Discussion What are your favorite video game inspired musical projects?

[Megafan96]

Maybe it's more the niche I find myself enjoying time and time again, but I absolutely ADORE music that can take inspiration from video games, whether it be the genuine themes being used in the adaptations, or the setting and leitmotifs.
The most obvious is gonna be The Protomen- Nashville Rock band taking inspiration from Megaman to tell a story of a stark and grimdark crapsack world hedging their bets on a mechanical savior- and through act 2, an extended look at the events that forged the flawed figures trapped in the struggle.
They're probably more known for "Light Up The Night", but I'd rather if you're completely unfamiliar, you give "Breaking Out" a shot, a song following the original character [and in universe precursor to the enemy Sniper Joe], Joe.


Of course, another thing that comes to mind are the THOUSANDS of sick touhou vocal tracks, ranging from synth wave to death metal to... Irish Folk?


Anyhow, there's a whole plethora. I could gush about The Megas [especially given the covers of appropriate classic rock songs to fit the vibe of the album - "Burn" for Dracula is so fitting it's disgusting, and yes I watched "The Crow" until my DVD got scratched to hell and back from me moving my DVD player with it inside, how did you know that personal anecdote?], I could speak on Alex Moukala's INSANE Anime opening for FFXIV Endwalker, Falconshield's clever wordplay, but I instead will leave it on a simple question- What video game musical projects do you like the most?

 

[Stilt Village]

I like Light Up the Night, but the Protomen song that really grabbed me was The Hounds.

If stuff like Touhou arrangement albums are fair game, then I've got to be the first to mention the Donkey Kong Country OCR albums and the original two Harmony of a Hunter projects. I spent so much time listening to these in my teenage years.











I have to shout out Serious Monkey Business in particular for being a stronger album than it has any right to be. Normally projects like these are hours long and feature contributions by a lot of different artists, so listening to them all the way through as presented more than once is not going to be the default way most people engage with them, but for this one it's so unusually good that you can actually kind of do that. I'd love to list off all the weird crazy stuff like In a Snow-Bound Land as a bouncy pop song sung in Chinese, but the thing that stands out the most about it is that some of these takes like Rare Respite and It's a Jungle Out There! are so incredible they've basically overwritten the originals in my mind. And this is Donkey Kong Country 2 we're talking about.

 

[LitKai]

Does this count? I love this song

 

[Megafan96]

Those DEF count! Harmony

I like Light Up the Night, but the Protomen song that really grabbed me was The Hounds.

If stuff like Touhou arrangement albums are fair game, then I've got to be the first to mention the Donkey Kong Country OCR albums and the original two Harmony of a Hunter projects. I spent so much time listening to these in my teenage years.











I have to shout out Serious Monkey Business in particular for being a stronger album than it has any right to be. Normally projects like these are hours long and feature contributions by a lot of different artists, so listening to them all the way through as presented more than once is not going to be the default way most people engage with them, but for this one it's so unusually good that you can actually kind of do that. I'd love to list off all the weird crazy stuff like In a Snow-Bound Land as a bouncy pop song sung in Chinese, but the thing that stands out the most about it is that some of these takes like Rare Respite and It's a Jungle Out There! are so incredible they've basically overwritten the originals in my mind. And this is Donkey Kong Country 2 we're talking about.

Oh HELL YEAH that counts. OCRemix is always fantastic- And Serious Monkey Business has what might be my fave remix of Stickerbrush. Harmony has it's equivalent in "Kraid's Campfire Ballad". Excellent Choices.

 

[Phosphorescent Skeleton]

Someone made a soundtrack to a fictional Drifting Classroom NES game and it is perfect. I wish someone would make a game to go with it.

 

[Stilt Village]

Does this count? I love this song

I was not expecting to see a cover of Strawberry Crisis in this thread. One of the first Touhou songs I really obsessed over. At one point I dug up every version I could find, which wasn't many, but this one is new to me I think. Though I guess it's just using the main riff to build an original song around, more like a sample. Sounds weirdly nostalgic to me though, reminds me of early 2010's OC Remix.

I've never really delved into Touhou doujin circles because it just seems so impenetrable to me with the language barrier, but at some point I stumbled upon Kokyo Active NEETs, who do orchestra arrangements of the music (not to be confused with the more popular Tokyo Active NEETs, who do jazz arrangements and are probably just a different configuration or faction of the same group). Really big fan of how some of those turned out. Emotional Skyscraper and Nuclear Fusion both work really well like this, but the most obvious beneficiary is Pure Furies, which already sounded like it was channeling Mario Galaxy.