Fuck my life. Every cool thread happens when I'm busy! Please PM me whenever anyone ever does these threads, I love video game music so much.
Master of Monster's been mentioned, but I think
Large Green Meadow is the better track from the game. Based Sakamoto really digs in deep with the bass frequencies, and I think it's heavier than Metal Squad (though nothing beats that track overall).
Player Phase 1 from the original Langrisser is one of the best battle tunes I know of—like the MD counterpart to Romancing Saga's Four Noble Devils jig. Iwadare kicks ass.
Alien Soldier's got an incredible, death-defying soundtrack from Norio Hanzawa. But, since everyone brings up either Runner 2012 AD or the game's version of Seven Force, I prefer talking about its amazing ending theme,
Oblivious Past. Crazy synth layers leading up to a generous fanfare—just the best.
This is a good place to mention it. If you like the sound of the Yamaha YM2612 (the Mega Drive sound chip) it is worth checking out the PC-98 as the Yamaha YM2203 sounds very similar (I think its the model before) while the Yamaha YM2608 adds another 10 channels so in a way is a glimpse into a synth future that never happened...
Ryu Umemoto* in particular did some noted work...a good example is
Teito from the visual novel game YU-NO: A girl who chants love at the bound of this world.
Further reading might be the Sharp X68000 with its YM2151+MSM6258 combo. But I guess its more PCM than FM Synth...
This is just as important. Umemoto is a given, true, but there are so many great artists who have done music on the PC-98 and its competitors.
Huh. Thunder Force remixes. Didn't know they were hiding in a pinball game! (But then I only recently learned of the awesomeness that is Thunder Force soundtracks, sooo...) These actually sound better than the versions from Thunder Force III and II, respectively.
They do, and that's because Toshiharu Yamanishi got better at arranging older tracks very quickly. The entirety of Thunder Force IV, when compared to his work on III and Elemental Master, is a testament to this.
Here are the original demo tracks Takenouchi transferred to the game version (I'm assuming, anyway). Wonderful musician, and the perfect choice for Climax's definitive game.