It Starts With You

Welcome to the forum!

Sounds like your tastes are wide and varied. Cool.

Yeah, I find video game music from Japan to be particularly impressive. In the West, great music that isn't from live performers tends to get funneled into Hollywood and the like, but in Japan it's much more diverse and their copyright-heavy laws have kept the industry healthy. So I take many Japanese game composers as being serious. (I can't comment on recent trends, however, since I don't play modern games.) Curious which artists you were referring to when you mentioned synths.

Thanks! ٩(｡•ω•｡)و



Had Mega Drive around 1999 - 2001, my only carts were Disney's Aladdin, Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster's Hidden Treasure, Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, Adventures of Batman & Robin and Jurassic Park. At same time my neighbour had PS1 so we played Tekken 3 and Hogs of War when i visited him. About 2001 i got (kinda outdated) PC, and ended up computer-only for many years after that. Point & click adventures like Torin's Passage, first person shooters like Half-Life, simulators like MechWarrior 3, fightings like MKT and Virtua Fighter 2 were my jam back in those days. Only in late 2000s i dived into emulation, which then led to getting hardware PS2 and PSP in early 2010s (and now i also have Vita). In 2000s i was very heavy into story-based games like Silent Hill series or Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines, only like 6 years ago i caught arcadey itch into my veins.

As for Dreamcast, my top #3 story-heavy games would be Maken X, D2 and Illbleed. Holy trinity of weirdness for me. Other games that i appreciate (regardless if ports on other platforms or not) might include DOA2, Dynamite Deka 2, Jet Set Radio, Le Mans 24, Mars Matrix, SNK & Capcom titles, etc. etc. etc. I like Sega Naomi/Naomi 2/Atomiswave's library as well.



I would still say, that even in the West, game music was more "free" and "open to experimentation" compared to film/tv show soundtracks, at least until late 2000s (or when game industry became much wider and expensive).
Some of my all-time favorite game soundtracks from western composers: Atlantis The Lost Tales, Scorcher, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, Quake I, Ecco CD, Enemy Zero, Tetrisphere, Riverworld, Deus Ex...
However, would also note that many interesting soundtracks started appearing after boom of indie-games, which was pretty natural outcome due to freedom of artist in such cases. That includes mods/total conversions and homebrew/doujin scenes too (NG DEV Team always have amazing eurotrance in their games).



Japan surely treats VGM very seriously, just looking at all those CD/LD/vinyl releases... and amazing live concerts & arrangements. When i first saw some Taito's Zuntata 1990s concert videos, i was speechless. Judging from what i saw, arcade game composers during those times were like national heroes! Enjoyment and appreciation from auditory is gigantic.



Isao Tomita, Suzanne Ciani, Morton Subotnick, Michael Stearns, Lauri Paisley, Klaus Schulze, Vangelis, Mike Oldfield, Barry Schrader, Eduard Artemyev, even early Stockhausen - if mention some "oldies". Plenty of more modern/unknown artists, too.



Lack of japanese language knowledge prevents me to play most Saturn ones.
I like detective and/or horror themes overall. Among VNs that i read and liked is "Scar of the Doll". Here is trailer of remaster version. Another one is "Urban Legend: Shin Hayarigami - Blindman", not available in english anymore though. There are also games that are like partly VNs that have more gameplay moments to them, if that also counts. Played and loved "Ace Attorney Trilogy", "Ghost Trick", "The Silver Case". Looking forward playing/reading "428: Shibuya Scramble" (from authors of Saturn's "Machi"), Spirit Hunter: Death Mark, "999: 9 hours 9 persons 9 doors", "Tantei Jinguuji Saburou" and more.

P.S.
I feel very super ultra mega angry due fact of Segagaga Domain's closure... That website taught me 90% of what i know about Sega Saturn & Dreamcast.
٩(╬ʘ益ʘ╬)۶



It's also good for those of us who just can't allow themselves spend 24/7 sitting on discord/twitter/instagram and other "only current moment matters" platforms.

Hey iswy and welcome to NGF!

I'm glad you made it and I'm sure you'll fit in just right with what you just said. It's a super chill place indeed with most of the old NGFL core members still on board.

A few months after our launch we're still continiously working on several things on this forum, but I'm positive we're only growing in the right direction!

Also thanks for telling us some about your backstory, you seem knowledgable and experienced across multiple gaming platforms. Also happy to see another member being into visual novels - in the recent years I grew very attached to some of these (like Danganronpa, Muv-Luv, Raging Loop, Higurashi or the Zero Escape and Ace Attorney you mentioned)

Looking forward to see you around here or our monthly Discord chats (every first Sunday of a month)!

Welcome to NGF iswy, great to have you onboard!

I've always planned to get Killer7 for Gamecube but still haven't got round to it! Seems like quite an unusual game. I read a lot about it at the time. The games Capcom were releasing at that time were just amazing

Welcome to the forum!

Hope to see you post often. Do you have a Dreamcast these days?