Obscure games with great soundtracks

Chaos Legion. It's hard rock mixed in with orchestral pieces, not unlike how Guilty Gear dabbles in rock fusion. It's a very impressive, but underrated OST (much like Chaos Legion is yet another underrated Capcom title) This was also what put Hideyuki Fukasawa (the man responsible for composing the music for Capcom's recent fighters like SFIV, MvC3, and SFxT) on the radar.

This track ("Pledge") is the tip of the iceberg; links to other gems can be found in the YMMV tab.

Waaaaait, someone who's played Republic: The Revolution? Damnit, now the memories are coming back and I have to find the CD again!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4QfXb1fPHQ&feature=related

Argh, cannot into video links. But it's probably one of the best songs from Rise of Legends, which didn't get nearly as much love as it deserves.

edited 9th Sep '12 2:07:55 PM by Five_X

Well, at least here Illusion of Gaia is totally obscure. I love this game, and this song is very catchy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eL9hI0aXEAA

Neves is a DS game featuring around 542 separate tangram puzzles. It has a smooth jazz OST, which will hook you in even if you aren't into jazz. Have a look at the gameplay trailer, it's the only youtube video with music from the game in it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBjco1RlyNo

Radiant Silvergun was a vertical shooter created by Treasure that differed from its brethren in so many ways. For one, powering up your weapons was directly tied to the player's skill and knowledge of the combo system. There also was a story, and it's dang good if mostly simplistic; it involves the world coming to an end by a divine being known as the Stone-Like and only four people (and a robot) surviving. Things just get worse from there.

And to top this epic game off, an equally epic soundtrack from Hitoshi Sakimoto, the man behind such works as Vagrant Story and the Ogre Battle games (the latter with his equally talented partner, Masaharu Iwata). This soundtrack is like nothing you'd hear from a shooter, yet it encapsulates the entirety of the game. Though, there are instances of key riffs being repeated through the OST, so if that isn't your thing, then you might not like it as much as I do.

Some of my favorites:

Return
Reminiscence
Evasion
Space Battleship 130-33ki

edited 8th Aug '15 7:26:58 PM by BlackMageAnolis

this thread is 3 years old almost, jeez.

Andlooking back yeah, dynamite headdy's soundtrack is amazing. A Man of Sun, You're Izayoi, Danzen Dungeon, and Southtown are my favorites.

Chaos Legion is very Guilty Gear like, though it upsets the composer went to a more electronic style in his later games.

edited 8th Aug '15 11:21:22 PM by Vertigo_High

The TMNT beatemup on the GBA (the Konami one made for the 2k3 reboot) has amazing music, with Shell Glider, Meet Casey Jones, Raph vs Purple Dragons, and Defend the Sewers being personal favorites.

Don't know who composed the music though; I should beat the game again to find out (after I buy a new battery for my DS Lite).

...Now that I think about it a LOT of GBA music is underrepresented.

While we're here, may I mention a little game called The World Ends with You?

Where I live it's almost impossible to find a person who actually played it. To be fair, where I'm from it's difficult to find people who played games like Earth Bound and Ace Attorney as well. Which are my top 3 favourite games, by the way, but not in that order.

edited 9th Aug '15 6:56:53 AM by DarknessAwaits

I actually enjoyed the music when I played through the flawed gem called The Immortal (the game was hard to the point the internet call it the real first Dark Souls, and the puzzles were too hard when I think about it). The music was simple but distinct and somehow nosalgic, even more impressive considering the game was made by mostly one person.

edited 9th Aug '15 7:17:41 AM by YoKab

Gotta throw in Bahamut Lagoon.

Incredibly catchy battle theme.

yeah bahamut lagoon's music is dope.

intelligent qube was a puzzle game on the psx. it was a cool concept, but i think the one thing people remember it for was the soundtrack. they completely bucked trends and gave it a sweeping orchestral score. and i mean actual orchestra, it doesn't appear to be synthed.

here are some examples.

it honestly completely blew me back the first time i found out about this game.

alternatively, not a whole lot of people played the digimon world games, but the soundtracks were actually quite impressive. lots of great, memorable songs that i still remember even now.

edited 11th Aug '15 1:32:07 PM by wehrmacht

The thread has been quiet for a while, but I wanted to share some obscure tracks.

Shatter is a brick breaking game with an absolutely fantastic electronic soundtrack. The full soundtrack is here (apologies if it doesn't start a the beginning; I listen to it a lot). My favorite tracks are Kinetic Harvest, Aurora, Argon Refinery, and Xenon Home World (time stamps are in the description).

I'm technically cheating here, as Planetside 2 is not an obscure game. However, the game has a couple of unreleased tracks that never made it into the final product and nobody knows about. Do those count?

Note to self: Don't test your links in the same tab when you're still making the post. This is my 4th time making this.

This is a good thread.

Another classic. I dunno how a game made in collaboration with Studio Ghibli fell off, but it did.

edited 13th Mar '16 6:38:11 PM by Hashil

Gotcha Force, released back in 2003 solely for the Nintendo Gamecube, is a game where you fight with and against miniature robots (Who occasionally turn giant) in order to save Earth. It's underrated in general since it got panned at the time and had like no press, but it's also got some pretty good music.

edited 13th Mar '16 10:07:13 PM by rmctagg09

X3 Reunion has a top-notch soundtrack, with each major sector in the game having its own representative music. It makes for excellent background music if you want some atmosphere.

My personal favorite is the music of Kingdom's End.

edited 14th Mar '16 12:29:10 AM by nman

Every single song from Yu-Gi-Oh! Capsule Monster Coliseum. One of the best soundtracks I've ever heard.

edited 14th Mar '16 12:49:44 PM by lalalei2001

I had a couple of licensed Nickelodeon games when I was young, and I think their soundtracks were pretty good.

The soundtrack in Logic Quest 3D might sound pretty dated by now, given it's a 90s game and all, but wow is it still good on the ears. It still gets stuck in my head from time to time and I haven't played the game in years.

edited 14th Mar '16 2:16:37 PM by kablammin45

Hi, I see that Live a Live was not mentioned here. So I put it here. Also, how did you get the youtube links to display on the posts?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p1Nmc84Noos

As far as the soundtrack goes, the Earth 2150 franchise is awesome.

Flag to Flag CART Racing is an obscure formula racing game on the Dreamcast that seems pretty ho-hum, but Oh my God do I love its soundtrack

one of the composer also did Zero Divide, which is another game with an excellent soundtrack.

Asterix and the Great Rescue had one of the best soundtracks I've ever hard. In a way it sounds so un-Asterix, but still still so, so good.

There's plenty more games I can think of, but another time.

edited 15th Mar '16 2:07:17 PM by GreatT

Biohazard Battle was an oldschool shooter with a ton of Nightmare Fuel and organic squishy robots with one of the creepiest soundtracks on the Genesis. There's very little music, but the tracks that are there demonstrate the composer who I can't find anything else he's done had a brilliant understanding of minimalism.

title theme

Non-Human from Action 52 Owns. Vastly improved from the original, and with an awesome soundtrack to boot.

Playlist here.

Xenogears' original soundtrack is awesome, but the "Xenogears-Creid" updated and orchestrated re-release is phenomenal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycqNpRpB_tc - "Melkaba" is just one example, and is coincidentally track one as well.