Why am I so obessed with video game music?

Post Reply New Topic

Honestly I think it's because you're a narrow minded nerd who needs to listen to real music. That Final Fantasy guy makes repeating loops, basically. Wasn't he just a MIDI composer who eventuly got a budget? He's trash. Just because it's an orchestra doesn't mean it's not crap. Most soundtracks are trash, not just video games. The great movie composers are mediocre in comparison to real composers. It's not that I don't like modern music, I mean Prokofiev is pretty cool...

Did you ever weep at Final Fantasy music? Did you ever even realise music could do that? Broaden your horizons from this nerdshoe looping video game music and see it for the artistic garbage it really is.

ToolK9, some people are aesthetic music lovers and are more about the moods ane textures, some are hardcore theory buffs and care more about the technicals and technical merits - sounds like you're more the second. I know a lot of theory heads who think like that, I had a teacher who felt like his taste in music was the only thing and he ripped up anything that wasn't some sort of progressive metal, some kind of weird out of the way emo-ish hippy tunes, or Chicago. Just remember, you might *really* feel what your saying but I've come to realize its very rare for 2 people to feel music identically - if things like jungle, trance, or techno are alive and well and a lot of people like em it should be clear a lot of people live off the feel of what they listen to and it does have its merits, lest it never would have caught on at all. As for video game music, I think I can respect that to because while I'm not specifically hooked on it I understand how people could be.

I agree with techstepgenr8tion above, there are just some people out there who like to heavily criticize music that goes beyond their tastes. But all music is unique, and just because you, ToolK9, don't like it doesn't make it wrong. What cool is all in your head. I have friends that act this way, like their opinions are cold hard facts, I wish I could like, open up their minds in certain ways...

With that off my chest, all of you who appriciate video game music of all kinds should check out Aphex Twin. I think it's only one guy, but he's an electronic genius to me who does techo, trance, ambient -stuff like that. I got a bunch of his/their music on my computer, and a lot of his s**t sounds like it could be in a video game, especially from an album entitled "melodies from mars" which appears to be unreleased. But that album gets weird after a while NEwayz. My fav. Would have to be the "selected ambient works 85-92" album. So check it out yo!

Sure I'll check it out when I get a chance to and when I can make it into my obessions.

I know the feeling. People are always telling me to get into s**t that I really don't feel like getting into.

the final fantasy 8 soundtrack is actually the best, i think you'll find.

before i got into contemporary music or whatever you want to call it (don't call it pop or rock or anything) i listened almost exclusively to video game music and felt continually inspied, particularly by nobuo uematsu (final fantasy) and hiroki kikuta (secret of mana).

just becuase someone likes video game music doesn't mean they only like it beacuse its a midi loop and that they like nothing else. that is a gross misundersatnding of my situation and probably the author of this thread. i like to listen to ff music because it reminds me of me childhood and makes me happy. what do YOU think music should do? there are many types of music that each have something that makes them worthwhile for the listener. i hope you are not too narrowminded to appreciate that fact. you may not like video game music but you don't have to insult others who do.

I think that one of the reasons I enjoy video game music, at least from older games, is the fact that it's done within a very restricted framework. You only have a few simple sounds, and can only use 3-4 channels at the same time. That way, it's just impossible to go overboard with complicated arrangements, you have to focus on a great melody. That's probably why I love older game music like the early Mega Man and Final Fantasy series. Of course, the newer Final Fantasy games (at least those before X) had really amazing melodies as well.

This is just what I think: its because you are obsessed with Final Fantasy; not that it is a bad thing, interests are universally unique.

Anybody played wonder boy 3 the dragons trap on the sega master system?

It sounds blooy brilliant for 4 channel PSG and white noise track!

Something else thats kinda funny, its pretty evident that lots of people see something in it. There's an older track by Freaky Flow called Myst or Mist, something like that, the melody sounded real familiar and real MIDI'ish, I couldn't put my finger on what it was. Turns out my roommates decided to break out Zelda for Super NES, a game I never really had the chance to play as a kid and yeah, that's what the sample's from. I can't diss producers doing that either just because, when your talking about the classic games they put a lot of effort into injecting a lot of mood into the graphics, storyboard, and the music was probably the strongest component of that - being mood is the basis of good music for a lot of people it shouldn't defy reason too much.

It's pretty silly to criticise old video game music simply because they were typically short midi loops. Isn't most popular music today similar, in that you have looping versus and choruses?

Oh yeah, and Final Fantasy music rocks, btw. Well not so much with the newer ones, but FFVIII (which was fairly recent) was decent, although not as good as FFVI. Although I'm probably biased since I liked FFVI the most out of the series. Probably the best piece of music I can think of that came out of the series were the FFVII and FFVI overworld themes, and the FFVIII main theme.

Other notable soundtracks I can think of off the top of my head (older games) are Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, Super Metroid, and Donkey Kong Country 2 & 3. Also, while it wasn't something anyone would actually listen to outside of the game, Clock Tower's music worked very well with the game's atmosphere. Anyone who has ever had to run away from the scissor-man in that game knows what I'm talking about.