Best RPG soundtracks?

[Justisaur]

What's the best RPG soundtracks?

Diablo comes to mind for me.
Anything Fallout too.

[Ross Ridge]

I liked the background music in the original Fallout. Not something
you'd want to buy the soundtrack for and listen outside of the game,
but the quiet and sligtly eerie music that played when you were exploring
an abandoned vault was perfect.

EVE Online has some nice 70's-style electronic "space" music. Maybe not
quite what you'd want to listen outside of the game either, but I have
anyways.

As for soundtracks you'd want to listen to sans game, it's not an RPG
but I like the music in the Saboteur. I've actually heard a couple of
the song from that game on the jazz radio station I listen to.

Another non-RPG with good music is Evil Genius, though I'm not sure if
there's much beyond the intro I remember sounding like a classic James
Bond theme. Pretty much any Star Wars game has good music because they
pretty much all use the John Williams score.

--
l/ // Ross Ridge -- The Great HTMU
[oo][oo] rri...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
-()-/()/ http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~rridge/
db //

[Spalls Hurgenson]

On Wed, 10 Jan 2018 16:42:32 -0800, Justisaur <just...@gmail.com>
wrote:

>What's the best RPG soundtracks?
>
>Diablo comes to mind for me.
>Anything Fallout too.

I was always a fan of the Planescape soundtrack. The main track
especially but overall the whole thing was quite memorable.

Fallout 1 and 2 had great intro songs ("Maybe" and "A Kiss to Build a
Dream On" but their overall soundtracks were forgettable. Fallout
3/NV/4's mix of 1930-50's pop music was better, although very
repetitive (there was a mod that added a hundred extra songs to the
mix and those were so great I added them all to my MP3 collection for
regular listening).

Similarly, Skyrim has its awesome "Dovakiin" opening theme but the
full soundtrack was the ordinary soaring orchestrals (Oblivion and
Morrowind likewise had memorable opening riffs but the rest? I can't
remember).

The original Deus Ex had a pretty good overall soundtrack (a few dull
ones but most were great).

Another great one was the soundtrack from the CD-ROM version of the
Interplay Lord of the Rings game. Well, I don't know how /good/ it
was, but it was very catchy and that's not a bad thing in and off
itself. It was a bit too exhuberant for the game it represented
though.

Then there's System Shock. Its soundtrack was very mechanical and
/not/ catchy in the least, but suited the gore-drenched halls of
Citadel Station very well.

It's not really an RPG, but special mention to the gothic tunes of
Wheel of Time.

But in the end, I think my favorite soundtracks are those of the
Ultima games. The originals - piped through FM synthesizers (or worse,
the 1-bit speakers of the original PC or Apple 2) were terrible to
hear, but remastered on proper hardware and the music is just
wonderful. "Stones", "Captain John's Hornpipe", "Heroes Long Gone";
these are all so memorable that I remember them to this day (I can
even whistle them on demand!). The tunes from Ultima 9 were hauntingly
beautiful (one of the few highlights of the game); the tracks for
Underworld perfectly fit the dungeon depths.

[Mike S.]

On Thu, 11 Jan 2018 13:11:19 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson
<spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Fallout 1 and 2 had great intro songs ("Maybe" and "A Kiss to Build a
>Dream On" but their overall soundtracks were forgettable.

I don't know about Fallout 2, but the original had the most
*appropriate* soundtrack I have ever heard in an RPG. It fit so
*perfectly* with the game, that I could not imagine playing the game
without it. No RPG I ever played had a more fitting soundtrack.

It is not something I would ever listen to outside the game (as they
are atmospheric tracks) but I certainly would not describe this
soundtrack as forgettable. Not by a long shot.

>Another great one was the soundtrack from the CD-ROM version of the
>Interplay Lord of the Rings game. Well, I don't know how /good/ it
>was, but it was very catchy and that's not a bad thing in and off
>itself. It was a bit too exhuberant for the game it represented
>though.

It has been a very long time since I played this one, or even thought
about it, but I do remember liking the soundtrack as well. I also
agree about the music being a little too exuberant for the game. Like
it did not quite fit.

Do you remember Gandalf's full talkie tutorial? :)

>Then there's System Shock. Its soundtrack was very mechanical and
>/not/ catchy in the least, but suited the gore-drenched halls of
>Citadel Station very well.

System Shock was one of the few titles where I turned the music off.
It was getting in the way of the 'you are alone' vibe the game was
trying to give off. I did not care for the techno sounding track
anyway. This is true for both System Shock games.

>But in the end, I think my favorite soundtracks are those of the
>Ultima games. The originals - piped through FM synthesizers (or worse,
>the 1-bit speakers of the original PC or Apple 2) were terrible to
>hear, but remastered on proper hardware and the music is just
>wonderful. "Stones", "Captain John's Hornpipe", "Heroes Long Gone";
>these are all so memorable that I remember them to this day (I can
>even whistle them on demand!). The tunes from Ultima 9 were hauntingly
>beautiful (one of the few highlights of the game); the tracks for
>Underworld perfectly fit the dungeon depths.

Yeah, I have several remastered versions of the songs from various
Ultima games. I love them.

[Dimensional Traveler]

I am one of those players who usually turns the music off if I can while
playing, so I can't say there are any full soundtracks that I would
listen to on their own but there are some individual songs.

Destiny by Syntax from Driv3r. It was years after I had downloaded and
been listening to this one before I found out it was from a game. :D
This one is well up in my list of favorite songs.

The opening music from Oblivion, Reign of the Septims is pretty good IMO.

If you like game music, there are studios that produce music intended
for use in movies, TV and games that also make it available on its own.
Much of it is classed as "Epic" genre. My favorite of these is Two
Steps From Hell. They have a website, a YouTube channel and you can
even buy albums from them on CD. A few other studios are Epic Score and
Directors Cuts Production Music Library.

--
Inquiring minds want to know while minds with a self-preservation
instinct are running screaming.

[Spalls Hurgenson]

On Thu, 11 Jan 2018 22:05:21 -0800, Dimensional Traveler
<dtr...@sonic.net> wrote:



>> Do you remember Gandalf's full talkie tutorial? :)

Nope. I ripped the music bits to MP3 but - for obvious reasons - the
talkie bits got left behind. I was never a fan of the game so I
haven't replayed it - and thus heard its tutorials - since the mid
'90s. But its soundtrack (barring tutorials) still shows up in my mp3
playlist ;-)

>Destiny by Syntax from Driv3r. It was years after I had downloaded and
>been listening to this one before I found out it was from a game. :D
>This one is well up in my list of favorite songs.

Well, if we are including non-RPGs* then I want to give an
extra-special shout-out to the forgotten classic, "Emperor of the
Fading Suns" (a 1996 4X strategy game by Holistic Design). It was such
a gothic and moody sound-track, its minor chords perfectly suited to a
universe where the suns were literally going out. I love listening to
it on a dark and dreary day (I've also used it as background music for
tabletop role-playing). The only problem I have with it is that all
the tracks sound very similar. This isn't an issue when playing the
game but it does get a bit samey listening to the whole soundtrack in
one big gulp.


Oh, and the original Mafia (2004, Illusion Softworks), with all its
Django Reinhardt tunes. Unfortunately, due to licensing issues all
digital re-releases have had much of the original soundtracks stripped
out and replaced with rather blah tracks. Fortunately, I still have
the original CD-ROM, plus I ripped the tunes to MP3. Also the fan
community has a mod that adds in the original music back in if you
have a digital re-release. It's an absolute necessity because the game
is hollow and without much of its character without that soundtrack.



* I know, I know, I started it by mentioning "Wheel of Time" first.

[ma...@mattipaalanen.com]

I like to compose my custom fantasy music / rpg music under Celestial Aeon Project for my D&D campaigns. The music is free to download and listen. You are welcome to check out my Spotify / Youtube / Jamendo pages:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/3erL8NEQbmmOXhO6yyVWxO
http://youtube.com/mattipaalanencelticmusicepicmusic
https://www.jamendo.com/artist/2740/celestial-aeon-project

My main influences are Jeremy Soule, Austin Wintory, Brunuhville and many other fantasy music / celtic music composers. I aim to create strong atmospheres and "concept tunes" that induce certain emotion or scene.