Recently, my interest has been piqued in finding any VGM soundtracks that consist of a nice handful of quality drum beats. I'm looking to devote some time this summer in improving my drum skills, so anything would be great to expound my skills on. So far, I noticed some of the Tekken albums, Yack., and Racing Lagoon (Track 31 is killer ) have some good drum beats.

For straight-forward, uncomplicated rock beats I would check out Prince of Persia Warrior Within. The beats aren't very technical or anything, but I can see them as being standard exercises for tightening up. I'd also recommend All Star Pro Wrestling II, the ol' Konami Battle albums and Sakuraba Live for some good drum riffs to jam out to.

And if you're feeling experimental, you could always fire up Zero Divide 2...

I'm not an expert in these things, but I think that Golden Axe 3 has some impressive drums.  You should check it out

From what I have heard, Splinter Cell:Chaos Theory has some great drumming, though it is REALLY fast.

When it comes to drumming, very few composers match the quality of Motoi Sakuraba and Akira Yamaoka I feel.
Try some of their albums.

F-Zero X, Guitar Arrange are very impressive.

Agreed. Very intense, thick and rich sounding. That was the first thing to come to mind for me.

Both Dementia and Megatona Furioso from Guilty Gear XX#Reload have some of my favorite drum lines in existance. This is one of the areas I definitely prefer N.EX.T.'s approach to GG music (although the original GG does have a nice drumset, if I do say so...Much better than Ishiwatari's later efforts).

I know some people hate them, but I have to say I've always been a fan of the JDK Band's "drums". They're loud and artificial (almost robotic), but they mesh extremely well with the style of arrangements and add a lot to them. It's a sound I'd like to hear duplicated more often. And I can't mention Falcom without waving "hi" to Ryo Yonemitsu.

Finally, the NES is capable of some sick drum sounds. I never realized how nice they sounded until I started listening to chiptunes more seriously (and started blaring them through a good stereo). Journey to Silius, Wacky Races, Wolverine, River City Ransom and (of course) Megaman all have great sounding "drum" tracks, among others. Much nicer than the ones I hear in a lot of more modern VGM (original and arranged).

Granada man. Hope you have two bass drums or a double bass pedal. And for Nemo's sake, I'll throw the Konami Battle albums out there too What kind of non-VGM are you listening to for drums?

For "real" drums and VGM, I'll point to the old standards Pro Fusion (Konami) and Kukeiha CD series. 

Including: Salamander Pro Fusion, Twin Bee

'Tappy' (as he is referred to) is a great player who I've never heard of outside of these cds.

Then there's Rockman X, Arc the Lad (1 with T-Square backing band), and the Street Fighter Alpha Lyla arrange.

There's lots of 'electronic' drum stuff out there of course, but when playing drums, trying to keep up with alot of them is a pain in the ass if you ask me, because it's all programmed, and not natural for playing real drums to, at least verbatim...I don't think I've heard a drummer sound like a machine (and I'm talking creative drum programming that grooves, but is still robotic (think of the drums sounds on any of Ryo Yonemitsu's stuff, or Konami), though certainly some 'metal' drummers can sound machine like.  Personally, I like to 'groove' loosely over some of the VGM I have.  Someone else mentioned Zero Divide...good call!

I knew you would get my back.

what about Turok,, hell its practically all drums...

Turok 1 and 2 were awesome, movie like score, great music.

Chaos Legion OST had some pretty sick drums.

The Giant Egg OST also had some really slick beats.  Too bad the melodies weren't as good the drums.

Ollie King (or pretty much anything by Hideki Naganuma)

Shin Contra

And I really like Meguro's programmed drums in Shin Megami Tensei III and Digital Devil Saga 1&2.

Oh, well if you want techno and stuff, really check out the Psyvariar albums, particularly 2.  EXCELLENT techno with some really cool beats.

Let's see, there was also Einhander and Enthusia, which were decent.

Maken X has some scary drum tracks.

I mirror Shin Contra. The opening drumming on "Survival of The Fittest" is some killer work.

More obscure but if you track down "Pirate Island" from Falcom Special Box '92 Disc 2 by Tsuyoshi Watanabe is a fantastic piece for drums.

"Warlock Battle" from BRINK OF TIME; excellent solid (jazz) drum and percussions here

Both SEGAROCKS albums feature some great stuff and one album I associate with it's excellent drum work.

Kukeiha Club pro-fusion Salamander... to mirror what another poster mentioned

I, too, dug the Digital Devil Saga drum work, particularly 1 (Svadhisthana is a good one for jazz drumming

For original tunes, i'd say Follin's work.
His whole composition is complex, and the drums are part of it.

For example, Spiderman & X-Men on SNES or Silver Surfer on NES, blasting.

Also Kukeiha's Castlevania IV tunes are pretty advanced as well.

Bumping this to add a couple suggestions. If you like funk/jazz/"groove" drumming (or just want to try out a new style), you should check out Space Channel 5's soundtrack. It's got some good tracks at the beginning and then a few more mixed in among the more dance-type songs.

Another one that no one would know about is Dr. Brain Action Reaction. It's basically an adventure/puzzle game aimed at kids, but for some reason it features awesome funk/jazz with great sounding drumming composed by a couple professional TV/film music composers. I really enjoy drumming to it.

I'm happy to say that I agree with Amazingu here.

Normally, my fondness towards Sakuraba changes like the phases of the moon. Sometimes I love him, and sometimes I'm just downright annoyed by his repetition. But if there's one place where he DOESN'T play around, it's drums. Being a prog. rock genius, he knows the importance of complex time signatures and sophisticated (but still in-your-face) use of percussion. So, for drumming, Sakuraba is EXCELLENT.

And yeah...Yamaoka is just great at everything. Drums included.

Ramza

Shadow Hearts II OST has some impressive drums, though the music style varies (Evil Gate Opener I~III should be worth checking out). Shadow Hearts From the New World as well, to a lesser amount (regarding drums).

Well, this album is just awesome. I like Ohkawa's style a lot! "Chaos" is just what I want an instrumental/experimental song to be. Too bad he hasn't composed/aranged any other soundtracks besides the Zero Divide compositions? Anyway, can anyone who appreciates that album recommend me similar stuff? Zane, did you ever own the 2 ZD albums?...because I seem to remember they were listed in your vgm collection.

I never had either album, man. I think I may have had it on a want list a while ago, which might have been where you saw it tied to my name. I want to say that Ohkawa did Super Speed Racing too, but I'm not 100% sure. There was no official OST for that. Either way, ZD2 is incredible.

You're right on, brother. It was him and Houzou Okazaki on Super Speed Racing, known as Flag to Flag in the US. I'm sure Ohkawa did most of the work. He also did Mister Mosquito (1&2) but I never found a way to rip the soundtrack. It's the last work of his that I know of. There were also rare Zero Divide tracks offered at the Zoom web site years ago that I have. Laif, if you need copies of anything, let me know!