As far as my tastes go, there have been a lot of excellent VGM releases from the PS2/GCN/XBox era, but as Daniel K said...

Some of my all time favorite soundtracks came from this past generation, like Shadow Hearts OST, killer7, Gungrave, but the way that I enjoy these soundtracks are different then the way I enjoy some of my other favorites. I love Dracula Best 2 just as much as I love Gungrave, but in a totally different way. Apples and oranges, for sure. When I listen to something like Gungrave I really enjoy it, like, almost illegally so, but when I hear older VGM (especially from games I have played) it affects me in a different way. It's like lust VS love, or something.

However, I will say that on a larger scale there are far less "monumental" releases in this age then there were in the past. I mean, on a large scale, do you think that there will be soundtracks being released now that will be looked back upon with such reverence like the NES Rockman OSTs or Final Fantasy VI OSV? I'm sure some OSTs will be held in such regard, but the number of those OSTs is and will be lesser than the older.

Not really, I don't think. I mean, FFX had some great programming on some of the acoustic songs, like "Spiran Scenery", but there was nothing as monumental as the jump from 16 to 32-bit such as the titles you mentioned. I still have trouble believing that Chrono Cross isn't emulated - when I first got the album I was 100% convinced it was all real! Those acoustic guitars sound amazing.

Guilty as charged, man.

I'm not so sure about that. Only the future can tell if there will be as many great classics from this generation as from the preceding ones. Whenever I hear this argument, I'm immediately reminded of a part of Ian Stocker's review of Castlevania 64 OST right here on STC:

...Shockingly unlike its predecessors, the sounds of Castlevania Apocalypse are entirely forgettable. (What was that third level theme?) I doubt we'll be seeing any remixes of any of this new material in future CV games. (How would we be able to tell, anyway?).

The differing opinions on the music aside, what's amusing is that only two years after the CV64 OST (in 2001), Circle of the Moon was released, the soundtrack of which featured two rearranged themes from CV64, and a track from the new CV Judgment OST is also from CV64. This illustrates how temporal and subjective the "monumental"-argument is. Times change, new generations with different perspectives on what game music should sound like and with different favourite "classics" arise all the time. I recently talked to a 21-year-old gamer and fledgling VGM-fan who's first console was the PS1, and he went on and on about how the music of MGS1 and CV - SOTN was way better than that of Halo 3 or Gears of War. So I asked him, how about them sweet Mega Man 2 or Castlevania 3? He's like "Duuuh, wut that?" So yes, I do think "classics" in this vast and fast-moving field have limited life-spans, even though we often don't want to acknowledge it. And for the vast majority of gamers, the music you remember from your own "classic" gaming period is usually what you like the best. Surprise.

Add to this also that there's been an immense diversification of VGM over the last ten years. There's much more music available now, much more music being produced, and many more fans to hear that music, so of course no series or composer is once again going to be seen as so "monumental" or monolithic as some of us see the classics. When I arrived at this forum (sometime in 1998), this was Final Fantasy Country, with some Mitsuda and Falcom thrown in for good measure. Because VGM was much more limited and harder to get, and there were fewer fans most of which came from the same traditions/series, there was a general consensus of what constituted "good" and "classical" VGM (just go and read some of the oldest FF-reviews on this site if you want to know what I mean). Nowadays, on the other hand, there are many more people here, there are many more composers and series being highlighted, explored, and discussed, and thus its hard to see any one series or composer having the golden status that for example NES Mega Man music or Nobuo Uematsu once enjoyed in the eyes of a majority of VGM-fans... Personally, I think this diversification is a good thing, although it does present many problems for anyone trying to get around (as discussed above).

So, the short version of my long reply is: we can't really say if any of the PS2 scores will be held in as great a regard as the most famous SNES scores are held today. The future is notoriously hard to predict, and in these kinds of things, personal subjective preferences, nostalgic memories, and the specific temporal situation all work to cloud the vision. Apples and oranges.

All good points, man. I should have originally posted that I think or I believe that there will be less monumental releases in this age compared to the good ol' days in relation to my personal preferences and tastes. But... you never know. Final Fantasy XV could have an incredible soundtrack unlike anything we've all heard before...

Right...BUT be careful, because I'm not speaking for anyone but myself. I'm not telling anyone they have to believe me or they have to put any stock in what I say when I comment on how disappointing some newer soundtracks are or when I comment on the status of the current scene. But like I said, there are a couple of recent releases (and composers) that totally lower my opinion of VGM as a whole and create that pessimistic outlook. An interview was done with Jeremy Soule recently, saying that VGM was a "niche of classical music" and that games should be called "interactive movies" instead of videogames and believes games should sound more like film music. For someone like me that believes game music is more than the "bastard child of film music" as some people like to call it, it's disappointing knowing there's an inside force that is basically the face of American VGM making a serious attempt to relegate it to that status. And Ishimoto...After getting stinkbombed with both "The World Ends With You" and "Crisis Core", that pretty much rapes any remaining respect I might have for the once great status of "VGM Composer", especially one working inhouse at Square. And finally getting some Rockman arrange love and seeing how they turned out (along with the horrendous Gradius and Hudson Premium arranges recently)...I think I have every right to be a little jaded. I figure I can go right along and pretend it's okay, but I'd rather just choose to see the scene for how it is, instead of pretending everything's all happy and cheery.

Like I also said, 2007 was a totally worthless year for VGM for me, where it basically hit rock bottom. Part of me wants assurance that it isn't a hint of things to come (2008 hasn't been mindblowing, but it's been better overall).

Please see the recent discussion about the Rockman 9 Arrange...People felt strongly enough about it to voice their opinions on it, good or bad. Same for the OST. That is something that rarely happens with anything released nowadays. For example, Amazingu mentioned Lost Odyssey was as good as most anything Uematsu has done. My own opinion aside, I've seen no discussion on it whatsoever, which tells me people are generally indifferent to it. Very rarely do you see individual tracks discussed. I tend to think it's all a sign of general indifference (or in some cases, people with negative opinions that they keep to themselves). From my own perspective, I didn't find much in Lost Odyssey terribly noteworthy.

Yes and no...personally, I haven't found myself enthralled with a lot of the music I've heard for games I play. If anything, it's had the opposite effect. Gradius V, Planet Puzzle League and Valkyrie Profile 2 lost a lot of their sheen because of the music (I was a big fan of both the music and gameplay of their predecessors) and I just skipped Odin Sphere entirely, because it was another Basicscape effort and after sampling Infinite Discovery's OST, I'm not sure I'd be able to tolerate a firm helping of orchestral Sakuraba the whole game. Even stuff like Suikoden V, which I pumped over 150 hours into, and Sato's Nippon Ichi game scores, I find the music doesn't age very gracefully. I tend to find experiences like Guilty Gear (and yes, Megaman 9), where the music and gameplay hit JUST right are few and far between nowadays. I was really disappointed to hear what Battle Fantasia sounded like. Very un-fighterlike and disappointing for an Arc System game. At least Street Fighter 4 doesn't sound too bad so far and I greatly look forward to both the gameplay and music of BlazBlue.

I'll make this one REALLY easy from my perspective...I don't like ambient music. If I do, it's probably because I'm comparing works from one composer to another or to something else they've done, and it's the lesser evil. But overall, I tend to find it and overly atmospheric music a chore to listen to and really, it's not why I choose to listen to VGM, so I have no reason to continue to force it upon myself.

By "128-bit," he means the sixth-generation consoles (PS2/Dreamcast/XBox/GC). The PS2 and Dreamcast were both marketed, not entirely accurately, as being "128-bit." The PS2 had some 128-bit registers that could operate on four 32-bit values simultaneously, but so did the Pentium III, and it's universally referred to as a 32-bit processor. All I can find about the Dreamcast is that it had a 128-bit floating-point unit, though I'm pretty sure it was the same sort of thing as the PS2--i.e., it could operate on multiple 32-bit values simultaneously rather than on a single 128-bit value. In any case, the IBM PC, released nearly 20 years earlier, had an 80-bit FPU, though it's universally referred to as a 16-bit computer.

In terms of actual CPU word size, the PS2 and Dreamcast were 64-bit, and the GameCube and XBox were 32-bit. I think the XBox-360 and PS3 are 64-bit and the Wii 32-bit, but I'm not quite sure on that point. Because of rapidly diminishing returns, bit count is essentially meaningless as a measure of performance nowadays. Having an 8-bit or 16-bit word size is a real performance limitation, but 32-bit is perfectly adequate for most video game consoles through this generation, and 64-bit is likely to be sufficient for virtually all applications through the next 50 years at least, and possibly forever.

Ick. Even if we put aside the fact that they remind me of the things Roosevelt did to this country, and consequently fill me with the desire to exhume and desecrate his corpse, his voice sucks. John Kerry had a pretty good voice, though. I could have stood to listen to him for four years.

The VGM scene needs more new faces and preferably, new IPs for them to work on, but for what it's worth, how somebody posts the same thing again again again again is equally stale and repetitive for me. The first time I saw this thread I thought 'oh, yet another thread for his rant!?', and it is.

Ah, sorry. Probably the fact I liked the PS2/GC/Xbox era a great deal made me jump into the wrong idea, and  I assumed he was talking about how the PS3/360/Wii had the same music as the previous era because of the prevailed streaming technology ;p

I think it's just a thing with it being fresh and new; when you first get into it, it's exciting, but after you've been delving into it for awhile, you begin to start seeing it as the same old, same old...

For example, take heavy metal music. First 3 artists that got me into the genre were Iced Earth, Nightwish, and Symphony X; I picked up their latest albums around the time of January 2008. I don't really care for their earlier works, and Iced Earth's new 2008 album is kind of...VERY MEH. And I'm worried about Nightwish's next album, whenever that comes out. Symphony X? Couldn't give a damn one way or another about it: Very short-lived. As for the whole genre itself, I've been getting tired of sifting through what the rest of the genre has to offer...it's become like trying to find a diamond in the rough. Many artists have awesome album covers, but when you get behind the illusion they present you with, there's nothing to most of them.

My point is, whenever you first got into VGM, that's the stuff you're going to like the most, because it seems fresh, new, and interesting. You're not going to care too much about earlier or later stuff, because your artists currently aren't who they used to be, and they're changing as time goes on...unless they're the type to "Keep their sound." I didn't start collecting VGM until the PSX era, though, many SNES soundtracks had played through the MP3 player that is my memory for years up until then.

Me, I like to think of myself as versatile and flexible, so I've been going along with the flow, from NES, to SNES, to N64, to PSX, to PS2 soundtracks; granted, it seems my newer tastes override my old tastes; I don't listen to anything earlier than the SNES, I really can't stand listening to SNES chiptunes anymore, I've rather nixed my PSX soundtracks, and my main collection consists of PS2 soundtracks.

Reading some of these posts, seems to me like people are suffering from "back in the good old days" syndrome. Here are some awesome composers to some awesome games recently released:

Danny Elfman (Fable I & II)
Steve Henefin (Too Human)
Steve Jablonsky (Gears of War II)
Martin O'Donnell (Halo series)
Kevin Riepl (Gears of War)
Jack Wall (Myst III, Jade Empire, Mass Effect)

and I can name a bunch more! You need to get used to the fact that more and more soundtracks to games are now done by US/European composers, and I think they're doing a fantastic job. Although, to be fair, I also recently acquired some soundtracks (Japanese) which I think are among the best I've heard:

Etrain Odyssey Arranged (aka Sekaiju no Meikyū)
Folklore (aka FolksSoul)
Odin Sphere

so anyway, I think there are definitely many more talented composers working on game music today than ever before. I think things are heading in a positive direction, but you know, you can never make everyone happy

cheers,

-avatar!

Exactly, broken record time... Most people here have already formed such rigid opinions about everything that I can almost predict what a thread will include before even reading it. So in a sense there's not really a reason to read/discuss anything new. Also to build on Daniel's past comments a lot of the now 20-somethings just don't have the time to be writing essay-long critiques and reviews on many of the newer releases (myself included, wish I had the time but I just do not anymore). If I like it, cool. If I don't, that's ok as well; recycle bin time.

I personally don't read or write reviews anymore because of time constraints and there hasn't been much that I've felt strongly enough about to sit down and cobble out the words to describe. But a few years ago, before digital "sampling" was widely available, they were something you almost HAD to go off of (either that, or message board impressions), because you were talking about a $30+purchase. Nowadays, you can just "sample" away. What I said was that no one even drops comments anymore on a lot of the newer releases. To me, that indicates a lack of releases that people care about.

And for the folks crying "broken record", I for one rather appreciate things people say about the state of VGM, whether I agree or disagree. I don't agree with avatar's post at all, but I respect it just the same (although Elfman only did the main theme for Fable II...I personally prefer his Oingo Boingo work than his game/film stuff). I think it's good to put things in perspective sometimes and personally, I wouldn't be so bummed out about the current state if I didn't care about it and want to see it improve.

Bernhardt: Hmm, I don't like Iced Earth, I'm totally indifferent to Nightwish (outside of Oceanborne), and I loved Symphony X. So I don't really understand what you were getting it.

Well, the thread was about how we personally feel this generation of VGM compares to earlier ones, so there's no need to underline that its your own personal opinion. I was just raising a few points I've been thinking about.

Definitely agree with that. It's soundtrack-status is the only thing VGM has in common with film music, in most things they are far apart. The game music field is wide, and there's room inside it for orchestral/cinematic-type music, but to say that that's what VGM as a whole is or should aspire to be is just wrong. Personally, I dislike about 95% of all film music I've heard and would consider it a great misfortune if a majority of VGM started sounding like that (although I don't think that will happen).

That is a good point that I overlooked. I feel it ties into what I said about the VGM community being smaller, more homogenic and closely-knit before than it is now. Reviews posted back then probably got many more readers than reviews posted today, because there were very few sites dedicated to official VGM around, and everyone went to those sites to get the word on albums. Now its simpler to just download the music, or check out gameplay videos on YouTube. The word and the music gets out faster, it probably kills the discussion more quickly than before on all but the most anticipated albums. Again, I'm not sure this is really proof of a diminished interest in new releases on the part of the general VGM community, it could just reflect improved file-sharing technology and availability as well as the proliferation of different sites/forums/sources offering quick impressions on the music.

I'm not going to debate Roosevelt's worth here, but I think he had a good voice. Its just that most recordings of it don't do it justice (thanks to the primitive technology back then). I like Obama's voice as well.

Ehh, just another failed example/metaphor, that's all!

WELL, if you ask me, back then, even before reviews or sampling, people BOUGHT the game the music was for, THEN decided they liked the soundtrack...now THAT is old-fashioned!...although, that is still what most people do these days; connoisseurs like ourselves are considered rare, and a VERY niche market.

*cough* Halo *cough*

P.S. Not a big fan of most film scores, either. They're for background, and little more; fuckers need to compose stuff that's more melodic...

Damn, that makes me feel old

Well, if I misunderstood, then I'm sorry, but if he actually DID mean the PS2 era, his point becomes even more moot, cos the PS2 has TONS of awesome soundtracks.

Main problem I have with the 128-bit era is that it promoted numerous Western, mostly American, F-class film / trailer composers leading major game projects under farcical organisations like G.A.N.G. Not really people like Jeremy Soule, Bill Brown, Michael Giacchino, Jason Graves, or Richard Jacques, who have distinctive styles or are at least competent. More derivative and untalented composers like Gerard Marino, Christopher Lennertz, Jack Wall, Chris Rickwood, and usually Inon Zur. There's a lot of good Western music out there, but these guys make a lot of big game scores boring and uninspired. If you're going to use an orchestra, at least learn how to use it and employ really good orchestrators, conductors, and orchestras. Jack Wall orchestrating and conducting the Slovak Youth Orchestra and recording after two rehearsals really isn't acceptable if VGM is be recognised artistically.

On the Eastern side, I'm pretty pleased with how VGM developed over this era. I'm inclined to agree that many of the big name composers became tired with their demanding schedules and that the increasingly commercial focus on video games often prevented creativity coming across. Some sound teams, especially Square Enix's, have became weak, but others have been fine and Gust, Capcom, and Falcom have been consistently excellent in my opinion. However, there are probably more people working on video game music than ever and that's really helped to make the 128-bit era the most diverse in style to date. A bit of a composer turnover in the industry would help to rejuvenate things and we'd also benefit from more melody rather than riff / ostinato focused soundtracks.

I like kt2's work more than almost any old VGM I can think about, save some few arrangements. Zwei!!, both the soundtrack and the arrange, is something I would be bound to consider very impressive and diverse. Silent Hill 2 & 3 are both mind-blowing. Baten Kaitos and Star Ocean 3 are beautiful works from Sakuraba, and I think I would've reached a similar conclusion had I used time and effort to get into Valkyrie Profile 2, Indefinite Discovery (or whatever) and Eternal Sonata.

Masashi Hamauzu's work is also splendid, I think. feel / Elements Garden have made some very emotional and great music... Doesn't Napple Tale belong to the 6th generation as well? And not to mention Shadow Hearts! Shadow Hearts! Shit, this is getting old.

Surely, I can't think of much older VGM that I enjoy more than these and many more newer titles. I do love several old Falcom goodies, but none of them even approaches Zwei!!, from my perspective. Is Final Fantasy VI really that great on its own? Does Frog's Theme compare to "In Between the Winds" from Baten Kaitos, esthetically? (Retoric questions! )

For some reason, I listen more to old VGM than new, I think. Guess it is nostalgia. But most of the VGM that I consider inherently good, is from the 6th generation. And come to think of it, a lot of newer soundtracks that are supposed to be great (in a "new" way), I haven't even listened to yet! Like Takada's stuff, the Katamari games, SuperSweep, most of Hamauzu, Manabu Namiki, etc.

But I guess this is only because I'm younger than most of you. Hehe.

Napple Tale is for Dreamcast, so yes basically. It's still one of the absolute best of the 00s...inspirations...and all (and I'm not as big on Kanno as many people are).

Yup. (rhetorical answer).

BTW, keep an eye out for the PSP version of Zwei 1...It's supposed to come with a fully arranged 2-disc soundtrack (probably won't get a seperate release, like Zwei 2 hasn't yet). I'm looking forward to it.

.

Ha! The music itself might not change, but people change, and people are the deciding factors, the ones listening to and appreciating and judging the music. Every generation thinks it is the focal point of time (which they are, but only in a subjective way and for a short while), they are absolutely convinced that their golden calves will be equally recognized and worshiped by subsequent generations. They usually get increasingly disappointed and grumpy the older they grow...

Music doesn't exist independently of the human mind. Human ears must hear it, a human brain must assemble it, demarcate it from other sensory input, and recognize it as meaningful and worthwhile. Without a person to hear the music, its just a burst of irrelevant and meaningless noise, meaning nothing to no one. And people change, different generations are different people. Thus what constitutes a "classic" is transitory and ever-changing.

The most important point in this entire thread.

Say what you want...I can't think of many bonafide "must-have" legendary classics in recent years that will draw the same amount of people to the VGM scene as the classic eras that most people refer to and which drew together a lot of the early VGM scene. I'm not saying there aren't good releases, but just nothing to really define the current era. I feel like the current scene is feeding off the enthusiasm that originally drew people to VGM and is benefitting from it. At best, fringe releases that appeal to a small population sector have come out (ex: Drag-On Dragoon for people that want something "different" but will probably alienate most people who listen to it or hear it ingame...Soma Bringer is a great score, but who's actually going to play the game? Right, a small handful of people, probably hardcore RPG fans...Not the crapload that played Chrono Trigger and loved both the music AND gameplay). Good example: Look at the current VGM concerts. How many people have heard the "classic" material they mix in? How many have probably heard a lot of the recent material?

Also consider how many holdover composers we have now that were still around 10 years ago. There are some I don't have an issue with (Yuzo's rejuvenation has been quite surprising and welcome), but the majority of the rest are ones I was tired of 5 years ago (if not longer) or have simply come to the conclusion that I respect them, but their music does nothing for me. Good new blood, highly appreciated.

And please stop the "grumpy old man" thing...You've said it several times and I don't see how it applies at all (it's actually kind of annoying). I think it's perfectly fine to express content or discontent with a current scene of music/movies/cereal selection/whatever. You're saying it like it's totally indiscriminate and the timeframe can't be helped. Well, sorry to say, I love a lot of music from both the 70's and 80's: I wasn't around in the 70's and I wasn't really aware of popular music in the 80's, when I was growing up. I largely grew up in the 90's and, outside of VGM, I thought (and still think) it was an incredibly shitty time for music as a whole (although I was blissfully unaware of the Euro power metal scene that was brewing, I'll admit). But that said, I'm also not so hung up on classics like Master of Puppets and Zeppelin IV that I can't enjoy Black Tide's Light from Above or Death Magnetic.

Like I said, the future will tell, and we can only speculate. There's a fair chance you're right, especially considering the fact that more and more music is made, making it harder for any one composer/series to dominate. But people might arrive at the scene from many more differing starting points (instead of just Final Fantasy, Mega Man, etc. as in the old days)...

I wasn't referring to you (and if I was, I'm sorry). I was just trying to make the point that things change, and its usually hard to keep up with and appreciate that change if you don't see much good in it.

I agree. I have many traits and sympathies of a "grumpy old man" myself, so I'm not knocking that. Maybe I've been using too strong language or something as usual (really, I was really trying to keep it diplomatic and cordial this time, I swear! ), but I get the feeling that some people miss my point. I wasn't arguing for one era over the other or that people who like older VGM are "stuck in the past", I'm just saying the scene is in constant evolution, and its such a complex thing that its hard to demarcate "good" from "bad" other than through a general subjective appraisal... And its always good to keep an open mind (another disclaimer: by this I'm not suggesting you don't have an open mind).

I don't really feel I have anything more to add to the subject.

There is nothing wrong with expressing opinions on the current state of VGM. Nor do I think the people like Daniel, Zane and Megavolt posted something wrong with strong languages. I moderately respect and enjoy reading your opinions, and please keep this discussion if necessary. I however just found it quite samey, repetitive and stale how a specific member has been posting the same thing again and again and again and again and again and again in every major VGM-board over recent years. I even swear I could emulate everything he posted in this thread by copy-and-pasting a shitload of stuff he has posted if I had enough time. I know he still has a right to post whatever he wants, and I just have to skim or skip it, but I think it's quite ironic and a shame that the guy moans about how stagnated the VGM is now becomes by far the most stagnated poster, hence 'what it's worth'. It's not a personal insult or attack. I do think he is a pretty insightful guy but could offer more.

(Psst, that's me he's talking about, folks!)

So...wouldn't this tend to indicate that I feel the scene isn't improving and/or is getting worse when prompted (you know, like how people respond to threads that people make on forums)? And how can I have been doing this over "recent years" when I didn't nearly give up on VGM in disgust until about mid-2007. "Recent years" would indicate more than roughly a year and a half.

Now, what exactly are you babbling about here? If I'm posting the "same thing" as before (as you've said twice already), what specifically are you talking about?

Okay, go for it. If you happen to find my comments about soundtracks I liked from this year at another board, I'll send you a cookie via EMS. If you happen to find a post of mine saying how few truly classic soundtracks came from the past couple years (my main point, more or less)...Hmm, don't think I've touched that one either. You might want to look and find out. I really don't think you'll be able to accurately recreate this mess.

You'll probably find some stuff repeated, as you will with most people: my preference for older VGM (though more of a recent revelation than anything else), composer-specific bashings/lovefests, album specific bashings/lovefests. Overall though, I think you're confusing my negative sentiment for the current scene with something I've said in the past.

Well...yeah. Page down will probably save you the aggravation, if it bothers you that much. My avatar is pretty colorful and hard to miss as well, so just skip down when you see it.

You know, I'm really tired of people complaining about the economy. All this constant talk of greedy companies and poor business practices...The incompetent multi-billion dollar companies aren't the problem. These people that talk about it are the REAL problem.

You know, I'm really tired of people complaining about steroids in baseball. All this constant talk of cheating and lack of integrity...The players aren't the problem. These people that talk about it are the REAL problem.

You know, I'm really tired of people complaining about the Metallica Black album. All this constant talk of selling out and slowing down to appeal to a wider audience...Metallica in the 90's wasn't the problem. The people that talk about it are the REAL problem.

You know, I'm really tired of...God, I hope you get the point by now.

Likewise, this response can be seen the same way. I guess...I suppose.

I was actually kinda done with this thread until you popped in again (with nearly the exact same response as about 15 posts up...imagine that). It's just that I haven't had a nice chat with Daniel in awhile on a public forum and I was getting nostalgic.

And dude, speaking of going back, look what I found...

http://www.soundtrackcentral.com/forums … d=2659&p=1

http://www.soundtrackcentral.com/forums … hp?id=2549

Seriously, try dealing with what's in front of you instead of running to the "wah, he's being mean and STAGNANT" card so fast.