Heavy Metal music in games

[Obiwanshinobi]

There's more than long hair and distorted guitars to it. I'm looking for that particular brand of cheese that separates metal from all the other music in games. F-Zero X OST doesn't belong here as it is too, er, wistful for the topic. "Desert rock" in Crash 'N' Burn (2004) doesn't make the cut either.
What I mean by "Heavy Metal" in this case is... rougher (for lack of a better word). So far I found three examples:

Eliminate Down (even the artwork is properly cheesy).

Contra series (especially the track Last Springsteen).

Excite Truck (not my favourite song in the game, but most appropriate here; I wonder if the music would be more listened to if more people knew it's JAPANESE).

[Yeah, I know about Thunder Force IV but it's quite a bordeliner (a tad rougher than F-Zero X, admittedly). I wish I liked the game better...]

Any more unhygienic tunes in this vein?

P.S. Listening to those tracks in the above order made me want to revisit Operation Mindcrime.

[Drum]

I might as well get Lords of Thunder, Guilty Gear and Brutal Legend out of the way.
Holy Diver's music is kinda metal I guess, but mostly I'm just putting it in this post because the name is as metal as you can get.

[LEGENOARYNINLIA]

Check out Dragon Unit (arcade) by Athena.

[KAI]

Mitsugu Suzuki's Battle Gear 3 and Over G - Energy Airforce
also Fucking AC2 Bear Tracks and Oboro Muramasa's Incredible Power

[BIL]

Night Raid's OST is metal as fuck. edit: as is its entire aesthetic.

edit 2: better vid

[Leader Bee]

Does this count?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3kYqIui_Xc

[BIL]

Oh good, it's on Youtube. Super Famicom Can Be Metal As Fuck Too.

[Limbrooke]

What else but Shattered Soldier.

[Mischief Maker]

Crüe Ball.

[louisg]

I'm not sure what your criteria is if F-Zero X's tunes with the cookie monster vocals aren't \m/ enough, but what about:

Doom-- total metal soundtrack (with some blatant rips) in a game about fighting demons with all kinds of satanic and torture imagery - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjEx292Ph8M

Ruff n Tumble-- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaPOGwbljXU

Last Ninja 2-- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoGFV_xxR64

It's not on YouTube, but check out Martin Walker's soundtracks for Citadel and Aggressor on the C64. They're pretty damn heavy.

Crue Ball? Kiss Psycho Circus? Rock n Roll Racing? I'm not totally sure what you're after here.

[Ruldra]

What else but Shattered Soldier.

Holy shit! You can't get more metal than that!

[cj iwakura]

Anything Daisuke Ishiwatari did had lots of shred, namely Guilty Gear, Hard Corps Uprising, and BlazBlue(not as heavy, but still lots of guitar).

Hard Corps: Uprising - Boss Theme

I love the primary chords(2:00). Always gets me pumped.


Also, SMT Nocturne-era Meguro used lots of guitar in his songs.

Normal Battle

Digital Devil Saga, Raidou 1(best battle theme ever), and to a lesser extent, Persona 3 and 4 all involve some shredding.

[Op Intensify]

Certain songs from Castlevanias SotN and Curse of Darkness are led by heavy guitars.

The obscure PS2 fighting game Heavy Metal Thunder has a soundtrack by the Japanese metal band Sex Machineguns.

[trap15]

A game with Sex Machineguns music!? I gotta play this!

[KAI]

Sex Machineguns and Marty Friedman playing the guitar, go for it!

[Hagane]

SNK fighters in general have a lot of nice hard rock / heavy metal themes

Butterfly Emerges from Chrysalis (2002 UM medley of Chris and Yashiro's themes)
London March (Billy Kane - KOF '98)
Fairy (Chizuru Kagura - KOF '96)
Shiroi Franco (Franco Bash - Fatal Fury 3)

[LEGENOARYNINLIA]

SNK fighters in general have a lot of STOLEN hard rock / heavy metal themes

Butterfly Emerges from Chrysalis (2002 UM medley of Chris and Yashiro's themes)
London March (Billy Kane - KOF '98)
Fairy (Chizuru Kagura - KOF '96)
Shiroi Franco (Franco Bash - Fatal Fury 3)

Fixed.

[Hagane]

Didn't you forget to replace SNK with Guilty Gear in your fix?

[LEGENOARYNINLIA]

No. SNK's musicians really just ripped off stuff mostly. I have to admit I wasn't so happy when I realised the truth, but that's how it is.

[Hagane]

Well, post some examples? I'm interested.

[KAI]

Jun Kajiwara is one of the most respected musicians in the VGM industry, and you are saying he's stealing.
I want an example too.

Here's some Metal goodness from Shinji Hosoe and Kajiwara

[LEGENOARYNINLIA]

I am somewhat DRUNK right now so I can't be arsed to get too detailed about this, so I will just post one blatant example. Most other themes with ripped off material have just a riff here or there that's exactly the same as in the original song.

"Surprise! You're dead!" by Faith No More: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BGrFku2itk
"Team Brazil Theme" from The King Of Fighters '94: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IuNj4CktJI

[Hagane]

Oh, I knew about that one. Do you have any other blatant examples? If most of the music they did was ripped off, I'm sure that finding a few more examples (I'm particularly interested in knowing if what you say applies to their most known works - such as the ones I listed) can't be too hard. I mean, are "Arashi no Saxophone", "Geese ni Kiss" or "Esaka?" rip-offs too or is it just limited to a lesser known theme from their early works?

[evil_ash_xero]

Isn't Musha Aleste's soundtrack kind of metallic?

Also, I remember some rawking in Ibara.

[Kiel]

Isn't Musha Aleste's soundtrack kind of metallic?

Also, I remember some rawking in Ibara.

Yes, and yes.

[Observer]

Look no further than eXceed 3rd:

http://tennen-sozai.bandcamp.com/

Music was done by S.H.H. It's quite on the heavy side. It's Jade Penetration with the Black Package, dudes!

Also, Mega Man X-8 and X-4 music was quite heavy in the guitars, although X-4 was more synthey.

Here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wi5tuvPh98
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poAZjtEDVWU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oj42WRDSCoY (This feels almost out of the Transformers Animated movie OST and it's awesome, very awesome, especially towards the end.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTUynM7mW24 (The entire OST of X-4 was like this, jeez, I loved it and, you know, I played the PC port of this, lol.)

God, Megaman X8 music fucking rocked too!

Serious Sam 3 has that staple death metal-like scream for the boss theme. Song goes a bit generic after that but it's nice fun.

[Ex-Cyber]

Certain songs from Castlevanias SotN and Curse of Darkness are led by heavy guitars.

SoTN has a few that have some fairly crunchy riffs included but even in those the cleaner stuff tends to lead so they might be borderline for the purposes of this thread,

[Obiwanshinobi]

Konami seemingly have poured all of their metal into Contra.
Didn't Thunder Force IV "borrow" some Yngwie Malmsteen riff? For as long as game music composers don't lay any claim to stardom, they can borrow tunes like that for all I care, provided they don't forget to ask the living authors.

cookie monster vocals

Tubular Bells had those and it was hyper-produced pop all the same ("easy listening" if you like). Some people don't "get" metal as I understand it (nothing really wrong with that). Let's just say the colours metal is primarily about are not of the kind you'd choose to show whilst looking for a job or wooing a girl.
Which one of the following pictures makes you think "metal":

or ?

Not sure what about F-Zero X OST makes it sound too... flower power, spaced-out, (psychedelic even?) for metal, but maybe the harmony brought in by the organ does it for me.
Having said that, the cover artwork is serious business.

[cj iwakura]

I would say the second one, because I associate Castlevania with some great music. I wouldn't let artwork dictate what I find appealing and don't.

[Obiwanshinobi]

"Metal" does not equal "appealing" to everybody (quite the opposite for some).