Opening for "Burning Heart" (Survivor) - The music from Punch-Out where you have to get up. This one's painfully obvious.

Does this place have a Last.FM group? I like what I'm reading in here.

And by "reminiscent of", you probably mean "that don't sound anything like the solos from". The Battle albums have more melodic solos where as Kerry King and Jeff Hanneman just sloppily shred all over the place. Trying to find melody in a Slayer guitar solo is futile. I would recommend downloading some Slayer stuff before going out and supporting the band for those that would take that recommendation and hope to find something Konami Battle-ish on any of their albums.

I guess I should've been more specific, as they aren't close in tone but I got the same WOW!! factor out of Show No Mercy's solos. They are very driving and give me an energy boost, like DB1 and 2's solos, The Final Command is a perfect example of this.

The band that broadened my aural horizons is symphonic metal mavens (?) Therion. Recommended to them by a teacher I became so hot for as to make David Lee Roth proud, I was blown away by how melodic - and stunningly beautiful - their music was.

Combining guitar, orchestration, vocals, and synth (mostly on their older albums) it was unlike anything I had heard before - except that well, you know, it reminded me of game music, mostly from the strong melodies. The hyper-dramaticness of these layers of sound and melody would fit some games perfectly; many of their songs could be final boss themes.

The closest that VGM has come to this (that I have heard personally) would of course be One-Winged Angel, especially the Advent Children version. But whereas that version comes off too 80s in its guitar arrangement, Therion takes a much more progressive approach – and dare say it, more mature. Therion comes recommended to anyone that needs a little bit more epic in their musical diet.

You should check this out then: http://www.finetune.com/user/Simon_Drasle Oh wait, that's right, no one cared the first time I posted it.