MrSardonic
The nerdiest nerd of all the nerds in nerdland
Prine said:
why haven't you got yourself one of these yet?
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Game graphics have got better, so why hasn't the music?
- Thread starter Rocked
- Start date
why haven't you got yourself one of these yet?
Scalemail Ted
Member
This thread had just taken a turn for the awesome!
MrSardonic
The nerdiest nerd of all the nerds in nerdland
Prine said:
Interesting because...
Prine said:
...maybe you failed to realise that this is a thread is about videogame music.
And everyone knows that MarioKart Double Dash is the winner
Guns N' Poops
Banned
The revmote will surely revolutionize videogame music.
AtomicShroom
Member
Guns N' Poops said:
I can already picture an orchestra maestro game.
Or in Wind Waker 2, you will actually move the wand around with your Revmote to produce the notes. Pure genius.
... Or is it?
Making music that is catchy is still possible today. Katamari, SOTC, Lament of Innocence and some other games proves it.
It's just that it's easy to make generic movie music and to throw liscensed shit everywhere. This is real ennemi imo.
And it's also a fact that music composer had to surpass themselve more in the past since they had to make good music with shit hardware. Good hardware and tools dilute talent alot more.
It's just that it's easy to make generic movie music and to throw liscensed shit everywhere. This is real ennemi imo.
And it's also a fact that music composer had to surpass themselve more in the past since they had to make good music with shit hardware. Good hardware and tools dilute talent alot more.
pinkatrophe
Member
I guess I don't understand or agree with this thread because I think music in games have gotten progressively better. It's just the fact that many people are overly nostalgic over SNES era games and, regardless of how good current gen games' music gets, it will still be no comparison to games of old because they have the notion that older games had better music ingrained in themselves.
Personally, I never understood over the fascination over music in older games. Whenever I hear some of the most "legendary" songs, it just sounds dull in many ways. I think it's the attachment that the gamers form to these gamese as kids that probably help to make older games seem to have far better music.
To any of the kids groing up in the ps2 generation though, I doubt they think Zelda's original songs or that of many other retro games hold a candle to what's being offered in terms of atmosphere, complexity, and innovation offered in today's games.
Personally, I never understood over the fascination over music in older games. Whenever I hear some of the most "legendary" songs, it just sounds dull in many ways. I think it's the attachment that the gamers form to these gamese as kids that probably help to make older games seem to have far better music.
To any of the kids groing up in the ps2 generation though, I doubt they think Zelda's original songs or that of many other retro games hold a candle to what's being offered in terms of atmosphere, complexity, and innovation offered in today's games.
eso76
Member
Rocked said:http://dkc2bramble.ytmnd.com/
Just listen to this. You very very rarely hear original game music as beautiful as that today. In Mario Kart DS I noticed the new music was shit compared to the retro ones too.
The catchy tunes are what I REALLY miss about old gaming. I think all composers should be forced to make their tunes on a Commodore 64 or a NES then remix them.I don't understand why modern music isn't so memorable.
This is something i expressed a few days ago, and i definately can hear you.
Not that i don't like today's music, but i think switching to 'real' instruments or 'realisticly' sounding instruments and orchestras provided enough of an improvement as far as 'sound' goes, that musicians now can care less about the tunes themselves; see Kameo; its soundtrack is good because it's well orchestrated and sounds like a real movie score, but the themes themselves aren't too memorable or original; which is also the case with most movie scores but anyway.
When they had to deal with 8 and 16 bit sounds they had to put more effort in "composing" to achieve good results, it took more creativity . Not only that, but videogame music was a genre on its own, now it's often derivative of other 'real' musical genres. Good music should still be good even when played on a monophonic (?) cellphone.
I think I'm one of the people who prefer the catchy music of the past, to games nowadays which have either an over reliance on licensed music (the EA Trax bane) or sound like generic movie scores. That said, there's still great music being made - Jet Set Radio, Shadow of the Colossus, for instance. But my favorite genre, RPGs... have really taken a hit... everything sounds so generic and forgettable nowadays (the "Sakuraba-ization" of the games perhaps?), nothing sticks in my head for a long time or makes me want to start up a game and load up a save point and just wander around, listening to the music, like in games like Secret of Mana or Chrono Trigger.
The best soundtracks from back in the days were definitely on the CD systems... Lords of Thunder and Ys1-4 immediately stand out for me.
The best soundtracks from back in the days were definitely on the CD systems... Lords of Thunder and Ys1-4 immediately stand out for me.
leesmapman
Member
Oh! the Ys series had awesome music! Falcom FTW. Ys 6 lacked a bit there, but its still good.
And although the new 3D games may suffer some flaws, the Castlevania series has great music overall.
And although the new 3D games may suffer some flaws, the Castlevania series has great music overall.
GitarooMan
Member
eso76 said:
I disagree here, I think that although they not may be catchy jingles like the old midi tunes, there are tracks in Kameo that are memorable. The last track on the soundtrack (number 27) I think, was pretty damn good and memorable to me. See http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/samples/B000BKSJ2K/ref=dp_tracks_all_1/002-6659854-5747228?%5Fencoding=UTF8#disc_1
I have a lot of love for the old tunes (a la Mega Man 2), but I can't say I don't appreciate the higher quality of music and the use of real instruments today.
DonasaurusRex
Online Ho Champ
because castlevania on PC engine came out when it came out there is no topping that my son.
leesmapman
Member
Castlevania SotN maybe.
CurseoftheGods
Banned
Fight for Freeform said:
Listen to Chrono Cross' OST and try making that argument again.
i'm gonna agree with the original poster. game music these days DOES suck. but i'm gonna say it has nothing to do with complexity but everything to do with games trying to sound like movies or TV dramas or whatever. fully planned scores? wtf. it works for some games but not all. The last generation of awesome music IMO was on the saturn. NiGHTS chip produced music was just amazing. I will say though that one of the only companies that still manages to make their music sound "traditional" is namco. Klonoa 2 and the ridge racer games, even katamari still have very "game" sounding tracks and are very memorable.
Sound composers used to have to manage with very limited sound resources. I think the Superfami has 3 or 4 channels of sound and the music has to be managed in that area and with limitaitons, composers usually think creatively as to how they will compose their music.
The music from Seiken Densetsu 2 and Zelda 3 were some of the best ever composed. Very catchy and memorable. I think the problem today is that music can be composed on high end soundstations or recorded live with no limitations to the composer, downsampled into an mp3 or alternative music file and simply streamed by the game.
While the absolute quality is higher (real instruments/orchestras are used) the actual compositions may not have improved considerably from the past, or in some cases, may have declined, due to the composers simply not being challenged by the hardware.
It's an open dabate whether it is good or bad overall that sound designers now have much less restrictions. I think the overall focus in on the good. That said, there's a lot of anecdotal evidence that limitaitons tend to force more creativity at least among the standout titles.
Perhpas the games that benefit the most from the advance in technology are the B-list games that would have featured totally passble beeps passing for soundtracks now featuring full orchestral scores.
The music from Seiken Densetsu 2 and Zelda 3 were some of the best ever composed. Very catchy and memorable. I think the problem today is that music can be composed on high end soundstations or recorded live with no limitations to the composer, downsampled into an mp3 or alternative music file and simply streamed by the game.
While the absolute quality is higher (real instruments/orchestras are used) the actual compositions may not have improved considerably from the past, or in some cases, may have declined, due to the composers simply not being challenged by the hardware.
It's an open dabate whether it is good or bad overall that sound designers now have much less restrictions. I think the overall focus in on the good. That said, there's a lot of anecdotal evidence that limitaitons tend to force more creativity at least among the standout titles.
Perhpas the games that benefit the most from the advance in technology are the B-list games that would have featured totally passble beeps passing for soundtracks now featuring full orchestral scores.
ichigo kurosaki
Member
I guess orchestrated music can't be catchy... There are a few current-gen games with memorable music. Katamari Damacy. Rocks.
btw does anybody remember Rocket Knight Adventures for the Mega Drive? It had pretty good music too. I wonder if they'll ever release a sequel of this game...
btw does anybody remember Rocket Knight Adventures for the Mega Drive? It had pretty good music too. I wonder if they'll ever release a sequel of this game...
CurseoftheGods said:Listen to Chrono Cross' OST and try making that argument again.
So I have to buy the OST and ignore the music that was present in the game, or is it the very same?
Because seriously, compared to tracked music, it's nothing as far as complexity goes and challange goes.
You're trying comparing a Fresco in a Church to something drawn on a PC tablet.
pinkatrophe
Member
It ultimately just comes down to perspective IMO. If most people in this thread claiming that older games had better songs had began playing games during the end of the ps1 era, and then went back and listened to 'classic games', I really question whether they'd have the same view.
Classic game music was certainly catchy, but I never found it to be very interesting or memorable besides maybe tunes that were repeatedly played at the end of a battle. But even with those songs, I don't find them interesting or pleasing enough to listen to outside of the game's world.
One of my favorite soundtrack's is that of Ridge Racer 4's but I'm sure that my nostalgia of the time surrounding the period in which I played that game has a lot to do with why I like it so much. I just don't see how it's even possible to debate, objectively, how would generation of games had better music than another. Could it just be that you've attached different feelings towards those games and those songs, presumably when you were young, than you have tot contemporary titles? Because, in all honesty, even when I was playing an NES and Genesis as a child, I never found the tunes to be very listetnable outside of the game. And even then, I've listened to the soundtracks of recent games (Phantom Dust and Killer 7 come to mind) that totally trounce any retro game's songs IMO.
It's like comparing a catchy tune or pop song to a full blown orchestra: the latter isn't as well remembered because of its complexity, but if you try to apply something as basic and rudimentary as an NES tune onto games that are increasingly becoming more immersive and lifelike, you may as well play Britney Spears over the soundtrack of a movie like Requiem for a Dream.
Classic game music was certainly catchy, but I never found it to be very interesting or memorable besides maybe tunes that were repeatedly played at the end of a battle. But even with those songs, I don't find them interesting or pleasing enough to listen to outside of the game's world.
One of my favorite soundtrack's is that of Ridge Racer 4's but I'm sure that my nostalgia of the time surrounding the period in which I played that game has a lot to do with why I like it so much. I just don't see how it's even possible to debate, objectively, how would generation of games had better music than another. Could it just be that you've attached different feelings towards those games and those songs, presumably when you were young, than you have tot contemporary titles? Because, in all honesty, even when I was playing an NES and Genesis as a child, I never found the tunes to be very listetnable outside of the game. And even then, I've listened to the soundtracks of recent games (Phantom Dust and Killer 7 come to mind) that totally trounce any retro game's songs IMO.
It's like comparing a catchy tune or pop song to a full blown orchestra: the latter isn't as well remembered because of its complexity, but if you try to apply something as basic and rudimentary as an NES tune onto games that are increasingly becoming more immersive and lifelike, you may as well play Britney Spears over the soundtrack of a movie like Requiem for a Dream.
pinkatrophe
Member
Fight for Freeform said:
That might be it, but both methods of looking at it are still prone to being very subjective. I think it's just too easy to discount an entire generation of game music just because of the feelings that many people attach to older songs and I guess I just never got caught up in that when I was a kid.
I listen to that Donky Kong Country song that someone linked to and it sounds terribly dated and cheesy compared to the songs currently used. Had I been a fan of the game I would probably be fawning over it, but since I'm not, and I can listen to it without my feelings or memories about the game altering how good or bad of a song it is. I bet in 12 years, people will be posting about how awesome the songs during the ps2/x360 days were and how everything now is shit. As another posted said: nostalgia can be a bitch sometimes.
Space Runaway
Member
Eh, the old music is still great and theres still plenty of great videogame music today. It's just taste and nothing more. I don't feel nostaligia does/should really effect music unless your mr.in-denial for everything. I can see why one would like alot of the older music better because they use alot of sound styles and "instruments" that aren't too common these days but thats still just taste related.
Course if you want to argue about licensed music in games, then yeah, I definitely preferred the older times because you saw very little of that. But thats life in 2006 and they pretty much apply licensed music to everything not gaming as well(Remember when commercials commonly made up their own jingles instead of relying on someones memories of a good song to always remind them of the product in question).
Course if you want to argue about licensed music in games, then yeah, I definitely preferred the older times because you saw very little of that. But thats life in 2006 and they pretty much apply licensed music to everything not gaming as well(Remember when commercials commonly made up their own jingles instead of relying on someones memories of a good song to always remind them of the product in question).
wtf.
is this a joke? some kind of stealth "limitations improve creativity" thread?
NES music was memorable because it was an 8 bar loop repeating over and over and over. I used to go to bed in my superman undies and still hear the zelda theme droning in my head. Cause it was so good? No because I heard it 200,000,000,000 times.
is this a joke? some kind of stealth "limitations improve creativity" thread?
NES music was memorable because it was an 8 bar loop repeating over and over and over. I used to go to bed in my superman undies and still hear the zelda theme droning in my head. Cause it was so good? No because I heard it 200,000,000,000 times.
pinkatrophe
Member
Flo_Evans said:
:lol
that's what I'm sayin'
For the most part I think music is horrible in the vast majority of video games. That was true 20 years ago and it is still true today. It seems companies place way too much emphasis on the graphics and not enough on music. There is some music today that is just as good or better than music from the earlier days, it is just you don't remember all the shitty music that was on the NES, SNES, Genesis, PSX, etc. You just remember the tunes that stood out.
I actually feel that music always leaves more of an impact on me than graphics, but good music has always been rare in videogames.
I actually feel that music always leaves more of an impact on me than graphics, but good music has always been rare in videogames.
Custom soundtracks will also only encourage game developers to devote fewer resources towards the composition of new music, and without that, there won't be good VGM in the future at all.DJ Sl4m said:
Custom Soundtracks is basically the worst thing that has happened to VGM.
ichigo kurosaki
Member
Stench said:Let us not forget the contributions of one particular man - a man... who stood against the system... a man who prevailed, when others were shamed from their own pitiful failures.
Never forget the man... the myth... THE LEGEND.
YASUNORI MITSUDA: KING OF KINGS
GOD
At first glance I thought that was Sha hua, from the Shenmue series...
...
I had to do it... Sorry :lol
pinkatrophe said:
I'm not discounting current gen music at all. If you ask me, I think because of the move to redbook audio, game music on the whole has improved across all games and genres, whereas in the older days, only a handful of titles each year had great music.
But I feel that some are dismissing the greatness of older music as "nostalgia" or simply listening to it over and over, when in reality, the music done back that was far more creative, focused on melody, and took more skill to create.
In case some don't understand why, I'll explain why it takes more skill. Firstly, they had to reproduce real sounds with an extremely limited synth (in the case of the Genesis an FM synth). Noise was used to reproduce percussion, and fancy tracking was used for apreggios and such. There were limited channels, that had to be shared with sound fx, and so you had to do more with less.
The Donkey Kong Country track wasn't a great example because that's an example of MIDI music, and not really synth music. It's more akin to what we hear today.
http://www.teamartail.com/midi/sonknux/flyingbattery_act2.mid
There's an example from Sonic and Knuckles, and as you can hear the bassline is pretty advanced, there's a lot of change and variety in the percussion, and it has an infectious lead. This midi is a bad example in some ways because you can't hear the actual sounds used to create the song, this is just an example of the composition. http://gh.ffshrine.org/soundtracks/1951/5193Here's an mp3 version though
dog$ said:
The satisfaction of playing awesome music in any and every game you own, far outweighs the very few games with decent music.
Most free music included in a game is free for a reason, it sucks ass and couldn't sell on it's own.
Besides thinking that just because the user has the option to use thier own soundtracks will mean every developer will stop trying to add decent music is hilarious.
Music producers in games have pride like everyone else who enjoys what they do in life, this will never change.
pinkatrophe
Member
Fight for Freeform said:
Oh, I completely agree. It's really creative the amount of sounds and the complexities found on such relatively simple hardware back in the day.
My rant is basically targeted at those (and I haven't read this entire thread, so I'm not directing it specifically to anyone here) who only think that games made pre-1995 had good music or that music has gotten worse to the extreme that they can't appreciate some of the innovation still found today.
DJ Sl4m said:
I completely agree. It's really sad that more games didn't take advantage of the Xbox 1's ability to play custom soundtracks. Who's to say that every good game necessarily has the best soundtrack? I don't see how giving the user more options can be a bad thing in any case.
dog$ said:
I agree with dog$ (woah).
Some of the previous posts in this thread describe exactly how I feel with some music nowadays. Especially in movies, you have a shitload of them that use orchestral scores, and they sound good because they're orchestral, but there's very few that are memorable, like Star Wars, and LotR. That's some of the problem I see with video game music as well.
Now, I'm not saying that music is by any means worse, just that, not too many composers try and stand out nowadays. *shrug*
ichigo kurosaki
Member
Not all orchestrated music is forgettable either... Shenmue's main theme is just breathtaking. In fact, IMO one of the best game composers out there is Yuzo Koshiro. I still remember some of the best tracks he composed for Genesis' Streets of Rage II, I can't believe he could make such great music with such a limited hardware. It's too bad he didn't make music for more western-released games this generation.
Other games with great real-time music are those from the Final Fantasy series. Not so much the latest releases in the series, but some of the slightly previous ones, such as FFVIII. Its soundtrack was magnificent. FFVII's was also great, but not nearly as polished as FFVIII's piano tracks.
And as far as custom soundtracks is concerned, I wonder what the scenario will be like this gen, will Sony allow gamers to use their own soundtracks connecting their iPods or ripping cds into the machine? I'm not so sure about the latter...
Other games with great real-time music are those from the Final Fantasy series. Not so much the latest releases in the series, but some of the slightly previous ones, such as FFVIII. Its soundtrack was magnificent. FFVII's was also great, but not nearly as polished as FFVIII's piano tracks.
And as far as custom soundtracks is concerned, I wonder what the scenario will be like this gen, will Sony allow gamers to use their own soundtracks connecting their iPods or ripping cds into the machine? I'm not so sure about the latter...
Why?DJ Sl4m said:
You seriously couldn't forsee a bunch of executives at a game company looking over the budget and saying -
"Well, lesse... we have to cut costs somehow. Mm, well, kids these days want to use their own music in every single videogame they buy, so what's the point in paying someone here to make music that nobody wants to hear. Fuck it. Cut the music."
Of course, but music producers don't set the budgets. If a bunch of presidents get back data that nobody listens to the music they pay for, why fund it?
It isn't as long as the option to both VGM and customized tracks is present, but I entirely forsee a future where numerous videogame companies stop providing in-house music if everyone only wants to use their own.pinkatrophe said:
Escape Goat
Member
Gra phics have gotten better?
*looks at X-Men Legends 2, frowns*
*looks at X-Men Legends 2, frowns*
Suburban Cowboy
Member
My 2 cents.
I dont give a shit about sound or music as long as it isnt annoying (which most games arent). I doubt i am the only one.
I dont give a shit about sound or music as long as it isnt annoying (which most games arent). I doubt i am the only one.
underfooter
Banned
Drakken said:
I agree with this guy.