bad (ish?) games with good soundtracks

[Squire Grooktook]

A thought suddenly struck me while browsing some game music libraries. We tend to know about good music from good games by virtue of having played them, but are there many flawed, excessively niche, or outright bad games that are easily skipped but have gems for ost's that we might have missed? It would be a shame to pass those up.

I can't think of any at the moment, but if anybody has any recommendations, please share.

[Aisha]

Broken Thunder comes to mind straight away. I should mention though, that I've only listened to the soundtrack and haven't actually played the game, but I can't recall seeing anyone singing any praises about the game itself. Full Metal Goddess is probably my favorite track from it.

[BIL]

Interesting thread... gave my VGM folder a quick look. I can think of middling/flawed stuff with disproportionately good soundtracks (both PS2 Castlevanias come to mind - superbly rich, dark music). Nothing I'd call particularly bad, though. I tend to not bother with OSTs for games I've not played, admittedly.

ala Broken Thunder, I'm sure noted composers sometimes ended up soundtracking less stellar material. Hitoshi Sakimoto and co seem to turn up in the hentai-est places, usually packing serious MFN quality. He and Iwata's Starship Rendevous OST is intense stuff! No idea about the game (looks a bit crap) but surely more wonders await in Japanese PC eroge land.

See also Tim Follin's NES PICTIONARY and its almighty title BGM

sweetblazincronic9 1 month ago

TIME FOR SOME PICTIONARY MOTHER FUCKER

Indeed, sweetblazincronic9 - if anything could convince me to play Pictionary on a videogame console, it's that music!

edit: oh yeah, I thought James Bond: The Duel (Genesis) kind of sucked (thought process "it's a shitty Elevator Action Returns, bye ROM!"). But as zinger pointed out: holy shit it has some tunes

[copy-paster]

CheetahMen, anyone?

Edit : Fuck my 300th post

[Xyga]

Verytex

[CIT]

Two personal favorites that will definitely get your funk on:

Jaguar XJ220
There's also a Mega CD version, but I prefer the Amiga's PCM.

The Hybrid Front
One of the best Mega Drive soundtracks IMO. Naofumi Hataya later did Space Channel 5, among other things.

Both games are actually decent, but their OSTs are definitely their strongest points.

[Blinge]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-J0H5ah1G7A

[ZacharyB]

Paraphrasing what BIL said: virtually every Software Creations game, by way of Tim Follin. Plok, Spider Man & the X-Men in Arcade's Revenge, Treasure Master, Silver Surfer, Pictionary, Solstice... And let's not forget the canceled-yet-recently dumped Mega Drive game Time Trax.

[ryu]

R-Type Final.

How's Plok anything but a fine/good game?

[DJ Incompetent]

NieR
Adventures in the Magic Kingdom
Kirby's Avalanche
Journey to Silius
X-Men (Arcade)

[BIL]

Oh yeah... the 16/32-bit Dragon Ball fighting games are mostly trash, but they do have some excellent BGM. The MD game in particular has exactly the sort of eccentric hooks and bassline-driven energy I love from my FM game music. Deserved better than an anime-licensed SFII cash-in.

Always pictured this in a Commando/Bloody Wolf-style shooter. Manly martial drive for advancing under heavy fire!

Love the time change on this one, slamming the brakes on the hammering intro for an oddly plaintive lead before blasting off again.

Tecno Soft-worthy FM synth soloing with surgical kick drum deployment.

Speaking of anime cash-in fighting, SFC BASTARD!! Ankoku no Hakai-shin title theme is metal as fuck. Nice violent thrasher with an exotic air, shame about the game!

Cyber Brawl has some outstanding music - totally YM2612-driven, too, no 32X assistance. Completely disposable game IIRC, like a lot of the 90s SFII clone craze.

[Gespenst]

not totally bad per se, but Ace Combat Assault Horizon

Spoiler

Am I the only who rather liked Gotta Stay Fly BTW

on the serious note the instrumental version (aptly titled Dogfight) still as epic as other AC tunes IMHO.

[Squire Grooktook]

Nice picks BIL. Also enjoying Jaguar XJ220 (already listened to Hybrid Front a while back though).

R-Type Final.

I find most of the games music a bit bland, much like the level design. "Creature System" is a decent boss theme though, and "Baido Is" is one of the most awesomely dark, atmospheric tracks I've ever heard.

Trying to think of something of my own to contribute to this. Two examples that come to mind include X-D-A-T, the first stage theme from eXceed 1 (outright kusoge shmup unlike its sequels), and a few tracks from Blade Symphony (some might like this 3d fighter, I find it a total mess).

*edit*

Pretty much nobody plays the Legacy of Kain series for their gameplay, but Ozar Midrashim and its assorted remixes is one of the reasons to check it out. Truly builds into something special.

*double edit*

Never played it, but I haven't heard much overwhelmingly positive talk about it's gameplay (okay from what I've heard), but Psycho Dream's boss theme is a perfect "horrible abomination coming this way" theme.

[BulletMagnet]

That Bobobo game on PS2.

[Obscura]

Solstice

Are you calling Solstice bad?!?!

Those are fighting words!

[Giest118]

Sonic '06.

That's pretty much the most stark example I can think of. The music made that game worth playing for me. :V

[Squire Grooktook]

Bad is subjective, for gameplay at least, so I wouldn't sweat it too much (besides, that's why I put "ish" in here and clarified in the op that it's not nessicarily "bad", bad).

Sonic '06.

Off topic since it's a good game, but: If you like 06's ost, I recommend checking out Phantasy Star Online 2's ost if you haven't already. Done by the same guy.

Most of the field themes are just random noise thanks to the horrible randomized mixing of the tracks, but the boss themes vary from good to aces (although nothing quite as ground breaking for me as PSO1's ost to me).

[ZacharyB]

Oops, I didn't mean that the Software Creations titles were explicitly bad. I just got too excited to mention Tim Follin again.

[KAI]

Sukiyo ni Sabara (10000 Bullets) is shit, but the music is 1000000/10.

Toshinden 3 has Tamsoft's sound team at it's finest.

[BIL]

Vertytex

Journey to Silius

You won't see my face, punks.

Those are among the middlers with face-meltingly good OSTs I was thinking of. Verytex is simply unremarkable, Silius got technical problems holding it back. Along the same lines I would mention weirdo Arkanoid-esque Bad Omen (MD), also by Verytex's Sakimoto. I mean holy fuck.

(I semi-seriously think of Vtex and Omen as shaweet YM2612 albums that come with free games, haha...)

[BrianC]

Kirby's Avalanche

Bad localization, maybe, but I found Puyo Puyo to be a nice game (as far as I can tell the gameplay in Avalanche is intact), though its sequel is better. One thing that gets me about Kirby's Avalanche is that they changed the majority of the music to Kirby tunes, but left DeDeDe's theme, one of my favorite songs in the Kirby games, out (the song they used for DeDeDe is less fitting than either DeDeDe's theme or Satan's theme). On a similar note, despite changing the characters to the silly style of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine for the MD/Genesis has a nice soundtrack using one of the better MD sound engines (Cube, I think).

[CIT]

(I semi-seriously think of Vtex and Omen as shaweet YM2612 albums that come with free games, haha...)

What don't you like about Bad Omen? I think it's pretty ace, tbh.

[BIL]

I don't know, actually... I really like it overall (made to Seaside before shortlisting it, IIRC). I did think the top paddle's ghosting through objects felt a bit dodgy, letting me shove the ball through chunks of stage and forego accurate shooting for point-blank rapid rebounds. OTOH, that bulldozing aggression is pretty entertaining in itself. Even if it's not a paddle action masterpiece, it's still a fun barricade-smashing boss-battering time with cool occult style and, of course, that godly OST.

A few months back a nice copy came up for cheap, so I just nabbed it and figured the soundtrack would cushion any unforeseen blows.

[Kollision]

Heavy Nova, MD

[Obiwanshinobi]

Task Force Harrier EX (bewildering MD port of an arcade shmup Task Force Harrier).
Super Mario Galaxy (not the most awful 3D platform game I've played, but I liked the character animations and music so much better than the rest of it...)
Xenogears and Chrono Cross (I liked the graphics in both too, on RGB CRT; shame about everything else).

[soprano1]

80's European computer games (Many aren't bad, just very outdated to play nowadays).
Delicious Amiga chiptunes.

[Shepardus]

I love MapleStory's soundtrack (at least from back when I played the game, don't know what tracks they've added or possibly replaced since), but I'll be damned if I find myself actually playing the game again.

[ACSeraph]

Gowcaiser on NGCD is totally worth playing just for the ridiculous soundtrack.

King of Fighters '99 has one of the best soundtracks in the series despite being one of the worst games.

D-Force is a total garbage kusoge shmup but the music, especially the first stage, is awesome.

Captain Skyhawk's opening music is the one awesome thing about the game. (The gameplay itself has no music )

Xenosaga II's soundtrack by Yuki Kajiura is incredible, even if the game totally shat all over the groundwork laid out by its predecessor.

Silent Hill Homecoming has that usual Akira Yamaoka flare despite the game itself heralding the shit-show future of the series.

Final Fantasy Mystic Quest has some really rockin' battle themes.

[gameoverDude]

Street Fighter EX3 (PS2). This one has Yack, Aya, Megaten, and J99 on BGM detail but the gameplay is lackluster. Some of my faves from this are Temptation Gun (Aya) which sounds Rolling Thunder 2 inspired. Then there are Cute Mafia, Harem Beat, and the player select theme, all from Yack. The last one is worth loitering on the character select screen for. Too bad EX3 doesn't have the gameplay of SF4.

Heavy Nova's boss battles are frustrating in that you (and the enemy) can crouch for absolute defense against ANYTHING. It's about best to come in with a throw. The CD version tunes aren't bad but I prefer the BGM used in the 8 Meg cart version- the Yamaha generated tunes have more of a gritty wallop.

Road Spirits (PCE CD) is the poor man's Jaguar XJ220. While the gameplay is lacking and offers too-easy courses, "In Your Soul" and "Straight from the Heart" are awesome electro-jazz tunes.

[Udderdude]

Gauntlet IV - Ok-ish Genesis port with some really nice tracks by Hitoshi Sakimoto and Masaharu Iwata.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDX28nJqhI8