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  #1  
Old May 15, 2021, 11:30 AM
LiquidAcid LiquidAcid is offline
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Default Best releases of 2020 (both game and anime!)

Hmm, somehow I was hoping that someone else would open this thread at some point. But I guess that didn't happen... *sigh*

Anyway, I was pretty busy in December. Changed my employer, moved house, had a bunch of trouble getting internet connection at my new place. Didn't have the time to listen to a lot of music, yet alone create this thread. Well, doing it now has given me (and probably you as well) some time to fully take in the year 2020.

I want to try something different this time. In the 2019 thread and also in the others before the focus was on VGM alone. However I noticed that a large part of 2020 music I listened to was from animation, so I've compiled two ordered lists, one for video game and the other one for animation music.


Video game:
01. Ori and the Will of the Wisps Original Soundtrack Recording (Gareth Coker)
02. NieR Orchestral Arrangement Album - Addendum (Monaca)
03. Raillore no Ryakudatsusha Special Compilation Soundtrack (mamomo)
04. Evergate Soundtrack (M.R. Miller)
05. The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening Original Soundtrack
06. Atelier Ryza 2: Lost Legends and the Secret Fairy Original Soundtrack (Gust Sound Team)
07. Touken Ranbu -Online- Kinji Music Collection Vol. 3 (Akiko Shikata and Ryota Tomaru)
08. Symphonic Memories Concert - music from Square Enix (Nobuo Uematsu, Yoko Shimomura and others)
09. Square Enix Jazz -Final Fantasy VII- (Eijiro Nakagawa and Ryu Kawamura)
10. Chrono Cross 20th Anniversary Live Tour 2019 Radical Dreamers (Yasunori Mitsuda)
11. Genshin Impact - The Wind and the Star Traveler (Yu-Peng Chen)
12. Goonya Fighter Original Soundtrack (Hayato Asano)
13. Various Daylife Original Soundtrack (Go Shiina)
14. Final Fantasy VII Remake Original Soundtrack (Square Enix Sound Team and others)

And I still have the KH3 album lying on my desk. In case you were wondering why it's missing here.

Animation:
01. Vinland Saga Original Soundtrack (Yutaka Yamada)
02. Great Pretender Original Soundtrack (Yutaka Yamada)
03. Tamayomi Original Soundtrack (Shinji Orito, Jun Maeda and others)
04. Violet Evergarden: Echo Through Eternity (Evan Call)
05. Yuki Kajiura Live Tour Vol. #15 (Yuki Kajiura, who else?!)
06. Somali and the Forest Spirit Original Soundtrack (Ryo Yoshimata)
07. Princess Principal The Live Yuki Kajiura×Void_Chords (Ryo Takahashi and Yuki Kajiura)
08. Das Girls and Panzer Symphonie (Shiro Hamaguchi, also it's Die Symphonie for christ's sake...)
09. Oshibudo Original Soundtrack (Moe Hygua)
10. Cautious Hero: The Hero is Overpowered but Overly Cautious Original Soundtrack (Yoshiaki Fujisawa, this entry is represenative for the two OST volumes)
11. Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045 Original Soundtrack (Nobuko Toda and Kazuma Jinnouchi)
12. Drifting Dragons Original Soundtrack (Masaru Yokoyama)
13. O Maidens in Your Savage Season Original Soundtrack (Moe Hygua)


As always keep in mind that these orders are highly volatile. If I had made the list yesterday the order might be different.

What do you think? What are your favorite albums from 2020?

Last edited by LiquidAcid; May 15, 2021 at 12:09 PM.
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  #2  
Old May 15, 2021, 11:42 AM
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Robin Robin is online now
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Not really in order, but:

EX-PO '97 In memoriam the moondays
FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE Original Soundtrack ~special edit version~
Tetris Effect Original Soundtrack
ARCAEA Sound Collection: MEMORIES OF REALMS
CHUNITHM ALL JUSTICE COLLECTION ep. II
No Straight Roads (Original Soundtrack)
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  #3  
Old May 15, 2021, 12:00 PM
LiquidAcid LiquidAcid is offline
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Already spotted an error, I didn't add Ghost of Tsushima. Well, where to add, where to add.... *ponder*
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  #4  
Old May 15, 2021, 01:30 PM
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Teioh Teioh is offline
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Game:
01. TRIALS of MANA Original Soundtrack (Hiroki Kikuta)
02. Raillore no Ryakudatsusha Special Compilation Soundtrack (mamomo)
03. Ikenfell Original Game Soundtrack (aivi, surasshu)
04. VARIOUS DAYLIFE Original Soundtrack (Go Shiina, Kenji Iwata)
05. Evergate Soundtrack (M.R. Miller)
06. Fire Emblem Premium Arrange II (V.A.)
07. PRINCESS CONNECT! Re: Dive ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK VOL.2 (V.A.)
08. Shin Sakura Wars Original Soundtrack (Kohei Tanaka)
09. Genshin Impact - City of Winds and Idylls (Yu-Peng Chen)
10. HaremKingdom -ORIGINAL SOUND TRACK- (SONO MAKERS, SoundStudioB)

Anime:
01. ASSASSINS PRIDE ORIGINAL SOUND TRACK (Keigo Hoashi, Kuniyuki Takahashi, Keiichi Okabe)
02. In/Spectre Original Soundtrack 1 & 2 (Akihiro Manabe)
03. HEYACAMP Original Soundtrack (Akiyuki Tateyama)
04. Adachi and Shimamura Original Soundtrack (Hanae Nakamura, Miki Sakurai, Natsumi Tabuchi)
05. DIGIMONADVENTURE: Original Soundtrack vol.1 (Toshihiko Sahashi)
06. Cautious Hero: The Hero is Overpowered but Overly Cautious ORIGINAL SOUND TRACK 1 & 2 (Yoshiaki Fujisawa)
07. HOKAGO TEIBO NISSHI Sound Collection (Miki Sakurai)
08. Shin Sakura Wars the Animation Original Soundtrack (Kohei Tanaka)
09. Bungo to Alchemist ~Shinpan no Haguruma~ Music Collection (Hideki Sakamoto)
10. Drifting Dragons Original Soundtrack (Masaru Yokoyama)
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  #5  
Old May 15, 2021, 03:08 PM
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Stuff I enjoyed in no particular order

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim Original Soundtrack
GRANBLUE FANTASY ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK Awakening
Death Stranding Songs from the Video Game
BUKI YO SARABA ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK
MAGATSU WAHRHEIT Original Soundtrack
TRIALS of MANA Original Soundtrack
PERSONA5 SCRAMBLE The Phantom Strikers ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK

Honorable mention as no OST in sight:
Yakuza: Like a Dragon / Ryu ga Gotoku 7
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  #8  
Old May 15, 2021, 08:51 PM
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Aifread Aifread is offline
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Fresh 2: Too Fresh

My favorite album of 2020 by a very large margin. I've listened to this at least once every couple of weeks since it came out in January. I'm very picky about arrange albums--if it doesn't do anything to significantly build on the originals, I'm not interested. Don't let the goofy cover art fool you; I would place this on the highest shelf alongside the best from Kukeiha Club, SST Band, Zuntata, and King Records-era Falcom. The level of musicianship here is insane. Check the guitar riffs from Genocide 2 or the bass solo on Xak. All the tracks lead into each other seamlessly and the whole album is one massive 90s-tastic reference to Konami's X-Men arcade soundtrack. Did I mention how bonkers the track selection is? Every single one is a mega deep cut, truly VGM arrangements for hard-core VGM fans. You won't find Aquatic Ambience or Mega Man 2 here. It's the antithesis of every other fan arrange album out there, using the pay-what-you-want model not to dodge the lawyers of the big game companies, but as an opportunity to tread where no one else would dare. My first time listening I found myself shouting "Who does this?!" at my computer screen, shocked by the amount of effort put into tracks that very few people know or care about. It's a labor of love and I urge you to throw them something for it. It made me discover a lot of great music I'd never heard or looked into before, shaping my tastes and pushing me to expand my music library, which I think is one of the best things a quality arrange album can do (I've since sought out and purchased the albums for X-Men, Genocide 2, Syvalion, and Xak). This is not only my favorite of 2020 but one of my favorites period; it soared straight to the top of my playlist and I'm sure it will stay there for years to come.

If you dig it and want more, I highly recommend Robby Vocke's other project, Stupid Idiot, which covers such games as Bubble Ghost, Mole Mania, Panic Restaurant, Ai Senshi Nicol, and Mecarobot Golf.

Most of my other picks from this past year are long-awaited releases of older music:
DEVIL'S CRUSH & ALIEN CRUSH
Technosoft Music Collection - HERZOG & HERZOG ZWEI -
METAL SIGHT X68000 ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK -30th Anniversary Complete Edition-
ORIGINAL 16BIT SOUND COLLECTION I - MAD STALKER for TRUE MEGA DRIVERS
The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening Original Soundtrack

...and some reprinted material that I missed out on the first time
Hessian The Original Game Soundtrack
SNK ARCADE SOUND DIGITAL COLLECTION VOL.15 (bought for Magician Lord)

Last edited by Aifread; May 15, 2021 at 11:00 PM.
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  #9  
Old May 17, 2021, 01:34 PM
Jodo Kast Jodo Kast is offline
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My favorites from 2020, not in order:


ASTRO CITY mini -Celebration Album- WM-0805
Falcom ACOUSTICS 2 NW10103520
FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE ACOUSTIC ARRANGEMENTS SQEX-10804
FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE Original Soundtrack ~special edit version~ [Limited Edition] SQEX-10768~75
FIRE EMBLEM PREMIUM ARRANGE II QWCI-00007
HADES ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK N/A
HATSUNE MIKU PROJECT DIVA MEGA39'S 10TH ANNIVERSARY COLLECTION N/A
HOBO MARO N/A
Panzer Paladin Original Soundtrack N/A
Resolutiion: Ambient N/A
Resolutiion: Assault N/A
Romancing SaGa Orchestra Festival LIVE CD SQEX-11082~3
SQUARE ENIX JAZZ -FINAL FANTASY VII- SQEX-10744
SQUARE ENIX JAZZ -FINAL FANTASY VII- at Billboard Live TOKYO SQEX-10816~7

I have to mention that Hades, Resolutiion and Hatsune Miku are on this list because I've spent substantial time playing those games. I probably would not have listened to them otherwise. (I'm at 210 hours in Hades and 35 hours each in Resolutiion and Hatsune Miku.)

My favorite is either Astro City or Fire Emblem Premium II. Hobo Maro might kick them both out, though.

I've listened to a lot of the FFVII remake music, but haven't yet played the game. Once they announced the Intergrade version, it kind of changed things. Might as well just try to get a PS5 in 2022 or 2023. (Trying now would be like trying to win the lottery.)
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