I did this last year (Click!) and a few other times before that.  Basically, since just over half the year is over now, let's sum up the "Best of 2014" in VGM so far.

5) memória! - The Very Best of Yoko Shimomura
Orchestral version of "Beware the Forest's Mushrooms" and "A.Y.A." piano arrangement.  Nuff said.

4) SONIC & ALL-STARS RACING TRANSFORMED ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK
Lots of thumpin' remixes of classic Sega tunes from Sega music "all-star" Richard Jacques on here.  Excellent driving music!

3) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shell Shocked
Face melting metal/rock and jazzy fusion "OverClocked" remixes of a bunch of classic TMNT video game tunes.  What's not to love, dude!?

2) DuckTales -Remastered- Official Game Soundtrack
Jake Kaufman put a lot of love into this and it shows.  The transition from the DuckTales Theme into Jake's super awesome credits music followed by his hauntingly beautiful "The Moon" piano arrangement is still my favorite musical moment from the past several years.  Oh and the original 8-bit NES soundtrack is included with this release!

1) Shovel Knight Original Soundtrack
Hands down my favorite of the year so far.  Classic NES soundtrack (literally) by Jake Kaufman with some of the catchiest stage themes I've heard in like.. forever.  Not sure if I'll ever be able to get "Strike the Earth!" out of my head.  Manami Matsumae (composer of the original Mega Man) contributed two tracks on here and they're both excellent.  Her "A Thousand Leagues Below" is hypnotizing!

Honorable mentions: Boot Hill Heroes Original Soundtrack Album, LIGHTNING RETURNS FINAL FANTASY XIII Original Soundtrack PLUS, Strike the Earth! Shovel Knight Arranged.

There are still a bunch of 2014 releases I haven't heard yet (Prescription for Sleep, SQ SWING, Seiken Densetsu Rise of Mana OST, Piano Opera FF VII/VIII/IX, Super Mario 3D World OST to name a few).

I've had a chance to listen to Shell Shocked and it's both well done and nostalgic. It's been years since I've played TMNT IV, but the stage themes came out from the recesses of my memory, along with images from the stages while listening to this.

I've also heard the latest Metroid Metal album and disc 1 of the Winning Post enclosure soundtrack. That's it for 2014. (I've mainly been focusing on listening to the old CA and COCA Columbia releases, such as Dragon Tail, Vasteel, Suite Yuuyuuki and Game Music Graffiti. The quality of those albums is phenomenal, even if I don't always agree with the arrangements.)

I heard this too. However, I swear I'm the only person that feels these albums are absolutely terrible.

Believe it or not there is a thing as TOO MUCH guitar.

I feel the same applies to chocolate even though I have a huge sweet tooth.

An interesting thing about the Metroid Metal albums is you can play them at work and your co-workers will have no idea that they are listening to video game music. It's one of the ways I can hear what I want without annoying everyone else. (One thing I've learned is that you can't play any game music that is MIDI arranged, unless it's from one of the MIDI Power Pro albums. My co-workers turned off Midi Power ver. 5.0 Snatcher and Dracula Midi Collection.)

LOL'd at this one. You know I have been a huge fan of Metroid Metal, but over the years I've gotten a little worn out as they're starting to get more formulaic and less emotional. I feel the same way about Stemage's main project, as well. Strati is one of my all time favorites, but the stuff that has come out over the past several years (save for Zero Over Zero, which I enjoy) hasn't hit home for me. I find myself coming here when I want to listen to MM: http://www.metroidmetal.com/songs/  Less production, more authenticity, less guitar overload (at least with the 2003-2006 stuff).

I'd been wanting to post threads for all my picks for this.  Now that that's done...

1. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shell Shocked
Easily my top VGM album for the year thus far.  Seriously it's like the long-lost Konami Battle series album for TMNT.

The remaining four are in no concrete order:

2. Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 OST
"Powerful orchestral battle themes and a dark, Gothic narrative quality in the best of the Lords of Shadow trilogy."

3. Legend of Zelda: Lime of the Season
Never played or heard Oracle of Seasons but I'm very much liking this lighthearted mix of acoustic and synth arrangements.

4. Shovel Knight OST
If I was big into 8-bit this would probably be right up there with TMNT Shell Shocked at #1.  Even not being big into 8-bit, some of the melodies here are incredibly catchy, and it's impressive the things virt pulls off on an uber-NES sound setup.

5. Strike the Earth! Shovel Knight Arranged
The quality of the arrangements is mixed but thankfully among the good ones is the OST's most addictive theme, joined by a couple surprisingly well-done vocal pieces.

OK add memória to my list, right around number 2 or 3 I'd say.

Any picks that haven't been mentioned so far?