Generation 5 was a time of some upheaval, and this was felt in the soundtrack front as well. The new scope of CD techonology had emerged from the earlier experiments on the optical storage of Generation 4s early 1x/2x speed drives, opening up new areas for greater fidelity and even live compositions. Within this time of plenty, there was produced an embarassment of riches (especially in the white-hot realm of JRPGs). 8 of these following Top 10 are these artists' greatest achievements. Man, what a generation.
#1 Chrono Cross ; (Yasunori Mitsuda)
This is it: Not just Mitsuda's masterpiece, CC is The Masterpiece of Masterpieces. A wonderous journey thru celtic, caribeean, okinawan music within an often downtempo filter leading to a constant prescense of aching meloncholy (thanks upthread for that word). Mitsuda worked himself entirely too hard on this, even going as far as recreating the sound of fingers sliding down strings in entirely electronical songs.
Every single track is not just solid, each is exemplary. At least two dozen of these tracks would be the best track on most other soundtracks; it is unreal just how much melodic, tonal, and temporal magnificence is in this work. The exuberant strings of
Scars of Time, the heart-rending beauty of the title screen's
Garden of God, the exuberant anticipation of the attract mode's
The Dream that Time Dreams...the pensive duty of
Dragon Knight, the playful distraction of
Dilemma paint scenes with such grace. It has the finest set of overworld thems in
Fields of Time,
On the Beach of Dreams,
Voyage (Another World),
Voyage (Home World), accompanying the wonderous level tunes of the haunting
Shadow Forest, the spirited-then-pensive
Drowned Valley, the raucus
Gaea's Navel.
I also felt that Mitsuda truly excelled at something he's mentioned in the past as not being fond of writing: battle themes.
Between Life and Death,
FATE,
Dragon God, and the oft misunderstood
Gale are some of the most creatively used uptempo and abrupt time signatures that categorize battle tracks in the industry.
The crown jewel of the soundtrack is the unnervingly sublime
Frozen Flame. Equally soothing and alien, each time signature acts as a sentence describing the artifact in question as the dangerous Macguffin that it is.
This is divine craft from mortal hands!
#2 Vagrant Story ; (Hitoshi Sakimoto)
It may have been forgotten at the end of the previous generation that "cinematic" in video games used to not be a four-letter word that signified a watery, narrow soundtracks with stereotypically submissive violas sawing on whole notes and random trumpet blares hammering home simple, one-dimensional emotion cues. No, in the 90s, before ballooning development costs and the self-defeating desperation of video games being as "respectable as film", and that meant this was the era of developers exploring types of gameplay, narrative forms, and music that hadn't before been possible and the advancement on all three fronts walked, no bolted forth arm-in-arm at rocket speed. Behold, Hitoshi Sakimoto's masterpiece Vagrant Story.
The opening cutscene track of
Climax of the Greylands Incident, is what all the talk about music needing to follow the action fail repeatedly to rise to the level of time and time again 15 years out; that transition from Sydney's unearthly "leitmotif" to the wyvern battle is one of the absolute highlights of the entire history of video game music composition. You get similar from each of the cutscene compositions, like
The Hare Lays Out Snares or
A Meeting, in fact.
There is so much this game's soundtrack takes on this chaotic, sinister-sounding form of Sakimoto's famed drums of war with unnerving time signatures like
Kali, the echoey descent into the very bowels of the earth in
Abandoned Mine First Level,
Limestone Cave, and especially
Abandoned Mine Second Level, the aggressive build of
Tieger and Neesa, or the savage, beastial polyrhythm of
Golem. Oh, don't worry, you still get his more hinged orchestral battle tracks with uplifting
Ifrit and the glorious climbs of
Wyvern.
Haunting tracks abound in this adding weight to the tale, like the pensive
Factory, the melodic wonder that is
Staff Roll, or
Joshua with its emphasis on arpeggios falling like the tears that no longer come from that young boy's eyes.
#3 Castlevania: Symphony of the Night ; (Michiru Yaname)
When I got my PSX, (after selling my Saturn), I was greeted by three ladies' wonderful masterpieces which got me to really really appreciate music on a deeper scale than I had even when enjoying YM2412 goodness on the Genesis. And those three are here and comprise the next three entries. First up, Yamane's masterpiece Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.
From the openning salvo of the
Dracula's Castle remix Yamane takes you on a Redbook trip to remember, dancing thru baroque, metal, and ambient masterpieces. Dances of
Gold,
Pearls, and
Illusions paint the deadly decadence of Akumajou Dracula in sumptuous audial finery.
Tragic Prince brings the hard rock thunder,
Marble Corridor howls,
Rainbow Cemetery's driving piano arppeggio, and the snazzy jazzy
Wandering Ghosts are all too, too good. Want some downtempo? We got that in
Crystal Teardrops! Man, this album is electric hot fire.
#4 Suikoden 1 ; (Miki "Miki-Chang" Hagashino)
There was a strong love wave for Celtic music sweeping certain segments of Japanese musicians around 20 years ago, something that really spoke to my heritage listening in America playing Japanese video games. And nowhere did that tartan flower bloom stronger than Miki Hagashino's magnum opus Suikoden I.
Having lots of room left on the CD to fill after the overgrown SFC game was put in, Miki-Chang went yard with beautiful arresting composition after beautiful, arresting composition. Climb distant peaks with
this marching in your head, or bonding scenes thruout the series with
Theme of a Moonlit Night, grow uncomfortable in the ominous decadence of
Passacaria, span leagues of the earth with
Tiny Characters in a Huge World.
Suikoden 1 may have the greatest collection of town themes in VGM history.
Old Irish Song,
Glorious Island Fortress (that flute!),
A Gathering of Warriors (that bodhrán!),
Forgotten Days (that guitar!), and
Peaceful People (that...wow what a mashup).
It wasn't all gaelic wonders, sometimes she'd dive into Prokofiev-ian waters with
Black Forest or Chinese with
Into the Silence for extra spice.
#5 Wild Arms 1 ; (Michiko Naruke)
Naruke tells the tale from time to time of her schooling where a music teacher had a deep fascination with Ennio Morricone and how it affected her composition (which very fortuitously involved a western-themed JRPG!). The thing is, this parallels the fanbase of this soundtrack's fascination with the opening cinema's track, but unfortuitously causes the rest of the album to be ignored.
She shows her mastery of great theming of killer melodies with
Adlehyde Castle,
The Prologue Begins From Here, and
Morning of the Journey. Can do peaceful as well with tracks like
Villiage of the Elw, or action-packed like the inticing
Knights' Quarters.
Some really great unsettling themes in this as well like
Demon Tower that Pierces the Heavens,
Holy Mother of Darkness,
After the Chaos and Destruction, and especially
Castle in Flames.
I love this game's short battle themes with some great tension like with
M-Boss,
Battle with Zeik,
Demon Battle, and
Power Battle.
Pretty good for an OST that gets pigeonholed as all Spaghetti Western fare like
Rudy's Companions,
Wh-What?!?,
Town,
Marsh Where the Migrant Birds Gather, huh?
#6 Final Fantasy Tactics ; (Masaharu Iwata & Hitoshi Sakimoto)
Steeped in the works of storied composers Holst, Prokofiev, Wagner, and Mussogorsky, Sakimoto and his colleague and cohort Iwata have scored each of Matsuno's deep, involved, mature titles with the depth, involvement, and maturity of composition they need to succeed. One of the most famous, and the one that stands truest and tallest in the most minds from riding in on a wave of fascination after FF7: Final Fantasy Tactics.
Elegant, morose and brooding, with the rare cheerful tweets of flutes and strings feeling like naivety unaware of the grinding gears of fate and nations plowing under those around them, going from the jubilant
Tutorial and
Character Introductions to the harsh bitter
Prologue Movie, Delita's Theme, and (it doesn't help every cutscene this is in is fucked up beyond belief)
Ovelia's Worries Showing you just how far this game is going.
The battle themes are more numerous and of a higher quality than most every other game ever made. One after another after another running from icy melancholy to atonal menace to soaring bombast and all in between. Magnificent.
Under the Stars
Trisection
Tension 1
Run Past Thru the Plains
Battle on the Bridge
Night Attack
...and many, many more.
#7 Star Ocean 2 ; (Motoi Sakuraba)
My word what an intellectual and emotional tour-de-force by such a wrongfully detracted composer. This is easily Sakuraba's greatest soundtrack, using this wonderful reverb to give every track this warm, full depth that alot of tracks of later eras lack. It engauges tasteful baroque of
Ceremight,
Shower of Blossoms,
Feel Refreshed to the ominous minor key of
Heraldic Emblem,
Pyroxene,
Intangible Body, to the heartfelt agony of
Theme of Rena to the raucous energy of
KA.MI.KA.ZE,
Endlessly, and
Moderate to the longform magnificence of
Field of Nede,
Field of Expel, and
We Form in Crystals there is this constant sophisticated mastery all over this soundtrack.
Also brutal, hardcore prog metal battle themes of JUSTICE!
Dynamite, Shiver, Tangency, Bird of Prey, Mighty Blow, and
Incarnation of the Devil
GOD to have him back at Limiter-Off level again.
#8 Soukaigi ; (Hiroki Kikuta)
Kikuta's masterwork, the absolute greatest manifestation of his famous attention to detail, lively (and now LIVE) creations, and staccato-filled composing, and just a complete beauty of a soundtrack. Like with Hagashino and Yamane in the Kukeiha Club above, Kikuta set out to put this newish to consoles medium thru its paces with mostly live recordings from him and colleagues giving it every recording that famed Kikuta depth.
Just start here and listen to the whole damn thing. You have masterclass efforts in tone, tempo, polyrhythm, cadence, and countermelodies. The biggest gems in this crown are
Energy, Absolute Lady, Quake, and especially the radiantly resplendant
Fire Wire.
#9 Final Fantasy VIII ; (Nobuo Uematsu)
Uematsu has a much stronger grasp on the new Sony soundchip in VIII than he did in VII, and the strong tone of his samples mirror the strong tone he sets with in this composition. It feels much more like a complete saga or a concept album than any soundtrack he's ever done, and is incredibly strong for it.
It veers from playful to touching to rockin' to unsettling to awe-inspiring without ever overindulging to reach those limits. It's almost in love with returning
again and
again to waltzes (ostensiably to mirror Squall and Rinoa's brief moments of relationship-building affection), to the tasteful baroque of
The Castle or
Fithos Lusec Wecos Vinose to the militaristic forcefullness of
The Landing, The Mission, or
The Stage is Set, Uematsu aces one landing after another.
The battle themes are some of his best, going from
Force Your Way, Never Look Back, Man With the Machine Gun, and
The Extreme making for a great counterpoint to the calming
Balamb Garden or
Find Your Way before veering into unnerving territory with
Under Her Control,
The Spy, and the extra ominous
Lunatic Pandora
#10 The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time ; (Koji Kondo)
We haven't had much of Kondo's work in anywhere near this scale lately; similar to Miyamoto, he seems to be trusting more and more of duties that he and he himself alone burdened onto younger shoulders and overseeing the classic Nintendo sound. That's good! But what's better? His masterpiece, Ocarina of Time.
You have tasteful Mickey Mousing in
Shop, ominous Minimalism for dungeons in
Forest Temple, Inside the Deku Tree, Shadow Temple, Spirit Temple, and the ocarina restriction imparts this fugue effect leading to unforgettable simple melodies that grab hold and never let go in
Zelda's Lullaby, Kokiri Forest, Lost Woods, Temple of Time, and
Windmill Hut.
He touches base with inspiring work on instant classic zone themes like
Hyrule Field, Zora's Domain, and fan favorite
Gerudo Valley.
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