This is a hill worth fighting for, video games sound awesome 99% of the time and we should spend more time celebrating that. Also, tangent even in the description I know, HAVE YOU EVER NOTICED HOW WELL MIXED MOST GAMES ARE TODAY? like you almost NEVER find a Sol XX Ground viper anymore and I don’t know how. There’s SO many noises in a game that could just go hog wild and they almost never do. Anyway, so like, here’s a bunch of links, the top ones are to the OSTs I recommended at the end, the ones below that are to every name drop that I used in this video.
Dujanah – https://jackking-spooner.bandcamp.com/album/dujanah-extended-soundtrack
Lovely Planet – https://calumbowen.bandcamp.com/album/lovely-planet-original-soundtrack
Sword & Sworcery – https://jimguthrie.bandcamp.com/album/sword-sworcery-lp-the-ballad-of-the-space-babies
Compass – https://open.spotify.com/track/1Cg6aOGSfd5RgTub4DCNfN?si=3b90ef1c00464576
Roll up your sleeves – https://open.spotify.com/track/0CgaNjPI5uVzMGfhcsFafk?si=f718233ab7574511
Revvin’ My Cj7 – https://open.spotify.com/track/6PVx8IYQJdeLa2AIJnnFrj?si=266e3c821bdb4154
Dead to me – https://open.spotify.com/track/6LOZws7T3jqZz78unPgFF9?si=3646bba473bd448e
パラノイドパレード – https://open.spotify.com/track/61e3DNqX7Xyl6g9o8LZI22?si=f800b3c769364763
Best interest – https://open.spotify.com/track/3jHdKaLCkuNEkWcLVmQPCX?si=76c0a38cabd94fab
Painting of Blue – https://open.spotify.com/track/36oT5XBcxYDOfbAe47gOVC?si=f42f6068e46c4851
First Fragment – https://open.spotify.com/artist/51NIL49MVTWeXEC8LoVrQ0?si=II7LVoCeRIOu27Shg4EwvQ
Flower Boy – https://open.spotify.com/album/2nkto6YNI4rUYTLqEwWJ3o?si=uV6YLSAeQjukroFPOO2uSw
Creatures of Habit – https://open.spotify.com/album/15u9sohSPRl0qYMlBQ9b0x?si=P65Ri-XbScWsMXausJQLfg
Games Used (In order of appearance) –
Guilty Gear Xrd REV 2
Valorant
Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Heritage for the future
Apex Legends
Dark Souls 2
Half life 2
Halo 2
Minecraft
Lisa
Dustforce
Osu!
Titanfall 2
Guilty Gear XX accent core + R
Undertale
Earthbound
Dark Souls
Portal
Subnautica
Blazblue Central Fiction
Doom (2016)
Doom Eternal
Killing Floor 2
Dead Space
Journey
Killer instinct
Soma
The Beginners Guide
DarkWood
Infinifactory
Lovely Planet
Street Fighter 3rd strike
My Twitch – https://www.twitch.tv/leonmassey
My twitter – https://twitter.com/LeonMassive
Source
Brilliant video Leon, love your vids about FGs and seeing you branch out into more topics you enjoy is really cool <3<3
My favourite game soundtracks would be the Pikmin games', they totally give off a sense of being lost in nature, which can feel joyful, unnerving, scary or anything inbetween.
4:53 sorry, that doesn't make much sense. Let's say every single note was 1 Semitone higher or lower, and you don't know the original, your listening experience would be almoast if not compleatly the same, if it was written in our 12 ton equal temperament (or whatever it's called), which it very probably is.
Go tell me if I made spelling mistakes or something, I'm not a native speaker.
There’s one game I’ve played with a soundtrack a cut above the rest and it would be a shame not to mention it here: bastion.
The narration may be the way that the game communicates its whole story, but the soundtrack is how it communicates emotion. It’s fast-paced and energetic. It’s at the same time familiar and other-worldly. If you haven’t played bastion, do it. You will not be disappointed.
this is a good video, i’m proud of you son
7:30 nice
Spiral Knights is… most certainly not a good game, but due to me having played it as a kid, it left its mark on me with its OST. It’s nothing truly groundbreaking, but it’s some real good tunes!
The sound design in Tetris Effect is just absolutely perfect. It just makes me so happy.
I really love the Katana ZERO OST, mostly because it's the player character, Zero who puts on earbuds before every single mission. You can really get into the headspace of this calm, collected assassin weeb. Also in Fifteen's level he doesn't have any audio gear with him, which implies Breath of a Serpent just plays in his head & that's the most badass thing ever.
I get kinda annoyed when a soundtrack that I really love isn’t on any music services and the only way I can listen to it is on YouTube like it can’t be too hard to just put a soundtrack on Spotify can it ?
The Legend of Heroes: Trails series by Nihon Falcom have some fantastic tracks… Well, Falcom in general is known for its music. My personal favorites are from Trails in the Sky, with tracks like Dreamy and Boisterous Land, Overdosing Heavenly Bliss, The Enforcers, etc. Trails in the Sky is so good at making banger tracks while making use of Leitmotis to make their tracks really hit home when they play. Would recommend playing them, or at least listening to their OST
Big suggestion is the ff14 soundtrack all of the trials have mad unique music and the use of legit motifs in game is also wonderful. (Try it if you have the time it's good and free up to a point) they also gave some fun new remixes in the pulse remixes.
Monster Hunter tri has an amazing soundtrack.
Undertale tbh is a masterclass for sound design in bideo games. If you want a way to keep a consistent experience through your game’s soundtrack, use its cliches!
Yessssss, LISA is so good
3rd Strike parries <3
Mentioning First Fragment is an instant sub. Truly a refined taste.
Rashid theme it's meme like but it's fun and gets me in the mood for some crazy fighting game bullshit with friends.
10:37 Ah, a Gura connoisseur I see
Big examples I love are the dynamic battle themes from DMC5, actively ramping up as you increase in style, with the A rank being pure tension build until S rank when you get the chorus pop and all the lyrics and instruments, gold.
And in terms of sound artistry, Monster Hunter World is an incredible example of attention to detail that deserves crediting when it comes to ambience and the SFX of monsters; the weight of certain monster's footsteps, the sound of them sniffing or letting out whimpering noises, each guttural growl they make whilst setting up an attack, and most of all: the roar's when starting a fight or when rage mode happens. Zinogre's charging up noises whilst the sound of collecting thunderbugs rushing around you all to build tension for the final crack of thunder and a triumphant howl, it's the best man. There's a great video showing the lead foley artist making the ice attack SFX for Velkhana and it's so cool.
I did a big essay on sound design in videogames for my college course, and this was a lovely refresher, thank you Massive Leon.
most pretentious leon vid with least information
An OST I really recommend is the Mob Psycho one and to avoid paragraphs it just has a unique sound and you can really hear the scenes themselves in the tracks.
All the work, time, passion and effort into music and sound design just for Sol to Dragon Install
Fighting game music is actually important for me since I sometimes choose my mains based on their theme or sound effects. I remember picking Sakura from SF because her stage and theme makes me like nostalgic. Same with Shin Hisako. Then there's Paprika for thems fightin herds
Also why is jazz more appropriate fighting game music that whatever NetherRealm churns out?
here's some of my favorite game OSTs, with some favorite tracks in parentheses:
– Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (Dance of Pales, The Tragic Prince)
– Castlevania: Rondo of Blood (Bloodlines, Portrait of a Ghost Ship)
– Marvel Super Heroes vs Street Fighter (Wolverine's Theme, Chun Li's Theme)
– Marvel Super Heroes (Shuma Gorath Stage, Psylocke Stage)
– Battle Garegga (Fly to the Leaden Sky, Degeneracy)
– 19XX: The War Against Destiny (Red Naval Port, Silver Ice Sheet)
– Streets of Rage (Moon Beach, Dilapidated Town)
– Streets of Rage 2 (Dreamer, Wave 131)
– Contra 3: The Alien Wars (Neo Kobe Steel Factory, Nesting in the Sands)
– Kingdom Hearts 2 (Lazy Afternoons, Sacred Moon)
– Final Fantasy VII (Fisherman's Horizon, The Castle)
– Ristar (Shooting Ristar, Splash Down )
– Sonic CD Japan (Quartz Quadrant Past, DA Garden)
– Hyper Duel (Night Sweeper, Black Rain)
– Thunder Force V (Rising Blue Lightning, Steel of Destiny)
– Kaze no Notam (Departure, Solitude)
… and many more
Celeste's farewell soundtrack hits me on another level
When you talked about Dark Souls, it got me thinking about the King's Field OSTs. King's Field is the precursor series to the Soulsborne games, also by fromsoft, and they have a persistent soundtrack. In particular King's Field 4 has a very similar atmosphere, and its soundtrack actually enhances the atmosphere really well, which just goes to show that there are a lot of different approaches to soundtrack to achieve a similar effect. Listen to Dark Reality from the King's Field 4 or Passage for a Monk from the King's Field 2 soundtrack, they're my favourites.
For real, that BlazBlue dog makes me so mad every time I have to play that stage.
Bruh I could bathe in Leitmotifs, it's why the FF14 OST hits so good
Leon you're a cool dude with cool videos
Ori sound track
Watch "Adaptive Music (In Gaming) Is Amazing" is very good.
When talking about ambient tracks meant to add atmosphere, I feel like hollow knight does it really well. Each track successfully sells the correct feeling for each area, and the progression is done really well. You start out exploring this desolate, empty world, and the very sparse forgotten crossroads track sells that well. Then you move into greenpath and its exploding with life, you are surprised and entranced that something like that could even live down here, and the soundtrack sells that too. The boss fights are bangers, but everybody knows that, and i feel like the ambient tracks dont get the recognition they deserver.
"ducking"? So that's what I want to emulate with my bag work at some point? My idea was to have some sort of musical AI watch me for techniques and when I pull off a certain really powerful technique successfully and powerfully, reward me with that "oomph" moment that just takes over for a spot? Say Bas calls out 10 right straights and I don't slack the entire time and I get a nice glory kill riff from it, yeah. I will fucking murder that bag for a moment of musical bliss like that.
Wizard of legend has a pretty fantastic soundtrack. As does Tower of heaven. Oh man…can of worms fully opened
I cant stress how undernight has such good sound effects for it's hits and block sounds. Along with the fantastic tracks its just makes your ears jizz while getting your ass handed to you in game.
WOOOO NEW VID FROM THE BEST BOI
i'll always have a warm place in my heart for the soundtrack of Shadow Of The Colossus, if you never listened to it then i recommend The Opened Way for a action song and The Sunlit Earth for an more melodic song
Dark souls 1 character creation, the spook is awesome.
On the topic of Earthbound, I love its bold and uniqie use of sampling. It's possibly the best ost on the SNES for that reason.
I also like Machinarium's ost. So much that I bought it on vinyl. Lovely atmospheric soundtrack.
Also not game soundtracks, but being a fan of GG's music I ended up checking out Outrage, the band associated with the vocalist for GG's tracks and they're alright. I'm not really a metalhead but they're like an alright Metallica that didn't fall off in the more recent years.
check out outer wilds man. and don't get spoiled along the way
I'd just like to throw out a recommendation for the killer 7 soundtrack.
cliffe is banger lofi
Damm you Massey you needed to remember me about the dog don't you 😔
But yeah normally not a lot of people keep attetion to the Ost in the mainstream of videogames less to sound efects. Im weird in the fact of almost exclusevely listening to Ost but there are still people that keep it as weird and in a way "Bad", like there are lots of people Who literally hate minecraft ost for some reason just for being more experimental than your normal Ost or song, give it a break it had to work to whenever it played is not that easy to do.
In terms of more experimental like Ost I would reccomend the miitopia, Astral chain, the original Klonoa and maybe persona 2, they aren't for everyone but if you feel interested make a listen there are some really cool tranks in there
Talking of leitmotifs, have you played critically acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV with a free tri- ok that meme's getting a little stale now but Soken really loves using leitmotifs, like every zone will often have the zone theme, a quieter night time version, a more dramatic version for that zone's dungeon etc, and there's also the way he uses each expansion's main theme as a motif in a bunch of places.
I knew he was gonna talk about guilty gear when I saw it was about music
what is that game with the guy and broom? looks pretty cool
xenoblade chronicles definitive edition has an incredible soundtrack and it never fails to amaze me.
I really love the divinity original sin soundtrack. The main themes are just pure epic.
The piece about the Background SFX in Blazblue / Guilty Gear surprised me a bit. Never heard any of it, due to summing along the chorus of Awakening the Chaos.
But I think it is to be expected by the most excessive Perfectionists of the Fighting Game Genre.
My personal favourite SFX in a game has to be the sound of a Charge Blade's Super Amped Elemental Discharge in MHW, just everything from the charging of the axe, to the woomp of the weapon being swung around to the sound it makes when hitting something, and then the phial explosion… Incredible. Close second is the sound of a Greatsword's Power True Charged Slash connecting, just hnnnnnnnnnnnng it never stops being satisfying.
Honestly tho, MHW is a treasure trove of incredible and inspired sound design in general, there's compilations of the various monsters and the sounds they make and it's fucking wild how hard they go, and how much detail is put into all the SFX, as well as just everything in general. Like the way monsters have actual territorial patrol paths that they'll follow, and when not in combat they'll hunt and drink, occasionally rest like how you can sometimes catch Rajang or Anjanath staring out into the sunset in the Ancient Forest at dusk. Personal favourite monster for SFX has to be Alatreon, every sound he makes is so weird and alien, it sounds like a fucking spaceship when he's doing half of his attacks, I love it.
Also the soundtrack slaps mega turbo ultra hard