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[dark_inferno]

1.Hotline Miami
2.Sound Shapes
3.FTL

 

[spekkeh]

Poor Clint Mansell. Getting ignored at the Oscars may have stung a bit. Getting ignored at GAF, ouch.

 

[Dark Schala]

Ahaha.

If I'd played Mass Effect 3 then maybe... But I've never played a single ME game so I don't want to spoil soundtracks for myself.

...and another voting period has come to a close! This was easily this topic's most successful year yet, both in the number of participants and the depth of discussion. As always, we would like to thank everyone that participated for taking the time to celebrate these composers' fine works.

The results thread will be ready a week from today at the latest, but I'm hoping to have it done in just a couple of days. It will include NeoGAF's top 15 soundtracks, a finalized archive with every soundtrack that has been mentioned here (along with quotes from your descriptions), a miniature discography for the winning composers, and a brief/voluntary survey for those that want to give us some feedback.

Until that is posted, people are more than welcome to continue the discussion here, but no votes past this point will be counted.

Partially reposting for a new page for people on 50 ppp.

But also for the bolded, outside of the hiccup with regards to licensed/partially licensed soundtracks (something that I don't think anyone would've predicted to have become a controversial issue this year), I think this year's thread went pretty darn well! Timing was good, conversation was good, and I have to wonder if you guys felt less pressure since you didn't have to compile the entirety of the archive all at once.

 

[zkylon]

Poor Clint Mansell. Getting ignored at the Oscars may have stung a bit. Getting ignored at GAF, ouch.

To be honest, I felt the Clint Mansell hand was barely on the ME3 soundtrack, with the exception of the absolutely awesome main theme.

How many did he actually compose? I would've loved to have him actually direct the soundtrack rather than just a couple themes.

 

[Dark Schala]

To be honest, I felt the Clint Mansell hand was barely on the ME3 soundtrack, with the exception of the absolutely awesome main theme.

How many did he actually compose? I would've loved to have him actually direct the soundtrack rather than just a couple themes.

Apparently according to the album credits (and I used the premium album credits to be sure), he composed Leaving Earth and co-composed An End, Once and For All.

 

[Datschge]

(Sorry for infesting the thread with all this useless Sakuraba related trivia and congratulations for a voting thread well managed.)

That's a coherent reading, I think, but what I meant actually matched what you argued at the beginning. This seemed like it had, in some sense, gestated before the project began. He had a sound, and this was the opportunity to play with it. I guess I lost the thread of your argument that he's building his palette. So, you see his earliest stuff and Valkyrie Profile as 1 "color," his Tales Of as another, his Tri- as another, and this as a 4th? From which experience did this build?

1 pushback: are the various Tales Of soundtrack re-packagings and rearrangements all Namco-Bandai just looking for easy money? Between that and him having solo "artist" albums, I'm slightly skeptical of your egoless depiction of him.

In terms of "colors" Beyond the Labyrinth build upon a kind of New Age style that he used for specific tracks before (e.g. first as a track in Cosmic Fantasy 4, ToP's Stream of Time, the intro FMV of Eternia etc., mostly music that didn't make it on any official releases) combined with the more repetitive baroque rhythmic melodic composing style that Sakuraba mostly stopped using in favour of more realistic instrument usage during the switch from sequenced to streamed music. So for me Beyond the Labyrinth turned out to move a neglected style to the forefront that also finally offered a way to Sakuraba to combine the new realistic aesthetics with those of his classic sequenced compositions. I'd also like to state that Sakuraba does very well at significantly vary the "color" between different games and series (and the fact that Wolfteam developed games in many different genres resulted in plenty "colors" back then), but I can understand plenty people are not exactly eager to hunt down his more obscure works not easily listenable on soundtrack releases to hear even more of him.

Unlike other freelance game composers (notably Mitsuda) Sakuraba doesn't care about keeping the right to his works (so Bandai Namco keeping reusing specific themes is not something Sakuraba or Tamura can influence, though it does appear they get to redo it themselves at times as a way to get paid again for the reuse). He however stated to like being involved in sequels and be able to redo his music in his own styles outside of the limitations of games, an opportunity first Camelot and then tri-Ace gave him. The whole Tales issue is a very tricky story by the way, the lack of crediting is affecting his wife (a big fan of his work) of all people, what I heard from my source (who for asking got himself and me a bad standing with her as well) is that Tamura has no good standing with them and she was pushing for Sakuraba doing Tales alone for a long time (believing this already happened far sooner, Tamura going by the name Aoyama was possibly a ploy related to this). Sakuraba doing the diverse Tales arrange CDs (Bandai Namco only willing to pay them as part of prerelease or premium bonuses, the CD releases being licensed and paid by Team Entertainment) was a way to reclaim some of his pieces to his name.

 

[GhaleonQ]

(Sorry for infesting the thread with all this useless Sakuraba related trivia and congratulations for a voting thread well managed.)

No way. That firsthand knowledge is fascinating. Thanks!

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

(Sorry for infesting the thread with all this useless Sakuraba related trivia and congratulations for a voting thread well managed.)



In terms of "colors" Beyond the Labyrinth build upon a kind of New Age style that he used for specific tracks before (e.g. first as a track in Cosmic Fantasy 4, ToP's Stream of Time, the intro FMV of Eternia etc., mostly music that didn't make it on any official releases) combined with the more repetitive baroque rhythmic melodic composing style that Sakuraba mostly stopped using in favour of more realistic instrument usage during the switch from sequenced to streamed music. So for me Beyond the Labyrinth turned out to move a neglected style to the forefront that also finally offered a way to Sakuraba to combine the new realistic aesthetics with those of his classic sequenced compositions. I'd also like to state that Sakuraba does very well at significantly vary the "color" between different games and series (and the fact that Wolfteam developed games in many different genres resulted in plenty "colors" back then), but I can understand plenty people are not exactly eager to hunt down his more obscure works not easily listenable on soundtrack releases to hear even more of him.

Unlike other freelance game composers (notably Mitsuda) Sakuraba doesn't care about keeping the right to his works (so Bandai Namco keeping reusing specific themes is not something Sakuraba or Tamura can influence, though it does appear they get to redo it themselves at times as a way to get paid again for the reuse). He however stated to like being involved in sequels and be able to redo his music in his own styles outside of the limitations of games, an opportunity first Camelot and then tri-Ace gave him. The whole Tales issue is a very tricky story by the way, the lack of crediting is affecting his wife (a big fan of his work) of all people, what I heard from my source (who for asking got himself and me a bad standing with her as well) is that Tamura has no good standing with them and she was pushing for Sakuraba doing Tales alone for a long time (believing this already happened far sooner, Tamura going by the name Aoyama was possibly a ploy related to this). Sakuraba doing the diverse Tales arrange CDs (Bandai Namco only willing to pay them as part of prerelease or premium bonuses, the CD releases being licensed and paid by Team Entertainment) was a way to reclaim some of his pieces to his name.

:O

Bow DOWN that is some neat info, thanks.

 

[Qblivion]

1. Fez
2. Hotline Miami
3. Persona 4 Golden

 

[Dark Schala]

Sorry for bumping, but what I wanted to say sorta goes back to a few posts previously made in the thread.

Welp, I ordered Conception and its soundtrack but it's not going to get here quickly enough because I didn't pay for Air Mail (which means it's gonna be here in February, lol). I'm excited to hear the soundtrack because Kouda's been doing some good stuff lately (well, and in the mid-2000s). If the soundtrack ends up being good, I'm going to feel real bad for not including it in some capacity in my vote. Whatever, if it ends up being good, I could always do a writeup in the archives/results thread.

It's too bad we couldn't vote for arrange soundtracks or something. I started listening to some Ys Zanmai stuff last night and I think it's pretty good. I dunno how good it's going to be compared to Falcom Boss Zanmai.
Ex:
Ys Zanmai - The Depth Napishtim
Ys Zanmai - Crimson Wings

Falcom Boss Zanmai - The Strongest Foe (and I think this is pretty good considering my favourite version comes from the Perfect Collection / Ys III PCE)
Falcom Boss Zanmai - Blue Dragon
Falcom Boss Zanmai - Inevitable Struggle (how could I leave out one of my favourite battle themes of the forever omg and they're using FM synth *dies* so goooooooooood <3)

Hot Sakuraba Info.

Wow, thanks for this bit of info! I had no idea it was like that. :x

 

[Nert]

The results thread is now live and can be found here. You're more than welcome to pick up any conversations that were going on here and continue them over there, too.

 

[GhaleonQ]

NO NECRO BUMP ARGH.