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Jazz and Gaming Soundtracks

Pleased that Skullgirls is thoroughly covered, well I'm still throwing another in for my beloved Jazzvania.

For something a bit different Gunpoint has a moody jazz OST to match its sneaky night-time stealthing.

And Ace Attorney has that spiffy jazz album, never mind Godot, I'm all about that Trucy theme.
 
Everyone here should check out the Chrono Trigger and Ace Attorney Jazz arrange albums. Both of them are so fucking good.
 
mcmmaster said:
The Legend of Heroes: Trail in the Sky - Sophisticated Fight

Also has an incredible jazz arrange version
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The Kamikura arrange is orgasmic. I should replace the regular boss theme from TitS FC with it for my next playthrough.

flohen95 said:
They are, for example, basis for the fictional band DCMC from Mother 3.
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IDK, T-Square has a pretty specific history, such that you'd notice if any fictional band was referencing it. But yes, the band (along with Casiopea and others) had a major influence on Japanese game music.
 
Jazz Fusion pretty much shaped most of the landscape for Japanese game music. It's been very mainstream over there so it was only natural that fledging game composers started emulating their influences.
 
From extremely-obscure games, Clockwork Knight 2 has some pretty jazzy stage music.

For well-known games, Sonic Generations has a really snazzy remix of Casino Night Zone. Sonic Adventure's Casinopolis stage is no slouch, as well. For not-casino-related jazz, Unleashed brings forth the woefully unfitting Werehog battle theme, Skyscraper Scamper Day, Empire City Day, Arid Sands Night, Spagonia Day, even Crimson Carnival (Eggmanland) to a degree (when the pianos kick in)... Kenichi Tokoi, in particular, does a lot of jazz music when he gets to work on Sonic soundtracks, and it's usually oddly fitting.

For completely-missing-the-point, Jazz Jackrabbit has awesome music that isn't really jazz at all. I mean, Medivo!
 
Shadow Hog said:
From extremely-obscure games, Clockwork Knight 2 has some pretty jazzy stage music.

For well-known games, Sonic Generations has a really snazzy remix of Casino Night Zone. Sonic Adventure's Casinopolis stage is no slouch, as well. For not-casino-related jazz, Unleashed brings forth the woefully unfitting Werehog battle theme, Skyscraper Scamper Day, Empire City Day, Arid Sands Night, Spagonia Day, even Crimson Carnival (Eggmanland) to a degree (when the pianos kick in)... Kenichi Tokoi, in particular, does a lot of jazz music when he gets to work on Sonic soundtracks, and it's usually oddly fitting.

For completely-missing-the-point, Jazz Jackrabbit has awesome music that isn't really jazz at all. I mean, Medivo!
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What do you mean Jazz Jackrabbit isn't Jazzy? It's right there in the name. :P Sad, there hasn't been another entry in that series. But it seems now all that Epic cares about is Gears. I don't count an unfinished alpha of a game.
 
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Acid Jazz Baby!
 
Shadow Hog said:
For well-known games, Sonic Generations has a really snazzy remix of Casino Night Zone. Sonic Adventure's Casinopolis stage is no slouch, as well. For not-casino-related jazz, Unleashed brings forth the woefully unfitting Werehog battle theme, Skyscraper Scamper Day, Empire City Day, Arid Sands Night, Spagonia Day, even Crimson Carnival (Eggmanland) to a degree (when the pianos kick in)... Kenichi Tokoi, in particular, does a lot of jazz music when he gets to work on Sonic soundtracks, and it's usually oddly fitting.
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Oh yes! How could I forget Sonic games :P
I think there is a pattern here, I wonder if Jazz usually fits platformers more for some reason haha
 
Oh, right, one more Sonic entry: Spring Stadium Act 1 on the Saturn. That soundtrack basically runs the gamut of genre selection, but at least this one stage gets a wonderfully Vegas-y piece. (And it blows the pants off the Genesis version's mediocre music for Spring Stadium. Seriously, other zones have great tracks, but Spring Stadium's was so phoned-in in comparison.)
 
Some tracks that come to mind:

F-Zero GX's Shotgun Kiss, the Casino Palace theme. The game isn't generally jazzy, but this track strikes the perfect tone for the stage it plays on.

Another awesome JDK arrangement, Prelude to the Omen from Ys Origin

I'm not sure if this really should count, as I'm not sure what this style should actually be called, but it's jazz inspired and a phenomenal performance so I'll post it anyway: Theme of D4, from D4, obviously. The theme "Salvation" that's performed before it also has some jazz/blues roots.
 
I love the Japanese version of Gran Turismo's Jazz tracks. And katamari series. I think there were a few Japanese games that lost their jazz soundtracks when they went overseas
 
Thoraxes said:
Everyone here should check out the Chrono Trigger and Ace Attorney Jazz arrange albums. Both of them are so fucking good.
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Chrono Trigger The Brink of Time is the name of that one it is also a selection of genres. There is some jazz but also blues, bosa nova. Some of the tracks do drag on a bit.
 
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