I've been getting back into listening SPC sets and trying to find some new and good stuff from Super Nintendo / Super Famicom music. Got any tips?

On my end, I've recently re-listened to Spiderman & X-men, which is by Tim Follin of Silver Surfer fame. Really groovy, dareisay progressive rock, with a lot of variety in and between the tracks.
http://snesmusic.org/v2/profile.php?sel … rofile=set

A long-time personal favorite is Space Megaforce / Super Aleste, which has one of the best shmup soundtracks on SNES, methinks: http://snesmusic.org/v2/profile.php?set&selected=2464

Then there's Vortex, one of the lesser known games by Argonaut, which has some nice techno stuff, especially "Vortex" and "Voltair" towards the end: http://snesmusic.org/v2/profile.php?pro … ected=3181

I've always been a fan of Magical Quest starring Mickey Mouse.  You can definitely hear hints of early Capcom SNES synth in the works and it's a great soundtrack.  Also check out Smartball/Jerryball by Konami.  Believe it or not Akira Yamaoka worked on part of the soundtrack.  It's definitely not Silent Hill-ish but some great melodies.

Lagoon,, good rock based music like FF Mystic Quest, although the ost is based on the PC version, its almost identical.

Yes, yes, and yes. Gambit rules.

And while I know it's more known than some of these soundtracks, I have to plug Breath of Fire II. It seems really underrated to me; it pulled me into the game so much. I got the GBA cart but I want the SNES cart as well.

Currently I'm playing the original BoF on the SNES because 1) never played it and 2) the music (from the Special Box) didn't really click with me and I figured the game might help in that. I've warmed up to some of the music but I'm so sick and tired of "Culvert." Does this really have to play in every freakin' cave! There are a lot of freaking caves in the game!

I'm also getting sick of the boss theme "A Brave General." The crisis motif gets old fast.

Edit:

Ah, it's "Culvert" again!

Yeah, I'll second Lagoon. The music alone can make the game worth playing (although I don't think it's as bad as most make it out to be).

Another early SNES release that gets looked over is Arcana. Ever imagined what Kirby music would sound like in an RPG? It's a little awkward hearing music that sounds so much like Kirby music in such a serious game, but it's excellent.

For the flip side, check out Battle Clash and Metal Combat for some great tunes that AREN'T from RPGs like Yuka Tsujiyoko normally composes for.

On the Ball is more of the usual weird and wonderful Zuntata style.

I don't know anything about the composer, but I always thought Jurassic Park had some nice music.

As for Super Famicom sountracks, I'm a fan of Akihiko Mori and Koji Hayama, so Wonder Project J and Cho Aniki are musts in my book. If you want some obscure Sakuraba, there's Hiouden. I also love the TwinBee soundtracks, but maybe those wouldn't be considered obscure around here?

I don't know what qualifies as "obscure", but this is the best SFC soundtrack to my ears. Well, Hiouden, Chrono Trigger and Gradius III - but I figure only one of those is likely to have escaped notice.

It didn't get a soundtrack, but I remember "HyperZone" having some good music...  Kind of a cross between F-Zero and Space Harrier.

having to jump to try to hit that flying, warping, whipping final boss with a micropenis of a sword was awful...

The Lost Vikings 1 & 2 by Charles Deenan

Oh dear god those soundtracks are so freakin' awesome. Its a shame I can never find proper dumps for them.

Hitoshi Sakimoto's Hourai Gakuen no Bouken!: Tenkousei Scramble comes to mind, I'm pretty sure nobody's ever heard of that one, haha.  Some of the music sounds like him, some of it doesn't, but it's all excellent.  For anyone who thinks all Sakimoto sounds the same, give this one a shot, you will be very surprised.  This seriously needs an official CD release of some sort.  The ending credits theme is genius!

Keeping with the theme of popular composer/not-so-popular game, how about Noriyuki Iwadare's Monstania?  Lots of tracks on this sound A LOT like his Grandia stuff, especially the main battle theme.  Consider this game to be Grandia 0.9 as far as the music is concerned.

Vegas Stakes is a very short but sweet musical experience.  I remember playing the game as a child and tapping my feet to the music.  If "Buffalo Head" doesn't get stuck in your head, I don't know what will.  Fun fact: all the game's music was composed by Kimitaka Matsumae from Sega's S.S.T. Band.  (It's kinda funny how I liked a game about gambling and then I grew up to severely dislike real-life gambling, hmm)

I'll throw in another vote for Lagoon, good stuff.  "Atland" is one of the SNES' finest town themes.  There's actually a CD release for it but the music on that disc is from the Sharp X68000 version, same tunes as the SNES one though.  Naturally the SPC700 version pwns the X68000.

Don't laugh, but I've always loved the music from Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: The Movie, composed by Hiroyuki Iwatsuki and Haruo Ohashi.  I used to love the show as a kid (again don't laugh, haha) so naturally a SNES version of the "Go Go Power Rangers" song makes me very excited.  But it's not just that, the stage themes kick all kinds of butt and the boss theme is speed metal to die for.  It's morphin' time!

I'll try to think of some more later.  That was fun.  Good topic Sami.

These were exactly the 2 games that immediately came to mind when I saw this thread.

Awesome music indeed!

It's a good thing they at least put some interesting music in there, because the game was atrocious.

fury of frog, you're aware that you need a plugin that plays SNSF files to play the music from the SNES versions of the Lost Vikngs games, right? Because you can't get them as SPC files.

seconding various recommendations in this thread, but especially the Power Rangers game - that's the same pair that did Wild Guns, an absolute favorite of mine.

when I tried to hit "quote", I accidentally hit "report" instead. I'm still considering going back to that, though, because it is a crime that you did not name any of Mori's other work. Pretty much everything on that list is worth listening to - Mystic Ark is easily one of the best soundtracks on the system (and one of the best 16-bit RPG soundtracks period), Gokinjo Bouken Tai has the best normal battle theme I've ever heard, and the Shien music is just really good. RIP.

(Bounty Sword is also listed there. Mori didn't contribute a lot to it, but Kohei Tanaka (of Sakura Wars/Alundra fame) did, and it's an absolutely fantastic score)

I may run rampant on this thread later.

Heh, blame my lack of experience with those. Most soundtracks I discover through playing the games, and while I have intentions to import many of those games eventually, I haven't done so just yet. And since I plan on playing them, I don't want to spoil the experience of hearing the music in context the first time I hear it. I'm definitely looking forward to checking out more of his SFC work. :)

......really? I still would have no clue where to get those files from though. Maybe Audio Overload would play em. Thanks for the heads up. I learned something.

spc.hcs64.com
http://www.caitsith2.net/snsf/

keep in mind that they aren't all tagged, though, and you can't play them in archive (except maybe with foobar via snsf9x, which is what you should be using if you can use foobar or winamp). There are also a lot missing from the list I posted above (FEDA ;_; ), but both Lost Vikings games are dumped.

As far as I remember, it only has one theme, the one that goes "du du du du du du dududu dududu du du" and so on. Correct me if I'm wrong. That theme made me purchase the soundtrack though. Nice.

I don't think Final Fight 3 is too bad. Tenshi no Uta and Hiouden are pretty nice. And I like Darius Force (Super Nova), it's much prettier than Darius Twin, I think. Or was it the other way around? Sure is hard to remember.

Psycho Dream was composed by Naruke, but it's shit poor. Not worth trying.

How about Top Gear 2? I used to love that game, but I loved the music more. It sounds almost like eurobeat. I hope for someone to do a really faithful arrangement of the soundtrack.

Lots of interesting suggestions, thanks! I had no idea there were so many obscure works even by currently well-known composers.

Yes!  I'll definitely second Arcana and Super Aleste.

Let's not forget:

Alcahest (also by Jun Ishikawa)

Goemon 4 (simply amazing!)

Hook (inspired by the movie, but way awesomer)

Sunset Riders (old west music by Konami!)

Super Double Dragon (with remixes and more!)

Treasure Hunter G (John Pee!)

Super Bomberman 4? (the one with the really funky beats)

- Justin Pfeiffer

Demon's Crest.

If you do not know why, go grab the SPC set. Then all will be revealed.

For what it's worth, Axelay was very good and still underrated. There actually isn't a bad song (or one that somebody would tend to skip over) from the soundtrack that I can hear. Still waiting on that sequel Axelay Rebirth?!

Hiroyuki Yanada's Last Bible 3. One of the more obscure MegaTen games/soundtracks, this game was the last in the "Last Bible" spin-off series of more fantasy-themed SMT games. The music is great, very unlike other MegaTen games and most other RPGs, its sort of fantasy-sounding with a jazzy streak. Tracks I recommend checking out to get a feel for the style are: "Flight of Birds", "Field Theme 1", "Val Ship", "Red Owl", "Shark Ship", "Sky Wing", "Felest Tower", and "Underworld Forest". My personal favourites are "Underworld Forest" and "Val Ship". Some of Yanada's other compositions for the earlier Last Bible games can be found in arranged form on the Megaten World ~ Goddess World album, the track "Paro's Rocky Mountain" being a real stand-out pearl.

I hope someone translates this game someday. After falling in love with the music, I'm really curious to see how well the game itself holds up.

Thank you. Unfortunately my mac won't play them. Audio Overload is a god but its missing a couple of nice features. Maybe I'll ask Richard Bannister is supporting that would be in the realm of possibilities.

I would like to add another great megaten score to the list: Majin Tensei II: Spiral Nemesis. It's not obscure, but it sure is underrated.

not sure if this could be consider as lesser known but Lufia 2 has a very very good OST. one of my fav on SNES