I was listening to my playlist of video game best songs, and I realized that there is probably a ton of hidden gems that I never listened due to never playing the game or never paid attention to.
So I would love to hear what songs you recommend: either from barely mentioned games or soundtracks from known games that you think are underrated.
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The ost for the original Mother is the quintessential example of ‘they didn’t need to go this hard.’ For a Famicom game, they hired a rock musician to compose the score, who then went and made an entire album - lyrics and all - and collaborated with one of Nintendo’s top musicians to simplify it down for an 8-bit cartridge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zS6anrmbG4o
He made this album twice btw.
Pseudoregalia https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQpSO8Z8OjY
by stillCrisp
Zero Time Dilemma
BGM08 (BioLab): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5bUx1-aIJk
BGM06 (Unliberated Library): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBAD_9r9ZII
BGM03 (Quondam Monitors): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzNS8Ah139Y
by Shinji Hosoe
I’m a huge fan of the soundtrack to a game in development, but not released beyond a demo yet, called “Rhythm Quest”. It’s a button masher that feels like it blends a Guitar Hero and Mario kind of vibe. The person making the game is also the composer of the chiptune music in it.
They have released the first half of the game’s soundtrack on Bandcamp and it’s pretty good. Can’t wait to buy the full game when it hopefully releases. The developer puts out sneak peak update videos every few weeks.
One of my favorite indie card rogue-likes, Monster Train 2, has an absolutely amazing soundtrack. Monster Train 1 is also good (same artist, Jordan Chin) but they really caught my attention, the games are criminally underrated.
Monster Train 2 track example: https://youtu.be/KlS3jkEhi7o
Hopefully more people play these wonderful games.
No particular order:
It’s kinda cheating, but the game Capsized is a decent XBLA-era side scrolling shooter-platformer with an excellent soundtrack. That’s because it uses the existing album Movements by Solar Fields.
Solar Fields actually scored a different game with an excellent soundtrack: Mirrors EdgeUplink and Darwinia, Introversion Software’s first two games, have lovely soundtracks.
Nitronic Rush, a student game that got remade into the survival racing game Distance, has one of the greatest Christmas songs ever made on its soundtrack.
The original Lemmings and its expansions used quite good chiptune renditions of classical and classic pop songs. Each platform has a different soundtrack, but Amiga is probably the best.
PPPPPP, the soundtrack to VVVVVV is very crunchy chiptune. The last track is weird though.
Outer Wilds is simply amazing.
Psychonauts and Psychonauts 2 have great, varied soundtracks.
All on Bandcamp because that’s where I get my official music :
Ridiculous Fishing: a weird fishing game that was available on iPhone for some time, then disappeared due to compatibility issues.
Guacamelee! 2: Kind of famous, but I like the soundtrack.
Eastward: a weird action RPG, like Chrono Trigger but more cozy, I love that game.
Axiom Verge: something something Metroidvania.
I have Ridiculous Fishing on Android as an APK from a very old humble bundle.
Some time ago I still managed to install it, though Android complained a lot because it was not supposed to be compatible (made for a way older version). Only minimal issues with unused screen space.
Just tried again, but now newer Androids just block old apps completely. For “safety reasons”. Shit.
Same, was just about to mention that - though last time I installed it the motion controls didn’t work properly.
Shame.
👊🏼 Decompile
🤏🏼 Modify
✌🏼 Recompile
Idk if all of these are obscure enough lol
- Battleblock Theater - all the level songs
- Phantasy Star Universe - Mizuraki C.D.
- Panzer Dragoon Saga - Premonition of War
- Ironsword Wizards & Warriors II - Stage Theme 02
- Anachronox - Bricks, Normal 1.0
- The 13th Doll - Path 2 6 Points
- Shivers - The Secret Hall
- Mystic Towers - Atmosphere 3
- Anticipation - Yellow Puzzle (the songs are really short but the way they flow with the game is good, so I linked a gameplay video)
- cassete beasts ost
- the doom community is a treasure trove for cool music especially James Paddock and Esselfortium made stuff that made it into my daily playlist. Just listen to the soundtracks of Eviternity 1 or 2, both are great.
- Andrew Hulshults music, but i don’t think he counts as unknown or underrated anymore
- black mesa had some tracks i liked
- gothic 1 and 2 had a good soundtrack, which somehow never gets mentioned when people talk about them.
- La-Mulana for sure
- The gate of guidance theme really stood out to me.
- Oh, and the village’s theme too, and several others.
- Virgo Versus the Zodiac Isn’t the type of game I’d normally look at if it wasn’t part of a bundle, but the soundtrack was so good (and the game itself was pretty enjoyable too).
- La-Mulana for sure
Neotokyo is a HL2/Source mod with an outstanding original soundtrack.
X-Universe games. Particularly X3, X Rebirth and X4.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lpPp2cMcDxB-9TdVyL-8u52xU0o_eWkIM
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2DE76FAF3D895DD0
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRNrultsQ-TjRZXR6TFg5rpRN2UzChGg4
I really like the Rome: Total War soundtrack by Jeff van Dyck
In particular Divinitus and Forever, Angela van Dyck singing on those tracks just adds something more.
Banished has a nice relaxing if not slightly melancholic soundtrack
VTM: Bloodlines 1 had a fantastic soundtrack. I really love the Hollywood Theme, but Santa Monica is also a classic and there are other bangers too.
Damn I miss that game. Yeah they were really fitting and I remember hearing these on loop and somehow never getting old while playing.
Thanks for sharing, it does pull nostalgia heart strings lol.
