Can you get into game music from games you haven’t played?

Just wondered if people listened to game music from games they haven’t played? Do you like it? For me, I listen to VGM from games I’ve played almost exclusively and find it hard to enjoy it if there isn’t already a previous connection through the game.
If I get my hands on a soundtrack earlier than the game (like the case of Mega Man 9), I can barely listen to it. After playing it it became one of my favorite OSTs.
Thoughts?

Yeah, there are plenty of games whose OSTs I listened to, but never played. Like Tales of Vesparia, Kingdom Hearts BbS, Shadow Hearts, etc.

The music from games I’ve played is very easily in the minority. Although I feel it does normally enhance my appreciation of it if I have played the game, and it often makes me want to play the game if I haven’t before. But I’m not much of a gamer anyway. If I’m curious I’ll read a plot summary and look at some art or screenshots, maybe a YouTube video of gameplay, to get a feel for what the music was written to accompany. But sometimes when I know the music beforehand it feels out of place when I do see it in the game.

I focus on listening to composers who have struck me or if I’ve read about something and it sounds interesting I’ll give it a shot. There wouldn’t be enough time if I were to try out all the games before I listened to their soundtracks, but I hope someday I’ll get to try some of them out.

nope. Can’t… but if I get the OST I normally buy the game soon after.

1) Depends on the artist: Falcom, Sakuraba, etc… I usually know it’s going to be a good OST.

2) There are bunch of games I know that I’ve heard the music but never played them. *thinks of some examples* Hmm… some DBZ games, F-Zero (I don’t like racing games), and others…

Plenty– though I usually go by artist/composer. Meaning, I’d most likely not enjoy it as much until I knew the composer’s style better, or played the game. For example, one of my favorite game soundtracks is from the SNES title Alcahest. It’s composed by Jun Ishikawa of Kirby fame– and he is my favorite composer. I have never played Alcahest and don’t intend to, but I love the music and feel comfortable with it, because I ‘get’ the musician’s intentions and skill better, rather than just trying to listen to it blindly and decide if I like it or not based on nothing at all.

I started out listening mostly to music from games I had played previously, but now it’s probably half and half. Also, here is a thread with some discussion on the topic that was going a while ago:

Thread 70843

I have a lot of music from games I don’t have, but I usually at least like to see the game in motion to appreciate the soundtrack more. Sometimes it leads to me making a purchase of the game, such as I recently did. If I like enough of a soundtrack I usually find out the composer and follow them from there.

Sometimes I download a game soundtrack for a game I haven’t played before if it’s from a series that I recognize (Mega Man, Castlevania, and Final Fantasy are the most notable).
I listen to the whole soundtrack, and I delete tracks that I don’t particularly enjoy. It’s rare when I keep a whole soundtrack intact.

Oh yeah! I have most of the Castlevania Series OSTs, and only recently started playing some of the newer ones. I got a good amount of Tommy Tallarico’s work [Most favs are from the Earthworm Jim games], I have the Entire Halo collection of OSTs, only having played the first, Then there’s Punchout [Wii], Fable, Metroid: Prime, and a slew of others. I even have old Chiptunes from some NES, SNES, and Genesis games I’ve never played too.

Of course as a musician [Note: I’m still an amateur!] I try to incorporate a variety of influences in my work. Plus I do a little bit of sampling somtimes. Then there’s the addition of making my own ringtones…..

Most of the vg music I listen to is from games I havent played, I enjoy the music more then the game in most instances.

almost all of the music i listen to is from a game i havn’t played.

Listening to music from games that I haven’t played yet is definitely something I do. It is actually the reason I discovered some of the games I love now. Though, in my case, it is probably because I never had much money to spend on games. I would make decisions on which one to get by recommendations and/or if I had enjoyed any of the music from it.