I love game music. If I could only listen to three composers for the rest of my life, I’d be happy with Nobuo Uematsu, Yasunori Mitsuda and Yoko Shimomura. Of course there are other greats, both in the game industry and in the rest of the music world, but those three shaped my music sense in ways only Mannheim Steamroller, Enya, Mozart, Beethoven and Bach can match.
Uematsu is particularly important because of his work on the Final Fantasy games, which had a marked influence on my spare time as a teen and my present career in video games. I’m not making epic RPGs, but I see good potential in games, which is why I’m doing what I’m doing instead of pushing for a career animating in movies, like I thought I would when I was a child.
Anyway, here are a few of my favorites from Mr. Uematsu. Easy picks, perhaps, but still, ones I’m very fond of.
Piano arrangement of Fisherman’s Horizon (the original game music is good, but I really love the guitar and piano arrangements, and the orchestral pieces are most excellent)
Terra’s Theme
Troian Beauty
And then there’s this gem, which isn’t entirely in English. I actually prefer game music with lyrics to be in languages that I don’t understand. That way I listen to them purely as music. This one isn’t even Japanese.
The soundtrack for Chrono Cross by Yasunori Mitsuda is perhaps my all-time favorite album in all music genres. (Though it has stiff competition from The Piano Guys, Chrono Trigger, Sleepthief, Enya, Austin Wintory, and pretty much any Nobuo Uematsu CD.) I’m still just dipping my toes into the MMO music scene, but from what I’ve heard so far, there’s a lot there to like as well.
So go check out what those Battle Bards are up to!
Oh, and here’s a set of 1080p desktops of the art that I did for it, and even some shirt options, or maybe a mug, should you feel so inclined. There’s just something entertaining about an Epic Lute in the MMO conversation space. Yes, that has to be bolded and italicized. And purple. Do not question the Epic.
I have been acquiring music at a faster rate lately. I’ve collected game soundtracks for almost two decades now (the power trinity of Nobuo Uematsu, Yasunori Mitsuda and Yoko Shimomura are still the backbone of that collection, some of which is noted in my last music article thisaway), but it has sort of been a trickle. Part of that is the expense of getting CDs often only released in Japan. Part of it is just that I have other things to spend money on.
So what changed? The Humble Bundle guys started including soundtracks with the games they sell. The Indie Royale people followed suit. GoG.com always offered soundtracks when possible, but I’ve been getting more of their games lately, too. OCRemix.org has always been great at cranking out good music (free!), but I’ve been perusing their projects more lately, and they recently stepped up with a big Final Fantasy VI orchestral project.
Edited to add: I also just stumbled across this little gem of a site… I’ll be keeping an eye on their bundles. GameMusicBundle.com
Anyway, I just wanted to share a few of my more recent favorites, and a few oddball pieces that just seemed worth sharing for one reason or another.
Thoroughly Blue, Crystal Chronicles… I love the light, almost Celtic feel to a lot of the music for Crystal Chronicles, and this one covers a lot of the themes in the game.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard’s “Inner Light” Ressikan Flute music, performed by a full orchestra. I love that episode. I’m not the only one. (And is that a Starfleet uniform on the conductor? Awesome. Nerdy, I’ll grant, but I love that nerdiness isn’t a kiss of death any more.)
Secret of Mana has some great tracks, and this is but one collection/overview. I really would like to find that soundtrack on CD someday. For less than $30. Pesky imports.
Tangled soundtrack’s town music… sorry, I’m not sure on the title for this. It’s just one of my favorite parts of a movie I’m very fond of. I wish this piece had been longer.
Magic Taboria, Van Canto… this one is really odd. It’s an a capellametal rock group, weird enough to start with, but they also appear to be… nerds. They based this song on the MMO Runes of Magic. There’s just enough absurdity involved that it makes me smile, even though metal rock is far from my favorite. Really far.
The Bard’s Song, Van Canto… this was my first exposure to Van Canto. A coworker submitted this to our weekly “Bad Music Tuesday” event, and, well, I kinda like it. It doesn’t scream “metal” to me, it’s more of the sort of thing I’d expect from a modern “Gregorian Chant”-ish group, infused with gaming and storytelling sentiment. Weird, I know.
The Final Fantasy Piano collections all sound great to me. I’m a fan of pure, simple music (like the FFX piano version of To Zanarkand), and I grew up around pianos. My mother teaches piano, my wife plays sometimes, my sister plays as well, and my daughter is learning. This is one of my other favorite piano pieces, Eyes on Me from Final Fantasy VIII
I like all of it, but Bound in Stone (track 12) is especially fun. Oddly, perhaps, it reminds me of some of the fun music in the recent Sherlock Holmes movies, but with a more epic feel.
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