Quote:
Originally Posted by Rhythmroo
There's actually a facebook group that I joined fall/winter of last year (2013-14) called Hidden Sound Test - Obscure Video Game Music, and the point of the group is to post videogame music you feel is obscure and catchy. We post music from all console generations, and I'll tell ya hwat, Bobby, many, many of these music posts are very catchy. That's the great things about online communities, that it has members that always have something to bring to the table that the rest of the group may overlook.
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This is fine and a good idea -the Song of the Week at Gamingforce runs on a similar idea- but when I first discovered the hobby in 1998, these discussions were very normal and frequent. That is how I found out about VGM outside of what I had played up until that point (which was quite limited). Falcom, Tokimeki Memorial and SNK were all discovered this way, through just reading people's posts. There simply isn't much online discussion about a lot of newer soundtracks, so it's kind of hard to get a read on what's actually creating a buzz in the VGM world.
At this point, in-game context has really lost its meaning. I mean, you can tear down an RPG soundtrack into the sum of its parts (Opening, closing, battle themes, town themes, character themes, etc), a shmup soundtrack you can break down by stage themes, etc. That goes for older VGM as well. I don't view it as a bad thing, I just happen to enjoy viewing them from that perspective. Occasionally something will come along where the context isn't 100% transparent (I have trouble making out the context of a lot of Hamauzu's soundtracks, for example), but I can't say if that's a good thing or a bad thing...At that point, it just depends on whether or not I like the music.
One thing about newer VGM that I have an issue with is some of the choices of sound programming. With NES, SNES, PC-98, Game Boy, Genesis, etc, you kind of know what type of sound you are going to get, it's more what the composer is going to do with it. Since the 32-bit era (and even during it), I find a lot of music loses its appeal simply because of the sound. Klonoa 2, for example, is one of my favorite games of all times, but the synth they use drives me crazy trying to listen to it. Uematsu apparently has both a full acoustic set and a rock band at his disposal and he does less with those than he ever did with the SNES soundchip. Street Fighter IV and Marvel vs Capcom 3 have soundtracks that harken back to the Capcom music of the 90's, but they struggle too hard to sound "modern" that I can't listen to them seriously. Even Falcom, every time I sample one of their albums, the choice of synth and (especially) the guitar tone have me turning the music off before the track is over. It feels like the options are more available, but it's easier to dismiss the music just based on how it actually sounds (which, truthfully, isn't such a bad thing). Realistically, someone not really weened on oldschool synth will probably do the same with your average NES/SNES music, regardless of how legendary it is. Give me Music from Ys (the PC-88 soundtrack) over Ys Chronicles anyday though.