they couldn’t pick out iterations of the various themes. The one guy at Soundtrack Central said ""Theme of the Empire" doesn’t make a strong enough statement to be a theme for anything", and that is crazy because he must not have realized that theme is used in probably 50 other tracks. And I do not get tired of hearing it so much, at all. So was he really qualified to make a judgement on the soundtrack’s quality as whole while missing something so important? It does take many listens and it is long and daunting, but when you get it, at least for me, it is BIG. It may not be the best Final Fantasy soundtrack, I couldn’t even compare it to the others, it’s too different. But it is my favorite.

My tendency to be longwinded is showing and maybe I’m preaching to the choir since it seems we’ve already got some Sakimoto fans in this thread. I’ll not keep going off topic, but I had to get that out somewhere. :laugh:

Well, I have been listening to the soundtrack for Ar Tonelico II, but I am waiting to play the game until I can play the first one. It’s a pretty great soundtrack.

I’ll throw my hat in with wolfmaster913 and nothingtosay. I love video game music, but I haven’t played too many games since circa 2000 (although I do watch speed runs occasionally). The overwhelming majority of VGM I’ve heard has been outside of the actual game–usually via YouTube. So, as far as what soundtracks stand up on their own without the game, my list could get insanely long. But I’ll crib some links from the old VGM Canon thread and shorten it to my favorites from games I haven’t played:

AMIGA / COMMODORE 64
Monty on the Run (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7Ht2nmoy-A)

NES / SEGA MASTER
Blaster Master (Thread 34462)
Journey to Silius (Thread 34462)
Wizards and Warriors (Thread 39734)

SNES / GENESIS
Killer Instinct (Thread 39734)

PSX / NINTENDO 64 / SATURN
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (http://www.bluelaguna.net/music/csotnost/mp3s.php)
Silent Hill 1 (http://www.bluelaguna.net/music/silent-hill-ost-soundtrack/mp3s.php), 2 (http://www.bluelaguna.net/music/silent-hill-2-ost-soundtrack/mp3s.php), 3 (http://www.bluelaguna.net/music/silent-hill-3-original-soundtrack/mp3s.php)

PSX 2 / GAMECUBE / X BOX / DREAMCAST
.hack//Infection (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aFqjEuicUY)
God of War (Thread 39734)
Okami (http://www.bluelaguna.net/music/okami-ost-soundtrack/mp3s.php)
Shadow of the Colossus (http://www.bluelaguna.net/music/shadow-of-colossus-ost-soundtrack/mp3s.php)
Shinobi (Thread 39734)
Skies of Arcadia (http://soaworld.rpgplanet.gamespy.com/Downloadpages/downloads_music.htm)
Star Ocean 3: Till the End of Time (http://www.bluelaguna.net/music/so3/mp3s.php)

PC GAMES
Dig, The (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7RDhKMCHIQ)
Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_7n16vh79k&feature=related)
Hobbit (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXnul41qfJk&feature=related)
Little Big Adventure 1 (http://www.lbahq.com/music.htm), 2 (http://www.lbahq.com/music.htm)
Total Distortion (http://downloads.*********.com/game-soundtracks/album/total-distortion)

EDIT: Add on…

Atelier Elie
Banjo Kazooie
Batman: Return of the Joker
Front Mission: Gun Hazard
Klonoa: Door to Phantomile
Klonoa: Lunatea’s Veil
Little Big Planet
Lost Odyssey
Napple Tale
Shenmue II
Tabula Rasa

I haven’t even played Punch-Out!! for the Wii yet and I love the music in it. My brother and I want to pick it up after watching people play the game on YouTube.

xD

From Sakimoto:

Ogre Battle:March of the Black Queen
Valkyria Chronicles
A.S.H: Archaic Sealed Heat – Also featuring Masaharu Iwata
Radiant Silvergun

wow!! I’ve been listening to Archaic Sealed Heat and it is VERY entertaining. I especially enjoyed "an iron mechanism" from the first disc and "people of the forest" as well, but I thought the whole thing was consistenly enjoyable. Thanks for mentioning that one, topopoz!

You’re Very welcome it’s indeed a great OST. =D

I’m surprised to see both of you say you like A.S.H. so much. I thought I was the only one!

My favorite one is definitely Atelier Viorate. The music to that game is amazing. I plan on importing it eventually.

Well i havent played ff 13 and biohazard dark chronicle,but i liked both OST