Adventure Gamers - Forums

Vegetable Party - 07 July 2021 05:27 AM

Awesome jams.

“INCA” is the weirdest re-imagining of colonialism. I really like how the lyrics are a basic introduction to its weird premise, like a Saturday morning cartoon getting first time viewers up to speed an long time viewers in the zone.

 

This is what history class should be, no? Catchy jingles. We’d never forget!

Sought out this tune after Baron Blubba’s Sierra Quiz, it’s quite beautiful:

Erana’s Peace

Frank Klepacki received most of his acclaim as the composer behind the music of the Command & Conquer games. He did a lot and it’s all quality stuff, but this soundtrack is kind of magical to me.

From the description of the video:

We recorded this off the 486 onto tape back in the day. No emulators but a bit of tape wobble. Beautiful smooth instruments! hope you enjoy.

That just adds to the magic.

Some jams from “Fables and Fiends: The Legend of Kyrandia, Book One”

I also really like how the second game in the series had a soundtrack that switched up it’s style rather than just go for average fantasy fare, with a bit of swingbeat for example:

Adlib is still an acquired taste, though.

(..!)

The Inca song was pretty great. What are your favourite adventure game theme songs?

Girl In The Tower: iconic. Sending the recording to radio stations to be played in between the rest of the butt rock power ballads: bold move.

This one caught me by surprise when I finished the game:

The Fat Man and Team Fat - Skeletons In My Closet.

The whole soundtrack is pretty cool, in game and on cd. As far as I remember, this is the only song with lyrics (in the game). It has a cabaret jazz vibe to it. Studio musicians having fun with musical theatre.

eddyc - 30 June 2021 04:32 AM

Gray matter, and especially Sam’s theme which is also the menu theme.

I second this. Loved the soundtrack of this game.

Ok, you asked for it: the ending song from Limbo of the Lost featuring all (stolen and not) creatures

@Jofog, those are total jams. Last one caught me by surprise, but the other two are really good as well.

But.. then I listened to the King of Limbo. My jaw dropped and that’s not just a figure of speech.

Wow. I don’t know why but I listened to it twice now, bewildered but amused. Limbo of the Lost is the greatest title for this game. It’s the like the name of that Metallica documentary. it works on many levels.

To be fair, I always thought this ending was also stolen inspired by the ending song from Scullmonkeys - a PS-only sequel to The Neverhood, one of my all-time fav adventures, which was not an adventure game at all (it was a straight-up platformer, and a pretty bad one), but which also featured funny claymation cutscenes and awesome music:

Another weird, but cool music clip that comes to mind is the Commander Blood intro by Cryo Interactive (also a sequel to their Captain Blood) that played like a Eurodance clip with muppets. I never played that game, but watched that intro oh so many times:

I feel like that last video smoothed over and then rewrinkled a chunk of my brain. Like a massage, so it’s weirdly relaxing, but it also feels like a brainwashing video for a sci-fi cult.

This is a thread that is not only great, but also begs the question “What if?”

As in “what if the developers could have afforded to hire the composers/musicians that their soundtracks are trying to emulate. Would the results have been better? Or is the lack of that little something what makes the track endearing?

Listening to VP’s Tex track sent me racing to my vinyl shelves to put Henry Mancini’s Peter Gunn soundtracks on the stereo. Ditto the Grim Fandango track. Would it have been better if it had been a real Dr John track rather than just a really good imitation?

Look forward to seeing where this thread goes.

Jofog,
I like your selections, but thanks especially for posting “Let Me Go Home.” It really touched me.

“Erana’s Peace” is very beautiful, VP.

I think it’s safe to say that “The King of Limbo” is monstrously bad, Doom, so why am I have trouble purging my brain of it?
 

rtrooney - 14 November 2021 07:07 PM

(..) “what if the developers could have afforded to hire the composers/musicians that their soundtracks are trying to emulate. Would the results have been better? Or is the lack of that little something what makes the track endearing?

My first thought was: the latter. I do think the emulation approach is charming in its own way. I think it also helps the music serve its purpose. There’s a certain dedication and understanding of the medium with in-house productions, or generally composers of AG music.

But what if the cheque (or some other draw) was big enough? What if the developers and artists managed to get on the same page? I’m not sure, but I think Peter Gabriel was involved with a couple of adventure (and related multimedia) projects. I remember reading he was very impressed by Myst. If you can get someone like that on board, you probably have cause to celebrate.

I can also imagine a big name phoning in some old stuff that was lying around, considering it good enough for the medium at hand. What are you going to do? Tell Phil Collins to come up with something better?

A real Big John soundtrack would’ve be way cool though.  I still have to play Grim Fandango, so I’ll see how the original material holds up.

Lady Kestrel - 14 November 2021 07:44 PM

I think it’s safe to say that “The King of Limbo” is monstrously bad, Doom, so why am I have trouble purging my brain of it?

Yes, it is horribly catchy Maybe because the team could finally had some fun after all the trouble they went through developing/publishing the game. They were only 3 guys after all, with little money or talent, they even voiced all the characters by themselves according to mobygames (and it shows…). I imagine they compiled the song after redrawing the last asset from The Elder Scrolls and then celebrating it with a lot of beer.

Vegetable Party - 15 November 2021 06:07 AM

I can also imagine a big name phoning in some old stuff that was lying around, considering it good enough for the medium at hand. What are you going to do? Tell Phil Collins to come up with something better?

A real Big John soundtrack would’ve be way cool though.  I still have to play Grim Fandango, so I’ll see how the original material holds up.

David Bowie wrote songs for Omikron: The Nomad Soul, but, honestly, I enjoyed the additional tracks by the in-house musician Xavier Despas more. I felt they were more outlandish and fast-paced which suited the game better.

@Jofog those early mario soundtracks are amazing..

Nintendo was standing on the shoulders of some chiptune giants, but I think Mario’s music became this iconic because it’s so rhythmic. They must’ve used some clever tricks to pull some of that stuff off on the NES.

Sometimes a song ties different parts of the game and the atmosphere together. Other times, it becomes part of the game. On rare occasions, it does both: