I have been a huge fan of game music since I first heard it come out of my Apple II speakers back in the early 1980s. Today, game music is very impressive now that we’ve done away with the clicks and FM synth beeps of the past and moved into the age of pure digital audio. The first game that made me actually want to record its music to an audio CD was Chrono Trigger back in 1995. I was so in love with Chrono’s music that I recorded the audio output from the Super Nintendo and turned it into pure WAV data which I then burned onto an audio CD that I could listen to anytime. Several years later, Square made the Chrono Trigger OSV (Original Sound Version) available for purchase and I was in heaven. From that point forward, I began buying an insane amount of game music CDs.
It’s years later and a new, awesome trend has emerged: game music remixes! Let me tell you, if you thought the original versions of your favorite songs were great, you should hear what the hundreds of remixers have done over the past several years. The link to OCRemix on the left will take you to my favorite remix release site and don’t worry – everything is free! You can download literally thousands of game songs for absolutely nothing but your time and bandwidth! The filenames have been renamed to be easier to deal with (space characters suck for ftp) but all the ID3 information is correct and I’ve even included album art in the files for those of you with iTunes.
Okay, so many of you might be familiar with the popular game titles that have been released in the United States and Europe, but there are a lot of great games released only in Japan that have amazing soundtracks as well. I am posting some of my favorite songs from these obscure (to us) games – these are the original songs, not remixes. All remixes have the word “remix” below them. If you don’t find that word under the song, it’s an OSV. Have fun exploring the world of game music!
By the way, these song choices are my own favorites; they might not necessarily be your favorites.
Quinn Fox
Quinn Fox is one of my favorite remixers because his songs have a really smooth flow to them. There are two other remixers that share his style, po! and mv. You can check out all of their contributions on OCRemix and VGMix. Each site has different songs from these guys. Below you’ll find some of my favorite Quinn songs. You can find more of his stuff on his website.
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Nice to know that some bloggers like you still spend the time and effort to produce quality content.
Thanks for sharing John. I see our tastes are very similar as I have a few of these on my favorite list too.
John, you should check out the Guilty Gear XX soundtrack. Metal gaming music. Is there anything better?
http://www.amazon.com/Guilty-Gear-Original-Game-Soundtrack/dp/B00006961F/
You should also check out this guy’s metal remakes of the Metroid soundtrack :
http://www.metroidmetal.com/songs/
John Romero likes games like Xenogears? Man…I wish I could have been his friend.
I believe it’s safe to say that there are not a single person on this planet who wouldn’t commit all sorts of criminal deeds for a friend like John, Michael.. Xenogears or not.
I really need to recommend music from the Touhou Project series of games. Though their tracks are heavily synth-based, the overall compositions are so good, independent music circles remix the songs with lyrics.
In short, these games and their music deserve a LOT more attention. Here, have some links regarding Touhou Project:
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/touhou-project-%E6%9D%B1%E6%96%B9project
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Touhou
Awesome music! I really enjoy listening these tunes while surfing the net. Thanks dude!
Gosh, I haven’t visited Romero’s website since few years now. After I come back it surprises me as usual, how a man is still immersed in the joyful world of gaming… I am happy for you JR…
This shot me into to the past.Thanks dude!
Doom musics? I should have guessed…