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  #1  
Old Jun 13, 2020, 01:36 AM
ShinHarmony ShinHarmony is offline
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Default Recommend OSTs you listen to from start to finish without skipping tracks

Like the title says, please recommend some original soundtracks (not arranged albums) that you listen to in their entirety without skipping any tracks.

I will start off by recommending Valkyria: Azure Revolution Original Soundtrack. I can't stop listening to the soundtrack and never feel the need to use the skip button. The music isn't superbly amazing, but it also never becomes meh. The quality is just consistently good/great.

As an anti-recommendation I will mention Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown Original Soundtrack. It has some really mind-blowing music that brings me to tears of joy, but also meh or boring tracks. I don't think I've ever listened to it without skipping tracks.

What OSTs do you recommend?

EDIT: I'm just looking for recommendations for OSTs with a consistently good quality throughout. I don't mean to imply that most soundtracks have a bunch of skippable tracks. Furthermore, I realize now that the title might sound like most people skip tracks when listening to OSTs. I apologize if that offended anyone. Perhaps I should have worded it as "Recommend OSTs with a consistently good quality from start to finish".

Last edited by ShinHarmony; Jun 20, 2020 at 04:58 AM.
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  #2  
Old Jun 13, 2020, 03:45 AM
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I find most of the better retro action and shmup soundtracks are short and polished enough for a straight listen through without skipping anything: Castlevania, Metal Gear 2, Power Drift, Star Tracker (X68K), Gimmick!, Alien Soldier, Elemental Master, The Scheme, Donkey Kong Country 2, R4, Klonoa, Kirby 64, Street Fighter 3rd Strike

But I find it almost impossible to listen to longer JRPG soundtracks without wanting to skip tracks. There's usually too much and only so much of it is actually of quality. Exceptions being shorter and more polished works like Ys 1-7/Origin, FF Mystic Quest, Dark Half, any SNES SMT soundtrack, Dungeon Explorer II, Valkyrie Profile, FF Crystal Chronicles, Drakengard 1, Baten Kaitos. The most extreme exceptions are Sorcerian and SMTIV, the only OSTs more than 2 discs long that I can listen to start to finish.
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  #3  
Old Jun 13, 2020, 04:10 AM
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TerraEpon TerraEpon is offline
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Every album I actually own I listen to without skipping any tracks.

What a bizzare question.
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  #4  
Old Jun 13, 2020, 12:08 PM
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Sherkel Sherkel is offline
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Nothing I can think of with an official soundtrack release. I don't listen to stuff I already know I don't like. As was pointed out earlier, though, there are plenty of gems across the Game Boy, Genesis, and early home computers that would fit the bill if they got one.

The closest for me, though, are definitely Atelier Marie, Ogre Battle, and Final Fantasy Tactics (the whole Ogre saga, really.) Super addictive and consistent feels all throughout, plus the lack of gratuitous loops makes them more suitable for listening as albums.

Oh, right, forgot about SHMUPs. Anything with Manabu Namiki's name on it is probably a #TrueNoSkip in my book. Very different type of soundtrack, though.

Last edited by Sherkel; Jun 14, 2020 at 05:45 AM.
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  #5  
Old Jun 13, 2020, 01:40 PM
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Nisto Nisto is offline
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I think I'm with Sherkel on this one. I guess I'm a little choosy personally. The closest for me would probably be ABANDONER original sound track or BARE NUCKLE II. Also FF7 - FF10, but mostly because of nostalgia rather than every single track being all that great.
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  #6  
Old Jun 13, 2020, 03:10 PM
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Some of my favs I can just leave playing for a long while: Vagrant Story, Silent Hill 3, Unlimited Saga, Senko no Ronde, Hellblade, Ikenie to Yuki no Setsuna, The Last Guardian

Honorable mentions (may rarely skip some lesser tracks): Breath of Fire V, Fragile, BlazBlue, Baroque (og), Unreal, Malicious Fallen, Moonlit Shadow, Abandoner, AIR (very solid but those unused tracks are blerg). Valkyria: Azure Revolution is solid too.


A problem is that many OSTs have good tracks overall, but I like a few so much more that I end up skipping anyway.
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  #7  
Old Jun 14, 2020, 04:05 AM
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TerraEpon TerraEpon is offline
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Ok so I've clearly entered an alternate universe where people don't actually listen to music they buy.


Huh. Weird.
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  #8  
Old Jun 14, 2020, 05:23 AM
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I'd like to live in your universe where filler tracks don't exist and JRPG soundtracks don't peter out after the first hour.
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  #9  
Old Jun 14, 2020, 10:21 AM
SerenissimusDux SerenissimusDux is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Aifread View Post
I'd like to live in your universe where filler tracks don't exist and JRPG soundtracks don't peter out after the first hour.
I'm kinda with you in that I find absolutely nothing bizarre about people occasionally skipping tracks, even on their most beloved albums. Like hey, sometimes we only want to listen to our most favourite tracks, or we're just not in the mood for [insert tempo] paced music, or there's been a specific change in one's taste which precludes listening to certain tracks, or a million other transient reasons...

But I'd also say that to make the general claim that JRPG soundtracks peter out after the first hour is going too far the other way.
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  #10  
Old Jun 15, 2020, 04:15 AM
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TerraEpon TerraEpon is offline
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Occasionally? Sure. But the implication that ALMOST ALL soundtracks have a bunch of skippable tracks ALL THE TIME? That's how the original post comes out as.

Yes I get wanting to skip a few on on a few discs. I don't get that someone would ask the question in the first place as if there's anything normal about it.
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  #11  
Old Jun 15, 2020, 04:44 AM
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ilef ilef is offline
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Albums that I let play from start to finish whenever I listen to them? Hm.

- BIOHAZARD 2 ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK (It's soothing, or rather, it soothes me)
- ALUNDRA Original Game Soundtrack
- Kessen II Original Soundtrack

Special mentions of OSTs with multiple CDs

- BIOHAZARD 6 ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK
- NieR:Automata Original Soundtrack+HACKING TRACKS (As far as this one is concerned, I must confess that I rearranged the order of tracks, in order to have 8-bit versions play right after the original counterparts)
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  #12  
Old Jun 15, 2020, 06:12 AM
TheGazelMinistry TheGazelMinistry is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TerraEpon View Post
Every album I actually own I listen to without skipping any tracks.
I have to particularly dislike a song on a soundtrack to feel the need to skip it. Even if I like some songs more than others on a soundtrack (i.e., I am not enamored with the chocobo racing songs on the FFVII OST), I still enjoy listening to a soundtrack in its entirety. Every song is part of the tapestry.

I don't often listen to the Before Crisis/Last Order soundtrack, but I dislike the Theme of Elfe and will skip it when I do.
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  #13  
Old Jun 15, 2020, 08:58 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TerraEpon View Post
Every album I actually own I listen to without skipping any tracks.

What a bizzare question.
This.

Nothing to add.
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  #14  
Old Jun 15, 2020, 05:11 PM
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Alcahest Alcahest is offline
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Soukaigi qualifies for me.
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  #15  
Old Jun 20, 2020, 05:10 AM
ShinHarmony ShinHarmony is offline
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Let me add a little bit of an explanation to my original question.

When I listen to a soundtrack where I have rated every track, I usually apply a rating filter to weed out the tracks I don't care for that much. It only takes a few seconds and this way I quickly get my own personal "best of" experience of that album. The shorter an album is and the more consistently good it is, the less I apply a rating filter. I almost never actually press a skip button, but rather skip tracks via the rating filter (which I often change even for the same album, depending what I'm in the mood for).

When I listen to a soundtrack where I haven't rated every track (or on YouTube, Spotify, Bandcamp, etc.), I almost always listen to it from start to finish without skipping tracks. I only hit the skip button, if a track is outright annoying or otherwise distracting.

Due to the COVID-19 situation I've been working from home for the past few months. Now I can actually listen to music while working, and I really feel like discovering new OSTs. While thinking about this, I saw a Facebook post about Valkyria Revolution's OST not being that good, which made me think about how much I like the soundtrack and how I always listen to it without skipping tracks, even though I have rated all of its tracks. I was further surprised by its relatively low rating (3.77) on VGMdb. From this I got the idea of asking recommendations specifically for soundtracks that are so consistently good, that you would never even think of skipping a track.

Quote:
Originally Posted by TerraEpon View Post
But the implication that ALMOST ALL soundtracks have a bunch of skippable tracks ALL THE TIME? That's how the original post comes out as.

Yes I get wanting to skip a few on on a few discs. I don't get that someone would ask the question in the first place as if there's anything normal about it.
I apologize, I did not mean to imply that almost all soundtracks have a bunch of skippable tracks or that one way of listening is more normal compared to another way. The original title is how the question popped in my head and I didn't realize it might stir negative feelings. I've added a paragraph to my original post. Please let me know if there's anything more I can do to make the post better.
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  #16  
Old Jun 20, 2020, 07:42 AM
Crash Crash is offline
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One of my favorite soundtracks of all time, OutRun 2, has one track I can barely stand, and one that I actively dislike. The vocal tracks are not great, and NIGHT FLIGHT is an auto-skip for me. The instrumental version on OutRun 2 Soundtracks Side B is fine, but hearing the phrase "turning and spinning and spinning and turning, yeah, this is paradise," thirty times is difficult for me.

The rest of the album is fantastic, though, and is my go-to music when I need a little pick-me-up.
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