Gotta be SaGa Scarlet Grace for me. Kenji Ito's quickly shot up as my favorite game composer in recent years, and in my opinion, this has to be his best work. It's pretty much the only soundtrack I listen to as a whole when I need background music to get something done. Normally I just seek out individual tracks, but this whole soundtrack is just a bop.
Best Mega Drive/Sega CD OST (in no particular order): Langrisser/Warsong Shining Force 2 Lunar the Silver Star /Edit: Gleylancer is awesome, as well, esp. stage 1 kicks ass. Gotta love Masaya.
Great picks! Here's an obscure one: The Dark Spire on DS had a great soundtrack IMO; the entire tracklist has two versions, an orchestrated one and one that leans into the 8-bit roots the game draws from. If you've never heard it, give it a listen! Also, The Lisa Collection is on Switch now, for those who don't play PC games! I haven't played all of these, but the ones I have, I can hear the soundtracks even if my sound was off. OMG THANK YOU, PS4 is my favorite RPG ever! I hum the music to myself on the regular, even though I last played it a decade ago!
Love to see phantasy star IV appreciation, it was the first video game I ever played and I'll never get the dark force fight music dislodged from my brain for my entire life
I almost always default to Actraiser, but you mentioned it, so that's okay. Final Fantasy Tactics opening tune still gives me goosebumps every time I hear it, and the entire OST is remarkable. Also, the fact that you have to justify your love for anything related to Phantasy Star IV means there are people walking this planet that are wasting our oxygen. There are few JRPGs that deserve to even be mentioned in the same conversation, let alone the same sentence as Phantasy Star IV. It is perhaps the finest example of The Hero's Journey in JRPGs, and the character death that occurs in the game was pretty much the equivalent of killing The Boss in Metal Gear Solid 3. If it was possible for a man to cry, it would have been there. Even better, they kept the character dead, so their sacrifice MEANT something. While I lament that we will never get a Phantasy Star V, the series went out on top, didn't sell out, and will be remembered as perfect. A truly fitting capstone on the legacy of the Genesis. Also, I haven't always been nice to you, but I felt really bad about you having your house broken into and your Genesis stolen. That's tough. I was a police officer for a long time and dealt with a lot of victims of crime. When your world is violated like that, it makes you feel weak and exposed. I'm very sorry you had to go through that, and I'm glad it didn't make you bitter. You're a better person than I gave you credit for.
the trails series has so many amazing osts trails in the sky the 3rd, trails of cold steel 3 and trails to azure are some of my favourite osts of all time if you've only played sky fc then you're in for quite a ride
Some ones that I think are great OSTs that weren't mentioned are Stella Glow, D&D Warriors of the Eternal Sun, Dark Wizard, and I also love listening to Elder Scrolls Oblivion stuff when I am working and need something that won't draw my focus. Awesome list!
Solid list! I prefer FF 7 to FF 6 as far as music goes (in Europe FF 7 was the first JRPG for many of us, besides Phantasy Star), but 6 is great too. Honestly, all FFs have great OSTs, even the more modern ones that people are often iffy about. Trails games are very good in this regard too, as well as Ys (honestly, most games by Falcom). I also really like soundtracks in Megami Tensei games. JRPGs tend to have many catchy songs, so there's no shortage of great music out there...
I'm a little surprised Undertale wasn't an honorable mention, but it is pretty new-ish compare to many of these titles. I also went through my games and The Banner Saga trilogy has some great ambient tracks. Very orchestral. Loop Hero has some awesome tracks, too!
Nice vid, thanx! Have you heard Mouryou Senki Madara OST for Famicom? It's awesome and probably one of my RPG faves (along with Mother) in terms of music but the game itself is clunky and overall kinda mid-to-bad 😅
