Your favorite computer game themes

ola.

I'm (slowly) making a portfolio for computer games companies. Looking to study techniques.

I'm not a big gamer. I played streetfighter 2 A LOT as a kid, and since then i've occasionally bought consoles when they're very out of date and the games are cheap.

Music wise, i'm a big fan of the zelda series. They use themes for characters and stuff (leitmotifs), it's pretty clever atmospheric stuff.

This is great, really dark but still 'toyish' and nintendo in style. If anyone has a CST even vaguely like that tremolo solo vocal and is willing to share....

http://zeldauniverse.s3.amazonaws.com/soundtracks/twilightprincessost/029_-_hyrule_field_%28night%29.mp3

Great sounds, great atmosphere...

http://zeldauniverse.s3.amazonaws.com/soundtracks/twilightprincessost/083_-_twilight_realm.mp3

Post up your favorites or lets talk CST's

I'm old school - so i would say Rub Hubbards Commando for C64 is great composition and i figured this just 15 years later!. Just listen the tune and musicality and compare it todays mobile game music!.

sure. On the 8bit tip, i remember liking turrican 2 music on my amiga

I'd quite like an 8bit AU plug

Monkey Island!

Bladerunner PC game, but that's because they used the original Vangelis movie soundtrack

Guess this shows how long it's been since I played computer games...

From back in the day, the Nintendo game Kid Icarus was pretty harmonically inventive and made great use of the NES's limited voices. This is 8-bit excellence.

http://youtu.be/APRgPg_p810

More recent stuff.... I am a big fan of the Final Fantasy scores, especially FFVII, and currently the scores for Metroid Prime and Skyrim have been great.

But when I'm scoring a game, I take more from film scoring than from other games. The deeply atmospheric soundtrack for the sci-fi movie Moon was a huge inspiration for me.

Ninja Gaiden for NES. Anamanaguchi (band) not a game but, I dig their

8-bit punk vibe. As for big, sweeping epics, you can't go wrong with FF.

I've always loved the "Prologue" arpeggio. It's simple genius.

Moon is a great soundtrack.

Guy don't for get about the atmosphere of the original Metroid.

Yeah, Zelda and Kid Icarus were fantastic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTRGww2So7U

at 4:12! I so remember this as a kid.

Search You Tube for "final fantasy prelude theme". There is about a bajillion versions.

Only thing missing is a version played on spoons.

I'd guess Carlos is referring to these harp arpeggios that are the musical signature of the game series.

http://youtu.be/2-ypqrEu6z8

I love this one:

I really like this one:

Ghosts n' Goblins

One Man and His Droid

and THIS:-

Good times

If you're looking for a good place to get access to loads of free video game sounds tracks, check out http://downloads.khinsider.com/.

All the stuff on here that is downloadable is, or at least should be, not restricted by copyright laws. Some games will be in the list, but you won't be able to download because of copyright, but its full of great titles from the last generation of consoles and before.

And then of course, to contribute a title, one of my personal favorites...

So many it's hard to pin point. I think SEGA's in house writers in the late 80s early 90s where/are some of the finest in the industry. I think Street Fighter 2 has some amazing music, and anything by Koji Kondo is superb also (Super Mario, FZero, Pilot Wings). I love the Kid Chameleon music and Flashback: Quest For Identity have stunning music also.

My Electronica band love video game music so much we recently did an album of SEGA music. It's free, so help yourselves: http://opussciencecollective.bandcamp.com/album/the-magical-sound-shower-project

I'm a MASSIVE video game music nut, so here's a hefty post of some more modern stuff and some Playstation 1 stuff.These are all 10/10 VG tracks IMO:

^^^^^^This was composed by the Street Fighter II composer, she's still at the top of her game ^^^^^^

Also this, couldn't use video code for some reason:

You really can't go wrong with the Final Fantasy soundtracks. I could post so many amazing tracks from that series but there would just be an overwhelming amount. Some of the more popular ones are very melodic stand out stuff though (like the Seymour one I previously posted from Final Fantasy X) rather than being background atmospheric stuff. If you're still interested I can post some of the most popular tracks later.

EDIT: Just thought I'd post this one because, while very different to your Zelda example, it has a tremolo-ish vocal at the beginning. It's probably not what you're looking for though:

Ninja Gaiden for NES. Anamanaguchi (band) not a game but, I dig their

8-bit punk vibe. As for big, sweeping epics, you can't go wrong with FF.

I've always loved the "Prologue" arpeggio. It's simple genius.

Nobuo Uematsu wrote that "Prologue" track in 5 minutes lol. Apparently at the last second before the game went gold Sakaguchi burst in Nobuo's room and was like "S***! we don't even have a song for this bit here, quick hurry just write anything we need a theme to play here!" and Nobuo was like "F***!" and just quickly wrote the arpeggios lol. It's quite hilarious how popular the track became considering the circumstances in which it was written.

Here's the original prelude he wrote if anyone's curious:

There were some variations throughout the series, eventually turning it into a grand orchestral score.

Since this thread is still alive there are 2 more I've recently been listening to a lot...they are quite different from each other

#1 Crash Bandicoot Twinsanity or really any Crash Bandicoot game, but I chose Twinsanity because it is a whole new realm of video game music because it is all acapella. Only voices and body percussion. Maybe a kazoo too because it's pretty fitting for our hero

The other one has been the recent Devil May Cry's soundtrack. Never played it but the soundtrack is a really interesting Dubstep style soundtrack. Usually not the biggest dubstep fan, but I find this one pretty cool