Pictured: Viridi
For this post I’ve enlisted musician, Vulpiano Records founder and Rate Your Music/Sonemic social manager Marilyn Roxie. As you’d expect, Marilyn’s has a flexible taste that includes both leftfield electronic experiments and kitschy sixties pop, so I’m sure this won’t be their only post for MAM.
Knowing their roots in playing Nintendo 64, I asked Marilyn to list some favorite video game OSTs with lower exposure and/or undeserved obscurity. Being a fellow VGM fan, I know I’ve had my share of examples. I haven’t gotten to the writing yet, but I plan to post my own top 5 in the near-future as well.
Norio Hanzawa – Yuke Yuke!! Trouble Makers Original Soundtrack (Mischief Makers)
The game (also known as Mischief Makers) is a cult 2D platformer for the Nintendo 64 and a childhood favorite of mine. It holds up as challenging and unique to this day. I think the soundtrack gets overlooked by those who haven’t played the game and decide to dip into it for one big reason: it starts with orchestral versions of a couple of the game’s tracks (“Esperance” and “Adieux”) very different to the rest. If you don’t dig such grandiose sounds, you may not go on, and you’ll miss out on some incredible music.
This reminds me most of Stewart Copeland’s soundtrack The Equalizer & Other Cliff Hangers (Spotify); they share a frantic, robotic energy crossed with quirkiness. Even the textures are similar.. The music does a fantastic job of evoking and enhancing the game’s futuristic atmosphere; “Mischief Makers is the story of Professor Theo, a space-travelling Mad Scientist, and Marina Liteyears, his robot creation and assistant, marooned on the strange planet of Clancer. Agents of a mysterious “empire” kidnap the Professor for unknown reasons, and it’s up to Marina to rescue him.“ (TV Tropes) However, you don’t need to play the game to appreciate the industrial thumping of “Volcanic” and the creepy “Obakesong” (a bit of a departure from the usual sound), and lots more. Highly recommended.
Tatsuhiko Asano – In the Wake of Doshin, the Giant
This is a case of a great OST for a game that I actually haven’t played yet. Doshin the Giant was a Japan and Europe-only ‘god game’, where you play “Doshin…an embodiment of the sun, a giant who oversees the inhabitants on Barudo Island, a tropical paradise not found on any maps. The player is given a choice of helping the inhabitants expand their villages and found new ones as Doshin, the love giant; or they can also become the hate giant, Jashin, and rain down death and destruction.” (TV Tropes)
I wound up listening because a Vinesauce video used “Paradise Zone” was as background music. The OST is chock-full of the tropical chill-out you’d expect from the premise. At turns soothing or more free-wheeling and veering into colorful exotica territory, Asano stirs up a great range of emotions throughout. “The Island Of Memory” is my personal favorite. A stunning and sweet OST that makes me want to play the game.
Various – Ganbare Goemon ~Neo Momoyama / Mystical Ninja: Starring Goemon
Mystical Ninja: Starring Goemon is another N64 game that sometimes falls by the wayside, though it has gotten much more attention than Mischief Makers due to it’s part in a long-running series and an English-localized sequel (Goemon’s Great Adventure).
This one may start on an awkward note for someone who hasn’t played the game, with a wacky vocal theme song (a rarity for N64 titles). What you get in the bulk of the soundtrack are several tunes inspired by Japanese traditional music, inflected with a touch of surrealism and electronic weirdness when appropriate, fitting the setting of the game: “The story follows Goemon’s struggles to prevent the Peach Mountain Shoguns gang from turning Japan into a Westernized fine arts theater.” (Wikipedia; really, I’m amazed this was translated into English at all).
As a bonus, Mystical Ninja included playback of game tracks on its menu screen, meaning that as a kid I would just sit there with “Theme of the Fortune Teller Plasma Man” or “Theme of The Flake Gang Weirdos Baron Colon Sharon An” blaring out of the TV for as long as I liked. There are also a number of tracks with ambient nature sounds (such as “Ambient Kii Awaji Island”, with water, wind, and bird calls) that help make this a unique OST for an N64 platformer.
Michael Bell – Viridi OST
Viridi (available on Steam) is a calming life sim game where you grow and care for beautiful succulent plants. Full of soft keyboards and chimes, each music track blends into the next and form a totality of cute, delicate melodies that mesh perfectly with the game’s theme. “Cucurbita” is my fave.
Ghost Monkey – Rebound
Zen Bound 2 (available on Steam) is a relaxing puzzle game requiring the player to use string of a limited length to wrap differently shaped objects to the best of their ability. The music by Ghost Monkey is far from obtrusive, merging seamlessly with the game with it’s downtempo rhythms and organic effects that emulate tumbling rocks, falling water, or rapping on wood. “Unpaint My Skin” is the stand-out for me.
For more of Marilyn’s intriguing music lists, see their Rate Your Music profile.
Moons And Melodies 