Favorite Video Game Composers

[Domestic-Weirdo]

I don't consider myself a big fan of music for the most part. Aside from Queen, I never really got attached to any bands or genres like many people have. The primary exception for me has been the category of video game music. I suppose that's partly because gaming is one of my biggest hobbies but I have always felt more comfortable listening to game soundtracks rather than contemporary music. However, The Revenge Of Shinobi was the game where I started to pay attention to video game musicians and develop a greater sense of appreciation for their work.

 

The tracks in that game were phenomenal and it led me to read up more about its composer, Yuzo Koshiro. Once I started listening to his work on Streets Of Rage, I was absolutely hooked and he very quickly became one of favorite artists. Something that impresses me about Koshiro is his excellent range for conveying emotion, level of sophistication, and capability in multiple genres. For example, the track in the first stage of Revenge Of Shinobi acts as a blend of traditional Japanese and 80's dance genres to complement the feudal-inspired setting much like how the Chinatown level fittingly uses a more Chinese-inspired theme. Games like Beyond Oasis and Etrian Odyssey have shown that he's also quite adept in producing epic orchestral soundtracks. In addition, he is a skilled programmer and many of his best works were produced on software and audio tools he personally designed. Yuzo Koshiro's numerous contributions to the Genesis and talent for flexibility are the reasons why I think he's among the best composers in the industry.

 

^{Tracks by Yuzo Koshiro}

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

While I have expanded my taste in video game music since then, the tracks for SEGA Genesis games will remain one of my favorite types to fall back on. Another soundtrack on the console that I really like listening to is The Adventures Of Batman & Robin by Jesper Kyd. He took a dark industrial-house inspired direction for this game's music as the Genesis apparently wasn't capable of reproducing the Danny Elfman themes that the show had been using. While some might feel it's not a good fit, I would argue that this decision has made the game far more memorable for it. One aspect about these tracks is that they all boast a longer runtime than what most composers at the time would usually do, which is nice for the sake of replayability. Like Koshiro, Kyd also developed these songs with a high degree of complexity and a signature style that makes it stand out among the rest.

 

^{Tracks by Jesper Kyd}

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I'd be interested to hear some other examples and how they appeal to your preferences. Who are your favorite video game composers?

Edited October 28, 2022 by Domestic-Weirdo

[Ozcar]

Lee jackson, bobby prince, sonic mayhem, trent reznor and kelly bailey.

 

The best composer of fps 90s.

 

[Domestic-Weirdo]

1 minute ago, Ozcar said:

Lee jackson, bobby prince, sonic mayhem, trent reznor and kelly bailey.

 

The best composer of fps 90s.

 

Man, how could I forget to bring up Sonic Mayhem. I loved his work on Quake 2. Descent Into Cerberon is a classic.

[Nevander]

Lee Jackson

Bobby Prince

Alexander Brandon

Aubrey Hodges

Damjan Mravunac

Sonic Mayhem

Trent Reznor

Kelly Bailey

Andrew Hulshult

 

Just to name a few.

[Sonikkumania]

24 minutes ago, Ozcar said:

Lee jackson, bobby prince, sonic mayhem, trent reznor and kelly bailey.

 

The best composer of fps 90s.

 

Agree on these. Few other favourites:

- Mark Morgan, composed for Fallout 1 and 2.

- Tony Trippi, composed for the infamous Zelda CD-i games.

- Mick Gordon, obvious, he's done a very good job in recent Doom titles.

- Joe Abbati, he did some otherwordly music for Capstone games .. Not for everyone.

- Michael Jackson for what he contributed for Sonic 3. Also Sonic OST is very good in general but good luck remembering the invidual composers. Crush 40 isn't my fav though.

- Frank Klepacki, almost forgot. He's composed the Command & Conquer franchise.

[Wavy]

ZUN easily. Every song that he's made for Touhou is super catchy and I'd say that he hasn't made one bad song. The way he writes music that fits for each character and with such emotion is something I heavily admire. While the general instrumentation for each of the Touhou games stay roughly the same, every game has its own unique style and feel. And the way he uses electric guitars is just perfection.

 

My personal favourite tracks:

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

I would post more, but I think there's more than enough here (though I'm more than willing to post more songs, heh).

 

[Lippeth]

There are so many video game soundtracks I enjoy where I either never look or never remember who composed it, especially for old Konami games or games with multiple composers, but these folks are among the usual suspects for my vgm entertainment.

 

Nobuo Uematsu - Final Fantasy series

Akira Yamaoka - Silent Hill series

Sega Sound Team (so many different members and composers) - Outrun, After Burner, Super Hang-On

Yumiko Kanki - F-Zero, Star Fox 2

Barry Leitch - Top Gear, Horizon Chase Turbo

David Wise - Donkey Kong Country Series, Wizards & Warriors series, Battletoads series

Grant Kirkhope and Graeme Norgate - Goldeneye 007, Perfect Dark

Kevin Schilder - Hexen, Heretic

Jake Kaufman - Ultionus, Shovel Knight

Stuart Rynn - Ancient Aliens, Heartland

Edited October 28, 2022 by Lippeth

[Remilia Scarlet]

ZUN (Touhou)
Lee Jackson (ROTT and Duke3D is what I know mostly him for)
Bobby Prince (Doom 1/2, ROTT, Duke3D, DemonStar, bunch of others)
Tomomi Ootani (Herzog Zwei, Thunder Force 2 and 3)

Jeroen Tel (Fucking CYBERNOID 1 AND 2 and ROBOCOP 3 on the C64, hnnnnggggggggg)

Rob Hubbard (Monty on the Run, Commando, Road Rash 1 and 2)

David Whittaker (Shadow of The Beast, Obliterator)
Allister Brimble (Descent 1 and 2, a ton of others)

Chris Huelsbeck (The Turrican series)
Hiroyuki Kawada (Valkyrie no Densetsu)

Masahiro Kajihara, Kenichi Arakawa, Ryu Takami (Rusty on the PC-98)
Whoever composed the music for Night Slave on the PC-98

Also:

[Silhouette 03]

Andrew Hulshult-Dusk
Akira Yamaoka- Silent Hill Series( specifically 1 and 2, never really played anything onwards. Mostly because Silent Hill 3 is expensive to get a copy of.)

Joel Nielson- Black Mesa

Kelly Bailey- Half Life and Half Life 2

Garoad- Va11HallA( still need to finish this, so no spoilers please)

 

 

 

[hurtchow]

Koji Kondo (Super Mario, Legend of Zelda) and Nobuo Uematsu (Final Fantasy) are elite and pretty untouchable.

 

Bobby Prince is kind of a hack. I am only saying "kind of" because everyone here seems to love him.

 

As far as Doom music goes, James Paddock is easily the best.

 

Still, Kondo and Uematsu are on such a high level, head and shoulders above all the rest.

[heliumlamb]

Kota Hoshino without question or hesitation.

Spoiler

from hasn't allowed him to do anything other sound design (something that from software has been consistently exceptional at for 28 years) since armored core v because they are cowards. [or because armored core vi doesn't exist (that we are aware of)]

 

 

Tsukasa Saitoh, from the same sound team.
 

Spoiler

 

 

also:

hip tanaka
manabu namiki

matt furniss

alexander brandon
hirochi kawaguchi

ayaka saso
shinji hosoe
nobuyuki shioda

tim follin

to name a few, there's a lot of video games and lot of music in video games

Edited October 28, 2022 by heliumlamb

[Redneckerz]

• Alexander Brandon by far. His guitar synth sample is amazing. Also the entire UT99 soundtrack. (Necros, Michiel van den Bos)
• Hulshult
• The Excessive Speed soundtrack
• Atomic Bomberman soundtrack
• Jimmy 
• Tim Follin's speccy work is amazing

But seriously just Alexander Brandon. Even his non-game work is baller:

 

 

[Caffeine Freak]

Ho boy. 

 

I have a videogame music playlist in my music library that's *just* over 5 days long. I've been growing it for over a decade. What better way to flaunt it than this thread? I'll list the composer in question, and the videogame music that I favor them for. Here we go:

 

- Jason Graves (First 3 Dead Space games, F.E.A.R. 3)

- Mick Gordon (Doom 2016, Doom Eternal, Wolfenstein TNC and TNO, Killer Instinct reboot Seasons 1 and 2)

- David Levy (Doom Eternal DLCs)

- Andrew Hulshult (Doom Eternal DLCs, a bunch of amazing Doom remakes, Prodeus, Dusk and Dusk '82, Wrath: Aeon of Ruin)

- Aubrey Hodges (Doom 64, Doom Playstation, Quake 3 Arena for Sega Saturn w/Dale Stump)

- Bobby Prince (Classic Dooms, Duke Nukem 3D, Wolfenstein 3D)

- Lee Jackson (Duke Nukem 3D + Atomic Edition, prefer his DN3D tracks over Bobby Prince's)

- Mike Norvak (Makes some *amazing* Duke Nukem covers, go check him out on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NoiseBoulderRecords)

- Kevin Schilder (all the Heretic/Hexen soundtracks)

- Dan Forden (all classic Mortal Kombat games, MK: Deadly Alliance and MK: Deception)

- Daniel Bernstein (Blood soundtrack)

- Marcin "Cedyń" Czartyński (Painkiller)

- Cris Velasco (Carrion)  

- Trent Reznor (Quake)

- Jarkko Rotsten (Ion Fury)

- Jesper Kyd and Rom Di Prisco (Unreal Tournament 3)

- James Paddock (too many fucking classic Doom WAD MIDIs to list, the Prodeus MIDI soundtrack)

[Antroid]

Paul Anthony Romero (Might and Magic + Heroes of M&M)

Damjan Mravunac (Serious Sam games)

David Wise (donkey kong countries)

 

I don't really wanna name a bunch of people who composed just 1 soundtrack I really like, that'd be a huge list, but these three are ones that pop into my mind immediately because they have done soundtracks for whole game series, with great consistency and nothing but bangers.

[Herr Dethnout]

 

 

• Michiru Yamane
• Yuzo Koshiro
• Jake Kaufman
• Lee Jackson
• Yuzo Koshiro
• Aubrey Hodges
• Robert Prince
• Yuzo Koshiro
• The entire Konami Kukeiha Club
• Mick Gordon (He's a Mastering GOD)
• Did I said Yuzo Koshiro?

[yakfak]

 

i forgot who wrote this but it is definitely my fave bit of vg music. probably a team of three japanese guys who then got fired or whatever. so compositionally clever, so against type for a fighting game (albeit the most stylish fighting game!)

 

other faves:

generally all the namco sound staff for things like the Klonoa 2 and Tekken 3 soundtracks which are indescribably fantastic

chris huelsbeck's Turrican 2

uematsu's FF7 8 & 9 obviously, the earlier stuff is neat but nothing matters until he brings in the distorted tambo

matthias steinwachs for Lionheart and the Amber games

i heard some great mathy tunes in more recent DS soundtracks, i know there's some killer writing digimon things and going mental on castlevania rip-off games but I am just not that good with names

 

... and eric heberling's Daggerfall (I know Morrowind is the tech answer for people who like gravitas and timbre n shit but I like weird composition)

Edited October 28, 2022 by yakfak

[Biodegradable]

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned them yet, so I'm going to shout-out Marty O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori for their incredible scores in the early Halo trilogy. The second game's soundtrack especially will always have a place in my heart. When I'm ever asked about what I think is some truly iconic game music from the past decade or so, Halo's is always the first that comes to my mind. Here's a couple of my favourites:

 

 

Edited October 28, 2022 by Biodegradable

[Rudolph]

Glenn Stafford and Derek Duke, composers of the many WarCraft and StarCraft soundtracks.

 

Duane Decker, composer of MechWarrior 3 and MechWarrior 3: Pirate's Moon, MechWarrior 4: Vengeance and MechWarrior 4: Black Knight as well as the two MechCommander games.

 

Jeewun Hewang, composer of MechWarrior 2 and its expansions as well as the two Quake expansions.

[ReaperAA]

• Frank Klepacki: The mastermind behind most the C&C franchise's OST. If stuff like Hell March doesn't hype you up, I don't know what can.
• Alexander Brandon: Love his work in UT99. Kick ass OST of a kick ass game.
• Michiel van den Bos: If Brandon is my favorite composer for UT99, then Michiel is my favorite for Unreal 1. His tracks are the most quintessentially "Unreal" of all the tracks in the game. Really atmospheric.
• Dan Wentz: His work in Red Faction is fantastic with Accused and Spectre being my favorite tracks of the game.
• Sonic Mayhem: Quake 2 is good game (there I said it you Q2 haters :p), but likely wouldn't have been half as good if it wasn't for the OST of the game. Easily the best part of the game.
• Will Loconto and Will Nevins: Daikatana may be a game with many faults, but OST isn't one of them. The game's OST is actually quite fantastic I would say with Kick Action being my favorite track.
• Lee Jackson: If Sonic Mayhem is to Quake 2, then Lee Jackson is to ROTT. Despite never getting myself to play the game, I love listening to the games's OST on YT. His work in Duke3D is also fantastic.

[MrFroz]

Yoko Shimomura. This is just some of what she is capable of:

 

 

 

[Rudolph]

35 minutes ago, ReaperAA said:

Dan Wentz: His work in Red Faction is fantastic with Accused and Spectre being my favorite tracks of the game.

Yes! Red Faction was ultimately little more than a serviceable Half-Life clone, but its soundtrack is phenomenal and belongs in the Descent game that ultimately became Red Faction. Speaking of Descent, I read that Dan Wentz went on to work on the Descent spiritual successor Overload!

Edited October 28, 2022 by Rudolph

[LadyMistDragon]

Koji Kondo

Nobuo Uematsu

Grant Kirkhope

Graeme Norgate

David Wise

Tommy Tallarico

Brian Luzietti

Frank Klepacki

Minako Hamano

Yoku Shimomura

Glenn Stafford

Lee Jackson

Kevin Schilder

Alexander Brandon

Darren Mitchell

Tokuhiko Uwabo

Chris Huelsbeck

Shoji Meguro

Tenpei Sato

Stuart Ross

Edited October 30, 2022 by LadyMistDragon

[BGreener]

Plenty have been named already. I’ll mention Keiichi Okabe for his Drakengard and Nier work, British Sea Power for the most moving game soundtrack since Silent Hill 2…

 

But I have to give it up to my man, Manfred Linzner.

 

Like holy crap, what even.

 

Also: Hot Dad, did a bunch of stuff for Hypnospace Outlaw and now I’m a big fan.

Edited October 28, 2022 by BGrieber

[ReaperAA]

1 hour ago, Rudolph said:

Yes! Red Faction was ultimately little more than a serviceable Half-Life clone

 

WHY YOU LITTLE !!!...

 

 

... Actually, you aren't entirely wrong and it's not as great as HL from a level design point, but Red Faction is still really good game. The MP in RF1 is really great.

[MrFroz]

Kurt Harland and Jim Hedges did a great job with the soundtrack for the first two Soul Reaver games:

 

 

[Rudolph]

18 minutes ago, ReaperAA said:

WHY YOU LITTLE !!!...

 

 

... Actually, you aren't entirely wrong and it's not as great as HL from a level design point, but Red Faction is still really good game. The MP in RF1 is really great.

Oh, I had fun with the first one too - at least, until the game starts throwing railgun-toting mercenaries, that is. :S

 

But honestly, I wish it could have remained Descent 4 instead.

[scalliano]

Yuzo Koshiro

Jesper Kyd

Aubrey Hodges

Takeshi Yoshida

Chris Tilton

Mick Gordon

Andrew Hulshult

Kris Madigan

Lance Hayes

Yuki Iwai

Go Sato

Nathan McCree

Sasha (he did a large portion of Wip3out's OST, if Trent Reznor counts, then...)

Edited November 1, 2022 by scalliano

[Wyrmwood]

Not great at remembering composers names to be honest, but I few times I've searched a soundtrack I really liked it's been by Jesper Kyd. Most recently when I played Assassins Creed 2, the music on that games amazing and really fits the setting too.

 

The Dragon Quest music by Koichi Sugiyama is my favorite game music ever though. It's a real shame he's not around for DQ12 it'll be the first Dragon Quest without his music. DQ 11 didn't have the best music in the series (though it is good) but I really appreciated how he'd made two versions of the soundtrack, a full orchestral and an old school MIDI one. 

[Doom_Dude]

Nobody mentioned this guy yet and he's one of my favorites for sure....

 

Jeremy Soule

[leejacksonaudio]

/* pops his head in */

/* looks around */

/* says a huge... */

 

THANK YOU!!!!!

 

/* ...to all who've mentioned him */

/* pops back out */