oh you mean the_miker paid a visit to your mom and honored her in a certain way :lewd:

LOL, I didn't mean literally. 

SO3 is probably about the worst OST he has done.  Most people seem to have not heard of him until SO2, but I actually think his best work came before this game and don't care much for SO2 either.  I recommend checking out his many Wolfteam offerings and original albums.  Of course Valkyrie Profile is phenomenal and I am also fond of his work on the Baten Kaitos games.

It's funny to see exactly what should be called 'overrating' is posted by the guy who posted this thread.

*scratches head*

-Mike

Well, you're certainly entitled to your opinion, though my mind can't fathom it because not liking Soundteam JDK (in all or any of their incarnations) is like not liking everything that is right about vgm.  And if I were to ever somehow abandon vgm, I would never be able to abandon my many Falcom jewels.  I would say perhaps one needed to experience games such as Ys to appreciate the musics, but that simply isn't the case due to the musics being so transcendent.  I can put on some Dinosaur Resurrection (I game I will never play and pretty much know zilcho about) and being totally enamored.  JDK 4 LIFE!!!!!!

It's kind of like Tiger Woods, not only is he the best golfer in the world, but the fact he has been dominant for so long just makes it that much more amazing.  Think about making music for over 20 years, making 432 albums in that time span, and almost all of it ranging from good to classic.  The only thing comparable would be like if Kukeiha Club had managed to still be around.  Now I don't think stuff like the recent Legend of Heroes OSTs are as strong as their pre-new millenium stuff (though still better than about 90% of soundtracks out these days), but Zwei!! was sensational and showed their resiliency and ability to progress, and all their recent Ys stuff has been damn good.

I actually think everyone is doing a good job being civil!  It's an interesting thread.

Personally I think the biggest problem with calling JDK overrated is that their members have kept changing over the years.  I could understand like... "current JDK is overrated" or "early 90s JDK is overrated" (not possible ), but despite keeping member names hidden and behind the scenes, there have been a lot of variations on the sound team.

In Sakuraba's defense, consider the game he was writing for. SO3 was utter crap. I can't imagine any composer being inspired by the story and characters.

And yeah, I'd add Mitsuda (starting with Chrono Cross, which doesn't leave him with much, unfortunately) and Uematsu (after FF8) to the list.

Good point.  For me, whenever I try something new from jdk it always sounds very average to me.  I'm talking about their older material, early 90s, mid-late 90s, 2000s, whatever.  The only soundtracks that really stand out for me are Ys 1-3, Ys 6, and some of Zwei!!  Maybe I need to give them more time to really sink in, who knows.  VGM is funny like that sometimes.  I'll hear something once, will hate it, listen to it again, it starts to grow on me, listen for the 3rd or 4th time and I might possibly love it.

-Mike

Calling this thread a "dump" is being awfully harsh.  I don't see any mindless bashing going on at all and people are as Arcubalis said being quite civil about stating which composers they feel are overrated.  Besides better to discuss the topic in a dedicated thread that to have it hijacking threads about other topics.

Which is exactly the point I made before.

I look at it this way: They were right at the forefront when the basic structure for RPG scores were coming together and around 1987-88, managed to put together 3 scores that (IMO) are still ahead of so much stuff today (Ys 1 and 2 and Sorcerian, which is still one of the largest RPG scores that keeps the filler to a minimum...it still has expansions worth of material to factor in, on top of 58 "base" tracks) and you could argue for Legacy of the Wizard, despite how short it is (aka Dragonslayer IV). And they also deserve credit, because they were one of the first pioneers of incorporating CD music into their games (via the Turbo Duo). And they were still doing work on the PC-98 as late as 1996 (on Legend of Heroes IV and I think Brandish 3), so there's still plenty of old-school value there, especially considering the quality of both.

It's like...even though I don't like everything Sabbath or Zeppelin does (or even early Priest), it's hard to call them overrated when they deserve credit for laying the groundwork for what was later to come as far as metal goes. Nowadays, I think JDK is a little too much over the place and are a little inconsistant in trying to do a little too much of everything (Dinosaur Resurrection is probably my favorite from the recent squad). But compare Ys Book 1 and 2 or Ys 3's redbook to what else was out at the time in the world of VGM (1990 or so) and I think that shows where they earned their place in history. Even the earlier perfect collections and JDK Bands were around 1990-1991, before the bulk of legendary arrange albums had hit. It's like, okay, I'll give Konami Battle the edge as far "teh rock" goes...But check the entry dates and the best of the JDK Band and the Perfect Collections (Ys IV excluded, since they weren't around until mid-1994) definitely preceeded them. By a fairly extensive margin. The subjective part is, I enjoy all three groups of albums about the same (although I definitely favor the Ys 3 redbook ahead of the Konami Battles).

So...If Uematsu is the Led Zeppelin of VGM, JDK is the Black Sabbath of VGM, right down to their ever-changing line-up. ;p

Why don't you allow everyone else to be entitled to their own tastes and stop minding them praising what you don't like, if you spout out your own opinion which may not be accepted by everybody but still stick with it? Concretely speaking, why don't you just let some of us assess Falcom JDK as overrating, if you're doing the same thing? While you claim that people ALWAYS regard a certain composer (who I personally find one of the most bashed composers in English forums) as incredible so much you call him the most overrated composer in the history, and even treat his popularity as just Square-enix fanboy(fangirl)ism, you insist we regard Falcom as incredible. Ridiculous.

Incidentally, I don't hate Falcom JDK at all (maybe 'disinterest' is the closest word, since I've never played any of their games, nor have I downloaded any of their soundtracks, except for a couple of Koshiro's S98 files). Unlike you, I don't mind anyone liking what I don't like, and I usually hesitate to use a word like 'overrated' since I personally find it very elitist-ish. So it's okay for you Falcom is the pinnacle of VGM. However, if you patronizingly deprecate others' preferences and even accuse them of hyping something you don't appreciate, I also voice an objection to your 'Falcom is amazing!!!' statement.

Either way I'll leave and I'll talk more about what I love

cant complain about yamane. curse of darkness is pretty good, almost as good as symphony in diversity. lots of catchy tunes to refresh ones attention and spot on used in the game. i just wish she would start using some more guitar-driven stuff and add yamaoka to play the guitar

At least GFX is on the same brain waves.

It seems like you're taking this too personally and I may have struck a nerve with my distaste for Sakimoto, that wasn't my point.  I'm not trying to piss anyone off, and no one is pissing me by not sharing my opinions, the point of the topic is to facilitate discussion.  Like some people said JDK is overrated, so I made an attempt to show why they should give JDK another chance and maybe see them in a different light.  Like if you love Sakimoto, instead of saying this topic sucks, maybe you could make a case why you think he isn't overrated.  We may or may not change somone's opinion, but at the end of the day it's still just a message board and I'm okay if someone doesn't like the same things as me, actually I really don't care.

Actually, I thought this thread was a good idea - sometimes we bottle up opinions when we try to be civil and avoid setting "wildfires." It's not cool to go into a thread about soundtrack and start ranting on the negatives about a composer, but it can be hard to do that even in respectful way when the general concensus of the people posting is voting "yay" instead "nay."

.

Damn right!  We all are JDK, you, me, everyone that listens to vgm, even guy that lives under the interstate bridge, we all have a little piece of JDK in us even if you don't know it.  Just give it time, you will discover it because as long as you still have a heart and soul, you have some JDK in you.  I think it's about time for a group hug.

Uh, sorry, can't agree with that assessment. I thought Curse of Darkness was average at best with lots of filler tracks (especially the boring cut scene music), and it's not even close to Symphony in diversity. In Symphony, almost every new track was in a different genre than the last, but in Curse there was basically just two distinctions you could make between tracks: if they had guitar in them or not, and if they were cut scene music or not. Other than that, it sounded very much the same over two discs (I still like some of it, though).

Just my personal opinion (but that is what this thread is about, anyway).

Personally, my number one VGM dream is to see Yamaoka do a Castlevania soundtrack. The fact that Yamane has had a monopoly on the series for so long has really hurt the music's quality and diversity, before she became the "obvious" CV composer you could always expect the series to evolve drastically and sound fresh from game to game, but now it has really stagnated. There are so many talented composers over at Konami, they should do some rotating. And I'm convinced that a CV-soundtrack by Yamaoka would rule (and be something totally different and new in the series). Ah, I can dream.

*gulp* Would the world be READY for such a thing?

It would surely be a work of supreme evil! But reflecting on Shin Contra, the unreleased Silent Hill 3 final boss theme, and the general dark mood of most of Yamaoka's work, I think it'd be awesome.

To be honest I didn't think much of CoD's music when I played the game but really started to dig it when I got the soundtrack. It true, it's not a stellar soundtrack and while it has some diversity (not to the point of SotN but then one could view that as a bad thing as well) the mellow vibe it gives off is what I think attracks me to it. About the cut scene music, I think you should really be pointing the finger at LoI for that one - it is even more boring and the pieces are much longer and disruptive when listening to the soundtrack. At least CoD's pieces are shorter and some of the area themes are incorporated into them to buffer the interruption and create some connectivity.

.

Where is my "Ignore Thread" button when I need it? ;)

Ooph, conspicuous lack here of his rousing work on Total Annihilation. Remedied.

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Obviously not, and I'm glad to see that.

It seems like Kikuta, Meguro, Hirota, and Kondo managed to avoid the chopping bloc as well.

Sakimoto is easy to mark as sounding redundant, but he has some diverse scores when you factor in stuff like Dragon Quarter, Gradius V, Legaia Dual Saga, and a lot of his older work.

Also, I started listening to the Opoona game rip, and this sounds like the most unique stuff he's composed in years. I'll have to finish it up to give a full review.

I'll add one that many saw more fitted in the other thread...

Yasuhisa Watanabe -- Most of his fans seem to dig his new work mostly. I find all his new stuff to be rather bland.  Add to that the fact that I can't stand his modern synth instruments...yack. (some of his older work is great though).

I'd almost say Noriyuki Iwadare, but y'know what? Grandia III is actually a pretty enjoyable work; and I'm going back to some of his older stuff, and still enjoying it (Grandia 1, 2, Lunar 1,  2)

I'd almost say Hiroki Kikuta, but y'know what? Alphabet Planet (2007) was damn catchy; it more than made up for Lost Files (2005); his older stuff (Seiken Densetsu 2 & 3) still sit pretty well with me, too.

But Mitsuda, Armodyne was just disappointing; generic commando pop that I could scarcely identify any semblance of engaging melody from. Let's hope he hasn't cancelled Chrono Cross Arrange, and that it actually ends up being any damn good. Other than that, as far as I'm concerned, Kirite (2004) was his last greatest work.

Honestly, there aren't any artists I dislike with burning passion; most just leave a very bland taste in my mouth. Not so much spitting out of my mouth, so much as feeling that the effort to take a taste is wasted.

Hitoshi Sakimoto and Motoi Sakuraba don't always compose something exciting or what-have-you, but a lot of their stuff is just pleasant to listen to just for atmosphere.

Also, Yoshitaka Hirota needs to come back, as do Masashi Hamauzu, and Yoko Shimomura; at least we'll be seeing two of those doin' FFXIII.

I've said it before, but Yasunori Mitsuda.  His music is uninteresting and lazy, at least after Xenogears.  All he does is recycle his relaxing Chrono Cross schtick.  Take some nice sound quality, add a few chanting 'voices' and people suddenly find his efforts to be oh so emotional.  Detractors say that Sakimoto and Sakuraba always sound the same...yet so does Mitsuda.  I instantly recognized Twilight Street from Shadow Hearts Covenant as being from him before I knew for a fact that he composed it.  Funny how Baiten Kaitos featured more lush sound quality and all of a sudden the Sakuraba haters liked it.  Same goes for Sakimoto haters and BoFV.  It's not like those two guys totally altered their compositional approaches for those scores.  Some people judge more by sound than composition, and use of sound is all that Mitsuda has going for him, because his juiced up elevator music doesn't do much for me.  The guy is pure muzak.

I swear that everybody likes Mitsuda, noobie and VGM enthusiast alike.  I find it frustrating and I think it proves without a doubt that Mitsuda is by far the most overrated composer in the history of VGM.  He's often the only alternative to Uematsu that closed-minded VGM fans fully accept and fall in love with.

Also, I disagree with you on Sakimoto.  He's actually my personal favorite, and he's underrated if anything else.  Too many people expect a spinoff on Uematsu (like Mitsuda) and as such they don't understand his style.  Frankly, Sakimoto's music is too layered and dare I say sophisticated for some people.  Mitsuda on the other hand is the VGM equivalent of Tetsuya Nomura.  They both pretend at depth and achieve it for some through superficial 'style'.

Finally, I would take Uematsu over Mitsuda, despite how it's popular these days to say 'Uematsu sucks' as proof of being a more knowledgeable VGM fan.  There's no doubt that Uematsu's best years are behind him, but he was good for a long period and didn't become stale as quickly as Mitsuda did.  Final Fantasy VI is better than ANYTHING Mitsuda ever did and probably ever will do.

Btw, I'm being hard on Mitsuda because that's the point of this thread, but as I hinted at earlier, I actually like his Chrono Trigger and Xenogears scores.  I even like Chrono Cross, but there's a reason that even his fans tend to mention those three as being his best.  Whatever creativity he had on his way to 'maturing' as composer with Chrono Cross (that's his own opinion on the maturing with Chrono Cross part) has greatly diminished.

Edit: Oh, and I agree with Yamane being overrated.  Do some people regard her highly?  Believe or not, the answer is yes, as I've run into a few of them.  She should not be regarded as placing among the best of the best based on SOTN alone.  You'd think that people would try to listen to the bulk of a composer's body of work before judging that composer as 'best or worst evar!'.

I don't like it when people do that for Kow Otani either, now that I brought up the idea of catapaulting a composer to the top of one's favorite list based on having a high opinion of just one of their scores.

Since Mitsuda is my favorite composer I'll step in, but I won't disagree, those are his best works and nothing since has compared (though I do enjoy almost all his work since).  I think most people can pretty much agree on that though, and the problem is the fact that he set the bar too high with these soundtracks.  So instead of being overrated, since he has produced amazing work, it's more applicable to say his best days are behind him and he already reached his climax.

Megavolt, I'm also of the opinion that Mitsuda hasn't done anything as good as Xenogears since then and that he tends to hide behind high sound quality over actual interesting pieces.  He's gotten way too formulaic and his Celtic/ethnic stuff is all very interchangeable.  While I still enjoy his stuff, he does tend to be quite overrated by game fans in general, and I often wonder if he just keeps collecting paychecks rather than really caring about what he's doing. 

This part I'm going to disagree with, though.  There ARE compositional differences in those scores from their normal stuff.  If it were only the sound quality that made Baten Kaitos different for Sakuraba, the big fans of his prog rock stuff around here who hate on Baten Kaitos wouldn't.  And you aren't honestly arguing that BoFV sounds different because of better sound quality, are you?  Sakimoto had been using some of the richer, better orchestra sampling for ages prior to that.  The difference in both of those games' music is much more style than sound quality.

*bangs head on desk*

This thread will never die.

Dude, you're about 6, 7 years late. Saying that all VGM enthusiasts like Mitsuda is just dead wrong. Most old-timers on the forums will remember the huge disagreements (put mildly) between me and the Mitsuda-fans many years back (due mostly to poor communicative skills, not least on my part), but not even back in 2001 was every VGM fan a Mitsuda-fanatic. And to say that he is overrated today, when Chrono Cross is 9 years into the past and Mitsuda has become more and more a composer of unnoticed niche soundtracks is just wrong. He has a lot of haters, make no mistake about that.

Actually, I'm prepared to say that not even every "noobie" VGM fan today is a diehard Mitsuda or Uematsu-fan. We have moved far beyond those times: the VGM scene is just too big and diverse to claim that one or a few composers dominate it anymore. New VGM fans today come from all directions, not just Final Fantasy/Square-fandom. And the fact that both Mitsuda and Uematsu have been doing work that isn't as popular as their FF/Chrono/Xeno-soundtracks have helped diminish their stature (Uematsu hasn't really contributed much to a real FF soundtrack since 2001's FF10 and has since made the low-profile titles Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey, and Mitsuda has basically not done any super-popular stuff since 2002's Xenosaga I, he has become increasingly obscure). And doing more obscure stuff isn't gonna help their reputation as far as the "noobies" go: newbies latch on to the stuff that is seen as the most popular at the time of their arrival at the scene, and if they stay and delve deeper into it, they start to rid themselves of their initial hysterias, find new favourites, and gain a more nuanced view of the field. Problem is, Mitsuda and Uematsu hasn't been seen as dominant in the scene for quite a few years now (not even back in the early 2000s were they totally undisputed), and their withdrawing into the background is only gonna speed this process up. Also, as this thread clearly shows, there is far too much disagreement and diversity of taste and opinions in the VGM scene for any one composer to ever again attain the kind of undisputed positions that Uematsu and Mitsuda once occupied. There's too much stuff known and readily available now for that to happen.

The VGM field has really undergone change in the last 10 years. If you read the hopelessly outdated reviews here on STC, you sometimes get the impression that this is Final Fantasy country (which it very much was back then), but those days are long since past. The scene has undergone kind of a "postmodern" split (if you will): no one view is dominant, or can be.

As for Mitsuda, I was one of his earliest detractors, and used to be quite annoyed by the constant praise he seemed to receive from just about everyone (back around when Chrono Cross was released). I've since re-evaluated his music, and now like most of what I've heard from him. My favourites used to be Chrono Trigger and Xenogears, but it's now become Chrono Cross and his pieces for Shadow Hearts 2. I like the slow, relaxing, and melancholic feel of those works. He's by no means near the top of my list, and I admit that he seems to have long ago passed his prime. But I would hardly call him overrated today. There just aren't that many vocal Mitsuda-fanatics left: many of them have moved on to rant about new passions.

As for my view of Sakimoto, that statement is incorrect. Sound quality has nothing whatsoever to do with it. The reason I dislike most of Sakimoto's music is because he usually composes in a genre that I intensely dislike (orchestral/symphonic). Most of the stuff I like from him has some electronic elements mixed in (Breath of Fire 5, Gradius 5) to make it digestible to me. I do like Final Fantasy Tactics and parts of Vagrant Story, other than that, I find most of his work forgettable. I do like complexity and sophistication in music, but they aren't virtues in themselves, and usually Sakimoto's stuff does very little for me.

Again, you're about 6, 7 years late. There's no one today using the trick of saying 'Uematsu sucks' to prove their VGM knowledge, because that trick has lost most of it's steam thanks to the fact that Uematsu is no longer seen as such a demigod (in part because he no longer composes for high-profile titles, but also in part because the trick you mentioned has been used so much by so many people that it's finally been elevated to a truth a lot of people believe in. It's been accepted by the scene in the same sense that Uematsu's demigod status was once accepted.).

Still, there is difference between "in the history of VGM" and "today". I would say that Uematsu and Mitsuda are no longer especially overrated, but you could easily make an argument for them being the most overrated in VGM history, since they once dominated the scene in such a matter.

I still see a lot of people typifying Sakimoto as an "orchestral" composer.
If anything I think his electronic side is much more prominent than the other one and even the "orchestral" sound seems to have been engineered and manipulated entirely by himself on synthesizers, so it's also electronic in a way.
As I said before in this topic, his style is definitely not determined by the "sound" in which he composes but the compositions themselves.
For example, Soukyugurentai is mostly electronic, has no semblance to his "orchestral" sound but the game could just as well be the prequel to Vagrant Story if you only listen to the music.
Another example is this Bloody Roar track:

http://gh.ffshrine.org/song/5993/5

This is about as far from an orchestra as you can get, yet it still carries all the obvious hallmarks of his music.