Who is the best video game composer (list others besides Nobuo Uematsu or Koji Kondo)

Hajime Wakai rules (F-zero X music)

David Wise, Phiilipe Vachey, St???phane Bellanger, and Christophe Heral are my favorites. Oh, and Go Shiina.

Tobias enhus

I’ll have to go with Koh Ohtani, Rei Kondoh, and Shoji Meguro, they are definitely excellent.

Yoko Kanno did a few game soundtracks, so she gets a spot in here. As does Yasunori Mitsuda (Chrono series, Xenogears/Xenosaga series). Jeremy Soule, Masashi Hamauzu, too. What do people in here think of Hitoshi Sakimoto?

Dan Forden,Noriyuki Asakura,Yoshitaka Hirota,Yuzo Koshiro and Daisuke Ishiwatari.

A few of mine would be Jun Senoue, Richard Jacques, and Tommy Tallarico.

Kou Otani- Shadow of the Colossus

Yoko Shimomura- Kingdom Hearts 1 + 2

Hirokazu Ando- Fountain of Dreams theme

Yoko Kanno did a few game soundtracks, so she gets a spot in here. As does Yasunori Mitsuda (Chrono series, Xenogears/Xenosaga series). Jeremy Soule, Masashi Hamauzu, too. What do people in here think of Hitoshi Sakimoto?

I’m very impressed with how Hitoshi Sakimoto took on FFXII, especially following the legacy of Uematsu. I was also surprised to learn that he worked on Ogre Battle which is one of my favorite SNES games.

Kou Otani- Shadow of the Colossus

Yoko Shimomura- Kingdom Hearts 1 + 2

Hirokazu Ando- Fountain of Dreams theme

No… Ando just arranged the Fountain of Dreams theme (which is in all reality called Gourmet Race, from Kirby Super Star). Jun Ishikawa composed.

A few of mine would be Jun Senoue, Richard Jacques, and Tommy Tallarico.

Tallarico does great music and he’s got a laundry list of previous works. Funny thing is, out of that huge list, I only remember the Metroid Prime games, and I never find myself humming that music. Besides, I’ve seen his shows and the guy really annoys me. I think it’s that he just doesn’t stop talking in that hurried, pushy tone of his.

Here’s what’s on my list:

Michiru Yamane – Castlevania, for almost all of the games in the last 2 or 3 generations as far as I know. She’s done such a great job with all of her music, I’d like to see her used for another game.

Harry Gregson-Williams – He’s done a lot of work for the MGS series, which half of what’s so memorable about that IS the music. While he hasn’t been in game music for too long, what he has worked on has been outstanding and he’s eclipsed a lot of composers.

Keiki Kobayashi- Composer for the last 2 or 3 AceCombat games and possibly for the first 3. He’s done a great job of creating emotional, dramatic music that really tells the story of each game while also keeping the player’s heart pulsing as he or she dogfights.

James Michael Dooley – While I really know his work on the last 2 SOCOM games, those last two games had far better music. I also have to say that the theme music from SOCOM 3 is incredibly catchy.

Yoko Shimomura – KH 1 + 2
Masami Ueda, Hiroshi Yamaguchi, Rei Kondoh, Ayaka Hirahara and Akari Groves – Okami, one of the best game soundtracks ever, period
Makoto Tomozawa – Mega Man Legends
Eriko Imura – Klonoa 1 + 2
Kou Otani – Shadow of The Colossus
and of course Kondo and Uematsu-san

Masashi Hamazau – SaGa Frontier II, UNLIMITED SaGa, Dirge of Cerberus, Musashiden II-Blade Master. He’s my favourite composer of RPG soundtracks.

Konami Kukeiha Club – No disrespect to Michiru Yamane, but I still prefer the Castlevania music these guys came up with over what she’s brought. Don’t forget all the arranged Perfect Selection albums they’ve done.

Yasunori Mitsuda – Loved him for Chrono Trigger, hated him for Chrono Cross. It’s a tie.

Manabu Namiki & Hyakutaro Tsukumo – I can’t decide which of these two composers does a better job in making music for shoot ’em ups.

Kazunaka Yamane – Responsible for the music from Double Dragon, but I don’t think he’s done anything else since.

Tim & Geoff Follin. ‘Nuff said.

I’ll add in Hiroyuki Iwatsuki as well.

Yasunori Mitsuda, Motoi Sakuraba, and Daisuke Ishiwatari are win.

The Suikoden soundtracks are also very well done.

Tomohito Nishiura (dark cloud)

Norihiko Hibino (zone of enders, metal gear solid)

Junya Nakano (another mind)

Nathan McCree (tomb raider)

Kimitaka Matsumae (jade cocoon)

there’s loads more. shame most of them just do one game and that’s it 🙁

Yasunori Mitsuda – Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross Xenogears, Xenosaga eps1

Hitoshi Sakimoto – Vagrant Story and Final Fantasy Tactics

Daisuke Ishiwatari – Guilty Gear

Hideyuki Fukasawa – Chaos Legion and Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams

Michiru Yamane – Castlevania SOTN > to present. Suikoden V

Aside from Koji…

David Wise, Yoko Shimomura, Motoi Sakuraba, Jun Ishikawa, Hirokazu Ando, Hajime Wakai and Kenta Nagata.

There’s also Koichi Sugiyama who worked on the excelent music of the Dragon Quest series. Nobuo Uematsu has also admitted to being inspired by him.

I am going to agree with all of you just how can you forget Hiroki Kikuta. I am currently looking for all Yoko Kanno. Man, she is a great composer.

Yoko Shimomura
Hiroki Kikuta
Kenji Ito
Noriyuki Iwadare
Motoi Sakuraba
Go Shiina

Yoko Shimomura’s pre-KH stuff is great. The Legend of Mana soundtrack is easily better than anything I’ve ever heard from Uematsu, plus she worked on Street Fighter II right?

Also, the folks who worked on SNK’s fighters in the ’90s up until the first closure are far and away the most talented people to ever work on a video game soundtrack. Given that they had to do multiple games a year for a good 7 or 8 years and the quality of their work was as consistently good as it was, I’d actually rank them higher than Uematsu and whoever else.

Toshikazu Tanaka’s a pretty underrated guy, too. The MI soundtracks are sort of lacking but the Rage of the Dragons and Matrimelee ones are utterly fantastic.

JESPER KYD FTW!!

Yasunori Mitsuda – Chrono Trigger/Chrono Cross, plus i just found out he’s working on super smash bros brawl!

check out the roster for brawls musician line up:

http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/music/music01.html

Daiki Kasho and Yuzo Koshiro.

for me its akira yamaoka, hands down

i love all the silent hill soundtracks, but 2 is definitely the standout and one of the top game soundtracks ive ever heard, as well as one of my favourite all around albums in general. it has such a variety of styles, but is still able to maintain an incredible atmosphere. yamaoka’s high note and one of the greatest things to ever happen to video game music in my opinion

Yuzo Koshiro,Hideki Okugawa,Hiroyuki Iwatsuki and Hidenori Shoji.

for me it’s Nobuo Uematsu and Koji Kondo

Tobias Enhus

Troels Brun Folmann

Nathan McCree

Junichi Nakatsuru and Yoshihito Yano. Have you ever heard the soundtrack to Soul Calibur II (http://gh.ffshrine.org/soundtracks/605)? It’s really great, epic, adventurous music. The second song should hook you and then it’s smooth sailing from there. :love:

The ones who influence my own music the most are Akira Yamaoka, Hitoshi Sakimoto, and Manabu Namiki.

All of these guys have been previously mentioned.
However, I’m gonna ignore all of Sakimoto’s RPG works, and mention Soukyuugurentai and Gradius V. Really, Soukyuugerentai’s a whole different animal… a truly strange creature. But man, I love its soundtrack. If you guys haven’t heard it, it’s up for download on the GH site at : http://gh.ffshrine.org/soundtracks/4744

As for Manabu Namiki, I love his shmup music, kinda dislike the other stuff he’s done. And Akira Yamaoka? While I love his sound work (and production work, non-music related) on Silent Hill, I find myself thinking about his iFuturist album and his Bemani works a lot.

So, yeah, for the eccentrist who’s into weird electronic music, with very little of it RPG-related, those are my picks.

Let’s see…

Yuzo Koshiro – (Shinobi, Streets of Rage, Golden Axe, classic Sega stuff)

Kenji Yamamato – (EVERY DBZ game, also had some works on Metroid Prime)

David Wise – (Plenty of Rare stuff including DKC 1-3 and Battletoads)

Yasunori Mitsuda – (Xenogears/Xenosaga, does a lot of work with Squaresoft/Square-Enix)

Hideki Okugawa & Yuki Iwai – (Worked on virtually EVERY Capcom fighting game. Starting with Street Fighter of course)

Michiru Oshima – (Composed the soundtrack for one of my favorite PS1 RPGs of ALL TIME; Legend of Legaia)

Yuka Tsujiyoko – (Does a lot of the more current Fire Emblem games)

Tetsuya Shibata & Kento Hasegawa (The Devil May Cry series)

Stuart Chatwood (Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, had IMO the best soundtrack of the three)

Daisuke Ishiwatari (EVERYTHING Guilty Gear!!)

Christopher Lennertz – Medal of Honor series
Michael Giacchino – Medal of Honor series
Stan LePard – Crimson Skies: High Road To Revenge
Steve Burke – Kameo: Elements of Power
Chance Thomas – King Kong, Left Behind: Eternal Forces, LOTR series
Inon Zur – SOCOM II, Men of Valor
Chris Tilton – Black, Mercenaries
Joel Goldsmith – Call of Duty 3

Motoi Sakuraba and Jeremy Soule (Neverwinter Nights, KotoR, Morrowind, Oblivion, Prey, Secret of Evermore, Guild Wars, Dungeon Siege, Icewind Dale, Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance are just some of the highlights :))

Michiru Yamane, Yoko Kanno, Yasunori Mitsuda, Masashi Hamauzu and Motoi Sakuraba (well, I loved him for GS tracks)

Motoi Sakuraba with the baten kaitos series
Yuka Tsujiyoko fire emblem series
Cellar or rats group: Scratches
Jeremy Soule: Guild wars
Shoji Meguro: Trauma center
Kenichi Tokoi, Fumie Kumatani, Hideaki Kobayashi: PSOCR III
there are so many others… The guild wars one was very well done

Easy!

Yoshihiro Sakaguchi (Mega Man, Final Fight, Street Fighter)
Manami Matsumae (Mega Man, Area 88, Mercs, some other Capcom games)
Motoaki Furukawa (Lethal Enforcers [Sega CD version])
Tappi Iwase (Lethal Enforcers [Sega CD version])
Michiru Yamane (Detana!! TwinBee, Rocket Knight Adventures)
Toshihiko Horiyama (Mega Man X4)
Toshio Kajino (Final Fight Guy)
Setsuo Yamamoto
Junko Tamiya (Bionic Commando, Strider)

just a few I know off the top of my head

Yasunori Mitsuda (Chrono Trigger, Xenogears…)
Harry Gregson Williams (Metal Gear Solid 2-3)
Miki Higashino (Suikoden I-II-IV-V, Gradius III, Vandal Heart…)
Michiru Yamane (Suikoden III-IV-V, Castlevania SOTN… )
Hiroki Kikuta (Seiken Densetsu 2-3)
Noriyuki Iwadare (Lunar SSS and EB, Grandia 1-2-3…)

koji kondo , yasunori mitsuda

koji kondo , yasunori mitsuda

Didn’t the thread starter say OTHER than Koji Kondo and Nobu?

Masashi Hamazau

Meguro Masashi, Akira Yamaoka , Motoi Sakuraba

-Michael Giacchino (Medal of Honor, Call of Duty …)
-Tom Salta (Graw, Graw 2 … )
-Steve Burke (Kameo … )
-Harry Gregson-Williams and Norihiko Hibino ( Metal Gear Solid )
-Yasunori Mitsuda (Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross …)
-Behavior (Splinter Cell Double Agent)

Yuzo Koshiro from Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune 2. Best techno/trance music.

Michiru Yamane (Castlevania)
Motoi Sakuraba (Valkyrie, Tales of…)
Yasunori Mitsuda (Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross)
Hiroyuki Iwatsuki (NES, Natsume, Mitsume ga tooru, gundam wing: endless duel, choujin sentai jetman!!!)

Giacchino and Tilton are the best !
But I was impressed too by Hannigan’s Potter (can’t wait to listen to Soule’s ones). Chance Thomas too (King Kong, Lord of the Rings) is very good. And I love Jack Wall’s Mysts and Lennertz’s Medal of Honor.

keiichi okabe- practically everything in the ps2 version of tekken tag tournament and some of tekken 3 along with some in all the other tekken games

nobuyoshi sano- practically everything in the tekken 3 remixed soundtrack, plus the hidden characters song from the arcade soundtrack

whomever in the namco sound team responsible for the arranged soundtrack of tekken 2, and most of the music in the ending sequences of the same game, and whom i haven’t mentioned in the group since i’ve owned most tekken games and enjoyed a lot of the music

whomever in the sonic team responsible for the sonic advance soundtrack and the sonic the hedghog soundtrack for ps3 and xbox 360

hideki naganuma- for a few tracks on the sonic rush soundtrack, cuz i don’t know if there were more composers in that game, plus he worked on both jet set radio games, but i only heard his music from sonic rush, i had a psone and ps2 at the time of both jet set radio games

jun chiki chikuma- the bomberman hero soundtrack

some of the artists featured in need for speed high stakes, all they have for artist if you download the soundtrack on galbaldia hotel is electronic arts, but I know they had individual artists featured in the sound test

the people behind the megaman soundtracks

hip tanaka- the man behind the original song for brinstar for the original metroid game, and probably some other nice tracks in that game

takayuki iwai- did the ending song for street fighter alpha 3-"daybreak"

everyone else responsible for the street fighter soundtracks

the people behind the main menu music in gran turismo 4

yu miyake- does the score for the stories in tekken 4, 5, and DR, plus did some tracks in tekken tag, and tekken 3; most notably the staff roll of tekken 3

the people behind the streets of rage 2 soundtrack

the people behind the ridge racer soundtracks, i heard namco has had the same team of 8 people working on every ridge racer soundtrack

the people behind the super smash bros. melee soundtrack, no it wasn’t just one guy

the people behind the pokemon gold & silver soundtrack, no it wasn’t just one guy; heck, the people behind all pokemon soundtracks

i think that pretty much covers it, because everything else memorable was just licensed pop music, or underground american, but trying to be pop.

Totally Jun Senoue, he is the best, especially Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic Heroes & Shadow The Hedgehog

Jeremy Soule.. for Oblivion, Morrowind, Guild Wars (+ Nightfall, + Factions), Warhammer, Prey, Supreme Commander, Dunegeon Siege 1 + 2, Baldurs Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Star Wars KotoR 1 +2, Secret of Evermore aaaand.. final fantasy 6 Terras theme (remix) ^^ hes the best..

Definitely Motoi Sakuraba for me. Especially when he played keyboard. Dear lord, complete nerdgasm. Sure, he has his trashy filler OSTs he works on (Mainly the Tales series), but he has already admitted that he doesn’t really try on those ones. But when he tries, you can tell. Valkyrie Profile 2 being the recent highlight.

Other great composers:

Hiroki Kikuta
Masashi Hamauzu
Tsuyoshi Sekito

Five random composers:

Jeremy Soule – (Company of Heroes)
Motoi Sakuraba – (Mario Golf Series)
Tommy Tallarico (Earthworm Jim – PC)
Kazuo Sawa – (Nekketsu Kunio-kun Series)
Michael Giacchino – (Medal of Honor Series)

YOKO SHIMOMURA -Kingdom Hearts

Aside from the music gods Koji Kondo and Nobuo Uematsu, these are my tops… ^^;

Arata Iiyoshi – Pok???mon Mystery Dungeon / Beatmania II DX

Taro Bando – F-Zero series / Maro Kart series

Hajime Wakai – Pikmin series / Star Fox series / F-Zero series

Kenji Yamamoto – Super Metroid / Metroid Prime series

Masato Kouda – Monster Hunter / Devil May Cry

Minako Hamano – Metroid Fusion

Shogo Sakai – Super Smash Bros. Melee / MOTHER3

Toru Minegishi – The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

Yoko Shimomura – Kingdom Hearts series

Yuka Tsujiyoko – Fire Emblem series

Marty O’Donnel – Halo Series

My favorites:

Yoshito Hirano & Yuka Tsujiyoko – Paper Mario: TTYD soundtrack
Dave Wise – Donkey Kong Country 2 soundtrack
Keichii Suzuki – Earthbound/Mother 2 soundtrack
Howard Drossin – Sonic & Knuckles
Yasunori Mitsuda – Chrono Cross soundtrack
Shogo Sakai – Mother 3 soundtrack
(Whoever did Super Paper Mario’s soundtrack)

And many more, but those are the ones that come to mind at the moment… And honestly, I simply don’t know the names of all of the composers I absolutely adore. 🙁

Jeremy Soule’s work on Elder Scrolls was spectacular.

Jeremy Soule’s work on Elder Scrolls was spectacular.

Yes, yes it was. I can’t say it better than that.

iki ethycs anyday

I have to say Jesper Kyd, being a fan of the Hitman games. His music is probably the best music I’ve heard in a game, all epic sounding stuff. No other game comes close to matching his brilliant composing. Hitman 2 Silent Assassin is his best work, IMO, followed by Hitman Blood Money 2nd, Contracts 3rd and Codename 47 4th.

Jesper’s official website (http://www.jesperkyd.com/)

Michael Giacchino for his Medal of Honor work is also worth mentioning, his work is equally as stunning.

Akira Yamaoka, Frank Klepacki, Kazumi Todaka and Masaya Matsuura

Michael Hoenig. (BG1&2)
So underrated it’s criminal.

Inon Zur is also excellent – Prince of Persia & Icewind Dale 2

Yoko Shimomura – Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2, Super Mario RPG, Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga
Kenta Nagata – Mario Kart 64
Masato Nakamura – Sonic 1 and 2
Grant Kirkhope – Banjo-Kazooie and Tooie
Jun Senoue – Sonic Adventure 1 and 2

As for me:

– The guy who did the PS1 Spyro games (forgot his name, sorry…)
– Hirokazu Ando, for certain HAL games, especially Kirby’s Adventure
– Junichi Masuda, for the Pokemon games, especially Red/Blue

(and also Koji Kondo but not Hirokazu Andu, sorry… haven’t played enough Final Fantasy. Though I’m loving the soundtrack in Final Fantasy 8 right now)

EDIT: I found out that Stewart Copeland did the Spyro games.

Yasunori Mitsuda (chrono cross)
Kenji Yamamoto (metroid)
Miki Higashino (Suikoden II)

Michiru Yamane (Most Castlevania games since Symphony of the Night)
Hitoshi Sakimoto (Vagrant Story, FF Tactics, Final Fantasy XII…)
Jamie Christopherson (the only work I’ve heard of him is the Dawn of Dreams OST, which is awesome)
Kow Otani (Shadow of the Colossus)

There’s plenty more of other composers of course, but I can’t list them all here.

Every composer for the beatmania IIDX series except Napakick.
Hands down.

Motoi Sakuraba (Shinnin and others)
Yuzo Koshiro (streets of Rage and others)
Michiru Yamane (Castlevania)
Masami Ueda (Resident evil series)

definitely the ones i love besides nobuo Uematsu

Im suprised that you guys have not yet suggested Akira Yamaoka (Silent Hill games) much. He is a master of expressing sadness, terror and suspense through music and sound effects.

Yoshino Aoki – Breath Of Fire IV
Konami Kukeiha Club – Castlevania
Harry Gregson Williams – Metal Gear Solid
Mark Griskey – Star Wars Knights Of The Old Republic 2
Miki Higashino – Suikoden
Hitoshi Sakimoto/Masaharu Iwata – Final Fantasy Tactics
Motoi Sakuraba – Star Ocean, Tales Of Phantasia and Valkyrie Profile —> Favourite
Hiroshi Tamwari – Vandal Hearts, Azure Dreams, Suikoden. —> Favourite
Shinji Tamura – Tales Of…
Yoshitaka Hirota – Shadow Hearts series –> Favourite

Well there are alot more…But these are amongst the best imo.

Definitely Motoi Sakuraba for me. Especially when he played keyboard. Dear lord, complete nerdgasm. Sure, he has his trashy filler OSTs he works on (Mainly the Tales series), but he has already admitted that he doesn’t really try on those ones. But when he tries, you can tell. Valkyrie Profile 2 being the recent highlight.
Total agreement. I actually didn’t know what a total gem his stuff was until I played Eternal Sonata recently, and then wondered, "Who’s the composer for this? He’s AWESOME!" Then I found out he did the Tales series (which I haven’t played, but still have heard the music for and love). So I’ve got to say that he’s one of my favorites.

My two other favorites have also been mentioned: Yasunori Mitsuda, and Yoko Shimomura.

Tom Salta his work on GRAW 1+2 is excellent
Hideki Naganuma i love his fresh n funky style
Yuzo Koshiro – need i say more the mans a genius
Richard Jacques – always been a fan of his work from the early days of Sonic 3D and shinobi X to the euro remixes on Outrun 2.

Michiru Yamane – Castlevania Need I say more?
Jun Ishikawa – Kirby. There has been some amazing Music Scores for these games.
Koichi Sugiyama – Dragon Quest which has put out some of the best Musical Peices of all times as far as video games go.

Noriyuki Iwadare, Motoi Sakuraba, Michiko Naruke and Yasunori Shiono.

Hi… My fave game music composers are:
– Yasunori Mitsuda (Chrono Cross, Chrono Trigger, Xenosaga Ep.I),
– Shoji Meguro (from SMT. Listen to his work titled Heartful Cry (OST of SMT:P3 FES), i like it very much, I hope you all feel the same)
– Motoi Sakuraba (Tales of…., Star Ocean ….)

^^ I’m a newbie btw… ^^ Nice to meet you all in this forum. ^^

– Motoi Sakuraba (Tales of…., Star Ocean ….)

Forgot to mention his work on Valkyrie Profile 2, best work Square has delivered in quite a while now.

Yasunori Mitsuda – Chrono Cross/Xenogears
Yuki Kajiura – .Hack
Motoi Sakuraba – Tales series, Star Ocean series, Valkyrie Profile

Manfred Linzner

Tommy Tallarico, Yuzo Koshiro & Howard Drossin

hard to choose but Hitoshi Sakimoto,Yoko shimumora.Kenji ito,Hip tanaka and yasunori mitsuda

Koichi Sugiyama
Yasunori Mitsuda
Kow Otani (For his amazing work on SotC… I have not heard his other works yet)

Go Shiina. Fantastic composition and execution and carries out a fammiliar theme throughout songs very well. I’m also a big fan of Yoko Shimomura’s Legend of Mana work.

edit: AND YES, KOICHI SUGIYAMA. Sucks at battle themes, but his other work is just..so, so good, I can’t even begin to describe eloquently.

Miki Higashino definitely stands out for her work in the Suikoden series (except 3, which was lost without her 🙁 ) She has made some of the best battle/war themes I have ever heard, and her town themes are always amazing, and usually a town theme isn’t one of a soundtrack’s standouts.

Noriyuki Iwadare for his work in the Grandia series… I’ve only heard the first one in full, but I loved every minute of it… He does great battle music, and his town themes always give you a great feel for the area.

Yuki Kajiura is hands-down, my favorite VG composer ever. Her work is absolutely amazing. She has the most dramatic and driven battle themes I have ever heard, and Hepatica #1 and #3 from Xenosaga III nearly brought me to tears the first time I heard them. Her work in the .hack/sign anime is equally amazing.

David Wise, Phiilipe Vachey, St???phane Bellanger, and Christophe Heral are my favorites. Oh, and Go Shiina.

OMG! How could I forget David Wise?

Yasunori Mitsuda, Motoi Sakuraba, and Daisuke Ishiwatari are win.

The Suikoden soundtracks are also very well done.

Of Course. I can’t forget Motoi Sakuraba.

Aside from Koji…

David Wise, Yoko Shimomura, Motoi Sakuraba, Jun Ishikawa, Hirokazu Ando, Hajime Wakai and Kenta Nagata.

Hirokazu Ando? Man, what great music he has done.

Kenta Nagata, definetly can’t forget him. I always hum to the title screen song in Mario Kart 64.

Aside from the music gods Koji Kondo and Nobuo Uematsu, these are my tops… ^^;

Arata Iiyoshi – Pok???mon Mystery Dungeon / Beatmania II DX

Taro Bando – F-Zero series / Maro Kart series

Hajime Wakai – Pikmin series / Star Fox series / F-Zero series

Kenji Yamamoto – Super Metroid / Metroid Prime series

Masato Kouda – Monster Hunter / Devil May Cry

Minako Hamano – Metroid Fusion

Shogo Sakai – Super Smash Bros. Melee / MOTHER3

Toru Minegishi – The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

Yoko Shimomura – Kingdom Hearts series

Yuka Tsujiyoko – Fire Emblem series

Marty O’Donnel – Halo Series

Taro Bando has done some great Mario Kart music.

Yoko Shimomura – Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2
Kenta Nagata – Mario Kart 64
Masato Nakamura – Sonic 1 and 2
Grant Kirkhope – Banjo-Kazooie and Tooie
Jun Senoue – Sonic Adventure 1 and 2

Masato Nakamura, oh man I always hum to the theme of Green Hill Zone all day long.

Grant Kirkhope did some great music. Not only he did Banjo-Kazooie and Tooie, but he also did Donkey Kong 64 too.

As for me:

– The guy who did the PS1 Spyro games (forgot his name, sorry…)
– Hirokazu Ando, for certain HAL games, especially Kirby’s Adventure
– Junichi Masuda, for the Pokemon games, especially Red/Blue

(and also Koji Kondo but not Hirokazu Andu, sorry… haven’t played enough Final Fantasy. Though I’m loving the soundtrack in Final Fantasy 8 right now)

EDIT: I found out that Stewart Copeland did the Spyro games.

Stewart Copeland. How could I forget him? I always listen to that song on the stage Wizard Peak.

Tommy Tallarico, Yuzo Koshiro & Howard Drossin

And Howard Drossin I can’t forget the music from Sonic 3 & Knuckles with Jun Senoue and also Sonic Spinball.

But I forgot to mension, and also nobody said just yet, Richard Jacques.

Stephane Picq (Dune for the Amiga/PC/Sega CD)

For me it would be Yuzo Koshiro (Streets of Rage), Akira Yamaoka (Silent Hill), Kou Otani (Shadow of the Colossus), Kenji Yamamoto (Metroid) and Yoko Shimomura (Kingdom Hearts).

Akira Yamaoka – Silent Hill

Akira is a very very talented music composer whose music expresses tragedy, sorrow, tension, and fear almost perfectly. No, forget I said that – I meant PERFECTLY. You won’t find music quite like Akira’s unless you get lucky. He is an amazing music composer for sure.

Why can’t we pick Nobuo Uematsu, hes the only composer I’ve recognized enough in the credits of games to actually remember?

Oh well, I guess I will have to say Ogeretsu Kun, Manami Matsumae and Yoshihiro Sakaguchi in that case. I looked these names up online and I think they should be the names of the people who did the music for Megaman 2. I really enjoyed those songs the most out of any of the Megaman games. And it’s the only game I remember any memorable music from.

Motoi Sakuraba

Masashi Hamauzu is awesome! He made music for Saga frontier 2, the SaGa games(unlimited, romancing, etc.), and some of the songs for final fantasy X. Not even Nobuo can compare to him!

Jesper Kyd and Shusaku Uchiyama.

Daiki Kasho and Yuzo Koshiro.

yeah!!! theyre my favrite also!:-D

Masato Nakmura, Yoko Shimomura, Jun Senoue, toshikazu Tanaka, Takayuki Ishikawa, Naoki Maeda, Akira Yamaoka, and Daisuke Ishiwatari to name a few.

Hyakutarou Tsukumo
Toshiharu Yamanishi
Tomomi Ootani
Namihei
A’
Michiru Yamane
Hisayoshi Ogura
Yasuhisa Watanabe
Kenji Yamamoto
Haruhiko Kuroiwa
Tamayo Kawamoto
Takeshi Miura

I like David Wise, Eveline Fischer, and Grant Kirkhope (mostly Rareware composers). Their work always puts a smile on my face.

She actually is anime music composer… Yuki Kajiura, the tracks she make are just so great…

Yasunori Mitsuda.

Chrono Trigger Original Sound Version
+
Chrono Cross Original Soundtrack
+
Sailing to the World

= <3

Hideki Naganuma (SEGA) – Guy is a genius, music I can listen to repeatedly and still love it

Yutaka Minobe and Tatsuyuki Maeda (SEGA) – For skies of Arcadia’s soundtrack, which was brilliance.

Hideaki Kobayashi & Fumie Kumatani (SEGA) – Responsible ofr many brilliant PSO and PSU soundtracks.

Jeremy Soule – A recent favourite for his orchestral soundtracks which have done wonders for the Guild Wars series.

The people who did Ar Tonelico, Atelier series, and Mana-Khemia.

Ken Nakagawa, Daisuke Achiwa, Akira Tsuchiya, Takashige Inagaki, Haruka Shimotsuki, Akiko Shikata, Toshiharu Yamanishi, Masayuki Kobayashi, Miyoko Kobayashi

Yes, Haruka and Akiko are also composers.

Yuki Kajiura. Definitely. Xenosaga II Movie Soundtrack is one of my favorite cds EVER.

umm.. [Kinya Sawaguchi – Daisuke Ishiwatari – Tetsuya Shibata – Michihiko Sichi – Yasuhiro Misawa – Mike Reagan – Akihiko Matsumoto]

But noone can beat Nobuo Uematsu and Masami Ueda!!! hehe!

Norihiko Hibino.

his music is jazzy and classical too.

Anyone from Zuntata, of course. But what about some more European composers such as Chris Huelsbeck or the late Richard Joseph?

Also, let’s not forget the Commodore C64 heroes, Rob Hubbard and Maniacs of Noise. For those unfamiliar with C64 SID music, try the downloads at Skytopia C64 page:

http://www.skytopia.com/games/c64/c64.html

You’re in for a treat 😀

Motoi Sakuraba, Yasunori Mitsuda, and Kenji Yamamoto!

Yoshino Aoki, Yasunori Mitsuda

zzzz

Tobias enhus

+1 ! I agree entirely!

Hmm… Ysunori Mitsuda did a great work with Chrono Trigger score and it is probably the best OST I’ve heard. Then Jeremy Soule, who has created Knights of the Old Republic OST and Morrowind Main Theme. Also the one who created music for original Halo (don’t know the name, sorry) did awesome job too.

Yasunori Mitsuda – Loved him for Chrono Trigger, hated him for Chrono Cross. It’s a tie.

huh?:confused: i loved his work for Chrono Cross…:eye:

most of my choices have already been named.

I’m surprised there’s not more love for Hideki Naganuma and Deavid Soul. Hideki does some amazing work (listen to the majority of the tracks in Jet Set Radio) and Deavid can put out some great beats as well.

Some others of note that I think are awesome:
Noriyuki Iwadare (Grandia II soundtrack was epic)
The Yutaka Minobe & Takayuki Maeda team. (Skies of Arcadia music… also epic.)
Graeme Norgate (Time Splitters Series, did some work on GoldenEye64 soundtrack)

Yasunori Mitsuda (chrono trigger music for the win)

Tatsuo Yokoyama, for his incredible work on Mario Party 7.

Akira Yamaoka

Wow all these pages and not one mention of Ryo Yonemitsu the guy who composed the sound tracks for Ys I, II, III and IV for the turbo duo. Probably some of the best music ever made for a video game. Guess thats what you get for making music for a system that wasn’t that popular in North America.

Motoi Sakuraba For me.
There so much strengh in is music, even in "sad" musics.
There are a lot of very good compositors I like a lot but I have a preference for him.
Michiko Naruke, Yasunori Mitsuda, Miki Higashino, Tomohito Nishiura, Yoshitaka Hirota…

Motoi Sakuraba For me.
There so much strengh in is music, even in "sad" musics.

Damn right. Motoi Sakuraba is my VGM hero. Lord of the VGM age, in my opinion ^^ Valkyrie Profile, Star Ocean (The Second Story), Golden Sun…good grief.

::Applaud:: *gg*

I support Hamauzu. So underrated in this thread.

Yasunori Mitsuda the guy that made the chrono trigger music,

Hideki Naganuma, the guy that made sonic rush, jet grind radio music.

Tomoko Sasaki, Naofumi Hataya, Fumie Kumatani. these peopel that made NIGHTS music. ^_^

Junya Nakano (His work in FFX, Dewprism, Another Mind)

Yasuhisa Watanabe (Not very well known, but incredible music. Check out Border Down and Senko no Ronde)

Masashi Hamauzu (Musashiden II, Dirge, etc.)

Shoji Meguro (SMT, duh)

Akira Yamaoka (SH, duh)

Koichi Sugiyama (DQ, duh)

Yasunori Mitsuda (Common response, but yeah)

Tim Follin (For the music on Ecco: Defender of the Future)

Artists who did music for the Ridge Racer series

Artists who did music for the online game TalesWeaver

Artists who did music for Breath of Fire series (Particularly 3, 4 and 5)

Masaya Matsuura (Parappa music, the game for ps2 has really good music, I wish I could get instrumentals without the funny vocals.
Guru ant and the onion sensei have really good songs, look ’em up on YouTube)

Tamayo Kawamoto

motoi sakuraba

Damn right. Motoi Sakuraba is my VGM hero. Lord of the VGM age, in my opinion ^^ Valkyrie Profile, Star Ocean (The Second Story), Golden Sun…good grief.

Don’t forget the "Tales" and "Baten Kaitos" series! The use of electric guitar on some of the battle tracks is really awesome! 😀

I’ve recently fallen in love with the Crisis Core OST, though I haven’t played the game myself. Takeharu Ishimoto is definitely on my list of great composers, as well as Yasunori Mitsuda (Xenogears-Xenosaga/Legaia 2), Michiru Oshima (Legend of Legaia), Masaharu Iwata & Hitoshi Sakimoto (FF Tactics/XII). Also the many MOTHER composers have all been quite good, Keiichi Suzuki, Hirozaku Tanaka (MOTHER 1+2), Shogo Sakai, Taeko Onuki (MOTHER 3).

Edit: Oh yeah I forgot about Russel Shaw who composed the Fable Soundtrack.

I just remembered another one of my favorite video game composers! Michiru Yamane! Her work on the Castlevania series is fantastic! Especially the music for Lament of Innocence…

I have a hard time with names but I am still a sucked for the MGS music. I don’t know if these guys are artists or what but I like the music from Oblivion, Tenchu Z and Just Cause. Really "powerful".

Yuka Tsujiyoko…and Jesper Kyd is awesome too. and whoever did the soundtrack to the metroid games (it’s not Koji Kondo)

I like most of the Japanese composers already mentioned.

In the west I don’t feel there are many good ones…Apart from Jeremy Soule, James Hannigan, Richard Jacques, Michael Giacchino and Gary Schyman. These guys can really write music but don’t always get the best games to work on. A lot of the others seem a bit overrated to me.

I’ll Do it in order for my best video game composer

1. Yuzo Koshiro
2.Mega Man Who ever did the composing to mega man music they r the best if i kne w who did it ill put them #1 on my list
3.Michiru Yamane
4.Nobuo Uematsu

Who ever got a problem with my fav. reply me back

I’d say my favourite composer is Michiru Yamane for her work on the Castlevania series (despite popular opinion, I don’t really think that the SotN OST was so brilliant – it had some great tracks, but some were not so great – I much preferred her work on other games including PoR, Bloodlines, LoI, CoD). Also, Noriyuki Iwadare has done great work on Grandia and Grandia 2 (looking forward to his contribution to Smash Bros Brawl). Tomoko Sasaki did a great soundtrack for Ristar on the Sega Megadrive/Genesis, which I adore.

Noriyuki Iwadare has done great work on Grandia and Grandia 2

Haha, I never liked Iwadare’s music at all, maybe a handful of songs from each OST and that’s it. You said SoTN wasn’t that good but you like Iwadare, I don’t understand this…but to each his own.

His work on Grandia III was pretty atrocious, but I guess that’s why you didn’t mention it. That "Baccla" theme is the worst song I have heard in a while.

Haha, I never liked Iwadare’s music at all, maybe a handful of songs from each OST and that’s it. You said SoTN wasn’t that good but you like Iwadare, I don’t understand this…but to each his own.

His work on Grandia III was pretty atrocious, but I guess that’s why you didn’t mention it. That "Baccla" theme is the worst song I have heard in a while.

Mmm, well I think Iwadare reached his peak for Grandia. I loved most tracks in the soundtrack for Grandia (so much so I bought the sheet music book with the OST arranged for piano, after searching the ‘Net for so long I decided I may as well buy it), most of the tracks for Grandia 2 (I loved the vocal tracks "A Deus" and "Cancao do Povo"), then it spiralled rapidly downhill to result in the poor (or even abismal) soundtracks for Grandia Xtreme and Grandia 3.That’s why, on second thought, his involvement with Brawl isn’t so exciting (unless it signifies a Grandia character being involved) and Michiru Yamane would be better. Her work has remained consistant – with a superb OST on her first Castlevania involvement (Castlevania Bloodlines) and some superb soundtracks following that. SotN’s OST was great, but as I said I think some tracks let it down a bit. Bloodlines has a better OST in my opinion.

I really dig Matt Uelmen’s score for Diablo II.

What I’ve heard from God of War is awesome (Cris Velasco)

Also of course Jeremy Soule is an incredible game composer.

definatly akira yamaoka, hitoshi sakimoto (ff tactics!!), stewart copeland, and whoever did the soundtrack to the ratchet and clank games.

Akemi Kimura – Gyakuten Saiban (Phoenix Wright)
Ken Nakagawa & Daisuke Achiwa – Atelier Iris series/Ar Tonelico
Tenpei Satao – Makai Senki Disgaea
Yuki Kujiura – Xenosaga II/III

No.1 – Miki Higashino!!!
Then Shinji Hosoe,Ayako Saso,Takayuki Aihara,
Nobuyoshi Sano,Keiichi Okabe
and MANY others……….

Yuzo Koshiro
there so may other but Yuzo
is unbelieve.

At the top of the list, these four:

Yasunori Mitsuda (Chrono Trigger, Front Mission: Gun Hazard, Radical Dreamers, Chrono Cross)

Miki Higashino (Suikoden, Suikoden II, Contra III)

Yoko Shimomura (Adventures in the Magic Kingdom, Street Fighter II, Breath of Fire, Live A Live, Front Mission, Super Mario RPG, Legend of Mana)

Akira Yamaoka (Silent Hill series)

Then all of these guys, too:

Jeremy Soule (Secret of Evermore, Morrowind, Harry Potter games)

Masashi Hamauzu (Front Mission: Gun Hazard, Final Fantasy X)

Masaharu Iwata (Ogre Battle, Tactics Ogre, FF Tactics)

Hitoshi Sakimoto (Ogre Battle, Tactics Ogre, FF Tactics)

Cris Velasco (God of War)

Junya Nakano (Final Fantasy X, Threads of Fate, Front Mission: Gun Hazard)

Yoshino Aoki (Breath of Fire III, Breath of Fire IV)

Akari Kaida (Breath of Fire III, Okami, Resident Evil)

Miki Higashino composed music for TMNT Tournament Fighters for Sega Genesis,too.At least,I think…

It’s possible. For each person, I only mentioned the soundtracks that I a) knew the composers had done, b) had listened to, and c) had liked.

I was totally devastated to not find someone posting Grant Kirkhope (who did classic soundtracks like Donkey Kong 64, Perfect Dark, Banjo-Kazooie) right on the first pages, but fortunatly there was one later on, thank god!

Please don’t ignore this guy and his great work! There are also great non-asian composers out there, you know…

I think that Harry Gregson Williams was great doing the Metal Gear Solid series.

Good taste there, arthurgolden.

Hirokazu Ando and Masashi Hamauzu for me. 🙂

Motoi Sakuraba (mister BIG ORCHESTRA guy)
then
Yasunori Mitsuda

Motoi Sakuraba;
Michiru Yamane;
Miki Higashino (Suikoden 1st & 2nd);
Michael Giacchino (Donald Duck in Maui Mallard);

And the rock band who song 6 tracks from COMIX ZONE, if anyone knows who they are, thank you.

HARRY GREGSON MOTHERFUCKING WILLIAMS.

nuff said.

Thanks!

Motoi Sakuraba, although the Star Ocean 3 soundtrack wasn’t that great; I liked Moon Base and Spiral Tower though.

Motoi Sakuraba, although the Star Ocean 3 soundtrack wasn’t that great; I liked Moon Base and Spiral Tower though.

Aww. I thought Star Ocean 3 was fine. I liked "The Desolate Smell of Earth," "Reflected Moon," "Virtual Image," and "The Dawn of Wisdom." It had plenty of forgettable tracks, but my standards are so low for new VG music these days that if I come away with four that I liked, I’m happy.

You mean your standards are high, not low.

Also, a lot of you mention the same two artists…I honestly don’t see what is so great about Motoi Sakuraba, VPII had OKAY music to me, and Tales of the Abyss was bleh–but I think he/she admitted to not trying on that OST (which is a pretty fucked up thing to do, and I liked that game)

I would rate Yasunori Mitsuda over Motoi.

I agree with you. Valkyrie Profile is just okay. Tales of the Abyss I don’t know.

But Yasunori Mitsuda? He is one of the greatest VG music composers. In a completely different league than Motoi. In my mind, Mitsuda is second only to Uematsu.

I’ll Do it in order for my best video game composer

1. Yuzo Koshiro
2.Mega Man Who ever did the composing to mega man music they r the best if i kne w who did it ill put them #1 on my list
3.Michiru Yamane
4.Nobuo Uematsu

Who ever got a problem with my fav. reply me back

i know a few

Mega Man 1: Manami Matsumae & Yoshihiro Sakaguchi (Yuukichan’s Papa)
Mega Man 2: Manami Matsumae (Manami Ietel), Yoshihiro Sakaguchi (Yuukichan’s Papa), & Ogeretsu Kun
Mega Man 3: Yasuaki Fujita (Bun Bun)
Mega Man 4: Yasuaki Fujita (Bun Bun) & Minae Fujii (Ojalin)
Mega Man 5: Mari Yamaguchi
Mega Man 6: Yuko Kadota

Mega Man X: Setsuo Yamamoto, Makoto Tomozawa, Yuki Iwai, Yuko Takehara, & Toshihiko Horiyama
Mega Man X2: Yuki Iwai

that’s about half, but i hope it somewhat helps

hmm no Nobuo?

in no order:
Bun Bun (love MM3)
Yoko Shimomura (love SMRPG)
David Wise (love DKC2)

I agree with you. Valkyrie Profile is just okay. Tales of the Abyss I don’t know.

But Yasunori Mitsuda? He is one of the greatest VG music composers. In a completely different league than Motoi. In my mind, Mitsuda is second only to Uematsu.

Agreed, Yasunori is pretty amazing and versatile. Valkyrie Profile II wasn’t bad by any means, it just wasn’t exceptional to me. Still solid, though. One of my favorite songs from it was "Under the All-Powerful Divine"–I enjoyed that song.

…and I personally think Uematsu’s work after FFX is pretty bland, he definitely shined more in the PSX era because his style works really well with less-capable sound hardware (to me). It’s just that his songs tend to sound midi still.

Also, not many people know about Tim Follin, he composed the music for Ecco: Defender of the Future for Dreamcast. Never played the game, but the music is really ambient and chill. One of my favorite songs on that OST is "Hanging Water", check it out if you haven’t heard it yet.

There’s not enough love for Yasuhisa Watanabe!

Yuzo Koshiro
Graeme Norgate (Rare’s Wise, Kirkhope and Fischer got mentioned, why no love for Norgate?)
George Alistair Sanger, a.k.a. The Fat Man
Hiroshi Iuchi (Ikaruga)
Marty O’Donnel
Frank Klepacki (this thread had to reach 3 pages before he receives a single mention…)
Jonathan Coulton!

I also say Harry Gregson-Williams.

Michiru Yamane, Kenji Ito, Yasunori Mitsuda and Motoi Sakuraba are the best !
When you hear some of those compositions, you really believe you’re travelling cross other worlds !

David Franco (Drawn To Life)
Yoko Shimomura (Kingdom Hearts Series)
Everyone who ever worked on Classic and Legends Mega Man
Hajami Wakai (Pikmin Series)
Kazumi Totaka (Pikmin Series, Animal Crossing)
St???phane Bellanger (Rayman)
Koh Ohtani (Shadow of the Colossus)
Hirokazu Ando and Jun Ishikazwa (Kirby tracks from Super Smash Bros Melee)
Guy Whitmore (Shivers)
Michiru Yamane (Castlevania: Symphony of the Night)

Yuki Iwai – Mega Man X1-X2
Akemi Kimura – Mega Man X6
Koji Kondo – LAWL DONT TELL ME YOU DONT KNOW >:O
Graeme Norgate – Goldeneye , Perfect Dark , most Donkey Kong games , Upcoming Haze and Timesplitters
And I dont remember the name of the guy that made Metal Gear AC!D 1&2 along with Zone of The enders soundtrack.

Jason Hayes – Diablo 2, WoW
Yuki Kajiura – Xenosaga III

😀

Has Ryuichi Sakamato composed music for any games?:) I’d love to get that if so.

Has Ryuichi Sakamato composed music for any games?:) I’d love to get that if so.

L.O.L. – Lack of Love for the Dreamcast

You can listen to samples here: http://www.emusic.com/album/Ryuichi-Sakamoto-L-O-L-Lack-of-Love-MP3-Download/10902213.html

lol, well, I love Koji Kondo… so I have to say him, but also…

Taniguchi Hirofumi, David Wise, Kumi Tanioka, Jun Senoue, Kenichi Nishimaki, Yuka Tsujiyoko, Hajime Wakai, Kazumi Totaka, Go Ichinose, Junichi Masuda, Yoko Shimomura, Ichiro Shimakura, Motoi Sakuraba, Nakajima Dai, and well, there are others, I’ve just listed most of the ones who have done game music I like. XD;; *shrug*

Yasunori Mitsuda is my favorite by far. Chrono Cross, Xenogears – Cried, and Xenosaga Episode 1 are about all I listen to.

Really klike Kenji Yamamoto’s stuff

Well, he’s been listed upwards of seven times already, but I’d like to remind you how awesome Koh Otani is. I listen to the first segment of the credits (Epilogue "Those Who Remain") from SotC at least every other day.

I also can’t forget Yasunori Mitsuda for his awesome work with Chrono Trigger / Chrono Cross, and also Yoko Shimomura. I was taken aback by how excellent her music in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga was, even though she had a fairly brilliant history in video game music. Of course, that’s my own experience, and not mentioning even greater games.

Koh Otani, oh yes, isn’t he just great. Forgot to mention Koji Kondo and Kazumi Totaka, although there’s no need to point that out, the guys speak for themselves. 😛

And Naoshi Mizuta is also pretty cool.

Keiki Kobayashi known from the Ace Combat series

Yuka Tsujiyoko -fire emblem series

Koichi Sugiyama. His work on the Dragon Quest series is incredible.

Not sure if anybody has mentioned Troels Folmann

He’s a relative newcomer, but his scores to the recent tomb raider games have been really good. He also keeps an interesting blog: http://www.troelsfolmann.com/blog/

Motoi Sakuraba, I see that name all time in most of my games so I’m guessing he’s good.

I forgot about Go Ichinose! I cant forget my love of Pokemon! Also, it seems like no one is mentioning that Shimomura also did the music in Mario & Luigi games.

Didn’t I just mention her in that context?

Didn’t I just mention her in that context?

I must have missed your post. Most of the ones that mention her just mention Kingdom Hearts or Super Mario RPG.

I think everyone should go download the soundtrack for the 2001 french film Le fabuleux destin d’amelie poulin
there are some stinkers on there. but they’re comical stinkers. AND if you’ve seen the film. pretty much the best soundtrack ever.
OH and see the movie. gawdamn masterpiece.
OH and Yoko Kanno is my current love interest.
THAT IS ALL

I’m very impressed with how Hitoshi Sakimoto took on FFXII, especially following the legacy of Uematsu. I was also surprised to learn that he worked on Ogre Battle which is one of my favorite SNES games.

agreed agreed. And though some people may get "angry" at me for this. I think Sakimoto encapsulated the feeling of FF12 with his music better than Uematsu ever could have. JUST 12 though. Nobuo has done some amazing work, I must say. There is clearly a reason he is put on that pedistal.

kenji yamoto and kozumi totaka FTW!!

Grant Kirkhope
Hideaki Kobayashi
Kenji Yamamoto
Motoi Sakuraba

Akira Yamaoka rules!!! XD

Michiko Naruke, Masato Kouda, Kazuya Taniguchi !!! (Wild Arms Serie)

Manfred Linzner

I would say Manfred Linzner reminds me of early Hitoshi Sakimoto.

Yoko Shimomura (Legend of Mana only, not Kingdom Hearts), Kenji Ito (Seiken Densetsu and Children of Mana), Toshiro Masuda (Naruto), and Michiru Yamane (Rocket Knight Adventures & Castlevania)

My favorites besides Nobou Uematsu has got to be Jeremy Soule(Guild Wars and The Elder Scrolls games) and of course Yasunori Mitsuda. Chrono Trigger’s soundtrack is awesome!

My hands down favorite: The underappreciated Hiroki Kikuta for Secret of Mana, Seiken Densetsu 3 and most spectaculary, Soukaigi. Find it. Download it. Get it. Soukaigi.

Yasunori Mitsuda is great with a great body of work. Through him I found Yoshitaka Hirota of Shadow Hearts acclaim. Hirota seems like a fusion of Mitsuda and Kikuta, while still maintaining his identity. Very exciting.

I never got on the Uematsu train. Some stuff is good but most (to me) is blahnd.

Jeremy Soule is holdin’ it down for the west.

Yoko Shimomura is very good, but as someone said before, was at her best during Legend of Mana, IMHO.

Yoshito Hirano he did all of the new fire emblem game soundtracks.

Hideyuki Fukusawa is an upcoming composer to be reckon with. Loved his stuff from PS2 Chaos Legion after I heard his first anime OST Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto. Currently looking for his PS2 Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams OST. His style resembles stuff from the Devil May Cry series I would say.

Masashi Hamauzu works from the PSX Saga Frontier 2 and PS2 Unlimited Saga is something not to be trifled with either. You wouldn’t believe how amazing he makes these subpar games feel (though I actually happen to be in the small minority who loves SF2 extremely). His collaboration/influence in some of the tracks in FFX were great too like Macalania Forest, Thunder Plains and Besaid Island though I don’t think I was too impressed with the rest. His latest solo work was FF7: Dirge of Cerberus, and I think it was pretty grand too though I don’t have much of an impression on his FF7:DoC works because I haven’t played the game and haven’t listened to it much yet.

Yasunori Mitsuda is very gifted when it comes to his diverse, multi-cultural stlye influences (though I vividly remember this particularly bad guitar piece in Chrono Cross for some strange reason). In terms of the number of styles I seen him able to use effectively, I suppose they’re on the same scale as Yoko Kanno, known famously for some of her works in like Cowboy Bebop and Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (don’t forget her stuff for Sousei no Aquarion either). I really love his town themes and how culturally enriching they are especially Home Arni Village from Chrono Cross. It’s been quite some time since I listened to his most recent works (specifically, Shadow Hearts), which I should garner a look I suppose if and when I remember to.

As for some composers like Yoko Shimomura and Motoi Sakuraba, they’ve been a hit and miss for me lately. Shimomura’s Kingdom Heart series’ OSTs didn’t feel highly original since most of those pieces I recall were already timeless Disney classics (can’t say the same for the Little Mermaid song ideas wherever they came from). Perhaps she’ll demonstrate her hidden skills she kept locked away since Legend of Mana (It seems me and a few others also miss those times?). As for Sakuraba, his OSTs really have been a hit and miss for me, and I can’t understand why. It’s like I can have no middle ground with the man and I have no idea why I either completely hate one of his tracks and love yet another entirely. Sort of the same feeling I had when first listening to Shoji Memuro from Persona 3. I think Memuro’s older Shin Megami Tensei OSTs were better though I can’t say for sure absolutely what I think until I hear everything.

After hearing Assassin’s creed..i say Jesper Kyd

Jeremy Soule and Michael Giacchino.

Besides Uematsu and Kondo, I especially like:
– Motoi Sakuraba for the brilliant music of the Tales and Baten Kaitos series
– Tsukasa Tawada for the console Pok???mon games
– Jeremy Soule for Oblivion and Unreal II (although I don’t know what part of the soundtrack he composed)
– Grant Kirkhope for Perfect Dark
– Mahito Yokota for Super Mario Galaxy, which is IMO the best VGM to date.
– Kenji Yamamoto for the Metroid series
– Yoko Shimomura for the Mario RPGs
– Yuzo Koshiro for his orchestral performances

EDIT: Oh, and I forgot Alexander Brandon and Michiel van den Bos, who composed the music for the original Unreal and Unreal Tournament.

My favorites are, in no particular order:

David Bergeaud (Ratchet and Clank series) – With the exception of Deadlocked and, to a lesser extent, Size Matters, the soundtracks for these games have been excellent, particularlly Up Your Arsenal. His mixture of instrumental synths and electronica is extremely unique and really makes him stand out among all videogame composers, both Western and Eastern.

Hitoshi Sakimoto (FFTactics, FFXII) – There is remarkable thematic depth and flow in his works that I feel is lacking among other videogame composers. FFXII, in particular, was a breath of fresh air after years of Uematsu because it felt much more like a cohesive accompaniment to the world of Ivalice and the themes of the main story than a compilation of character-themes, battle-themes, and event-themes like previous FF soundtracks.

Motoi Sakuraba (Star Ocean series, Eternal Sonata) – Sakuraba is the god of battle music, and his town and field music is none too shabby either. His music single-handedly saved Eternal Sonata from being a complete disappointment, and believe me when I say that the game is worth suffering though just for the soundtrack.

Ueda Masami, Yamaguchi Hiroshi, Kondoh Rei (Okami) – One of my favorite games of all time with quite possibly my favorite soundtrack, period. I’ll admit that I haven’t heard anything else from these composers, but this one soundtrack easily stands up to all the others I’ve mentioned, and I’m confident that any collaboration by these three in the future would be just as awesome.

Koichi Sugiyama – Dragon Quest Series and spin offs cept swords
Kenji Ito – SaGa Series and some FF games

Yoko Shimomura (with the Legend of Mana soundtrack). End of story. 🙂
I really, really adore that soundtrack.

Yasunori Mitsuda and Nobuo Uematsu

I’ll have to go with Jeremy Soules and Frank Klepacki! My favourite composers of all time! =)

Jeremy Soule: Morrowind, Oblivion, Guild Wars, Giants:Citizen Kabuto, and i think he did Mass Effects music too.

Hajime Wakai rules (F-zero X music)

I’m gunna have to go with Yasunori Mitsuda (Chrono Trigger/Cross).

Motoi Sakuraba

Masaru Shiina (Tales of Legendia)

Hitoshi Sakamoto (FF Tactics)

Paul Ruskay – Homeworld 1-2 Turok(2008)
Kelly Bailey – Half life series
Mooze – Warfare
Jeehun Hwang – Apocalypse and alot others
Jesper Kyd – Assassins Creed
Hudson Soft Sound Team – Bomberman 64
Mutato Muzika – Crash Bandicoot 1-3
Hideki Okugawa,Marika Suzuki – Dead Rising
Tetsuya Shibata – Devil May Cry 1-4
Chris Vrenna, Clint Walsh – Doom 3
Tommy Tallarico – Multiple OST’s
mike miller – Original Earthworm Jim composer
Kenichiro Fukui – Einh???nder
Robin Beanland, Graeme Norgate – Killer Instinct (Snes)
Jack Wall and Sam Hulick – Mass Effect
Harry Gregson Williams – Metal Gear Ost’s and the rock movie score
Ellen Meijers-Gabriel – Oddworld Abe???s Exoddus & Abe’s Oddysee
Eric Nunamaker, Dave Rushton – Oddworld Adventures 2
Tsutomu Fuzawa – Oddworld – Munch’s Oddysee
Michael Bross – Oddworld – Stranger’s Wrath Original Soundtrack
Akira Yamaoka – Silent Hill series
Spencer Nilsen, David Young – Sonic CD
Neil Voss – Tetrisphere – The New Tetris
Gustaf Grefberg – The Darkness
Rik Schaffer and Womb Music – Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines
Bjorn Lynne – The Worms Series
ZREO Team – Orchestrated versions of Zelda series Music

There are so many more in my list Game music has really changed my life I love it with every note and it will never die I have over 60 gigs of music and it keeps on racking up just cant stop listening if you have trouble finding any of the music i named msg me and ill be happy to give it to you

Paul Ruskay – Homeworld 1-2 Turok(2008)
Kelly Bailey – Half life series
Mooze – Warfare
Jeehun Hwang – Apocalypse and alot others
Jesper Kyd – Assassins Creed
Hudson Soft Sound Team – Bomberman 64
Mutato Muzika – Crash Bandicoot 1-3
Hideki Okugawa,Marika Suzuki – Dead Rising
Tetsuya Shibata – Devil May Cry 1-4
Chris Vrenna, Clint Walsh – Doom 3
Tommy Tallarico – Multiple OST’s
mike miller – Original Earthworm Jim composer
Kenichiro Fukui – Einh???nder
Robin Beanland, Graeme Norgate – Killer Instinct (Snes)
Jack Wall and Sam Hulick – Mass Effect
Harry Gregson Williams – Metal Gear Ost’s and the rock movie score
Ellen Meijers-Gabriel – Oddworld Abe???s Exoddus & Abe’s Oddysee
Eric Nunamaker, Dave Rushton – Oddworld Adventures 2
Tsutomu Fuzawa – Oddworld – Munch’s Oddysee
Michael Bross – Oddworld – Stranger’s Wrath Original Soundtrack
Akira Yamaoka – Silent Hill series
Spencer Nilsen, David Young – Sonic CD
Neil Voss – Tetrisphere – The New Tetris
Gustaf Grefberg – The Darkness
Rik Schaffer and Womb Music – Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines
Bjorn Lynne – The Worms Series
ZREO Team – Orchestrated versions of Zelda series Music

There are so many more in my list Game music has really changed my life I love it with every note and it will never die I have over 60 gigs of music and it keeps on racking up just cant stop listening if you have trouble finding any of the music i named msg me and ill be happy to give it to you

60 gigs! :O That’s nuts. But yeah, game music really is the best, if you ask me. It’s unlike anything else this world’s got to offer.

I think I’ve posted here already, but anyway…….

1. Graeme Norgate (The TimeSplitters series, and some parts of GoldenEye N64). My line for him is: Graeme Norgate is God. Obey him or else.
2. Akira Satou (Raiden / Raiden II tracks, can sometimes be repetitive, but his spark created many remixes and tributes which were also awesome, not to mention inspiration for me on my game creating)
3. Jeremy Soule (He was responsible for the Music in Total Annihilation, which was very fitting for the game. Great stuff.)

Inon Zur – Crysis
Jeremy Soule – Supreme Commander
Frank Kelpacki – Red Alert 2/Yuri’s Revenge, Universe at war
Yoko Shimomura – Kingdom Hearts II
SSB X Sound Team – Super Smash Brothers Brawl
Paul Linford – Need For Speed Most Wanted Original Score
Trevor Morris – Need For Speed Carbon Original Score
Martin O’ Donnell – Halo Series
Tadashi Ikegami, Shogo Sakai, Takuto Kitsuta, Hirokazu Ando – Super Smash Brothers Melee

Motoi Sakuraba 😀

Yasunori Mitsuda

he did most of the chrono trigger soundtrack an that IMO is one of the best VG soundtracks of all time

Yoko Kanno did a few game soundtracks, so she gets a spot in here. As does Yasunori Mitsuda (Chrono series, Xenogears/Xenosaga series). Jeremy Soule, Masashi Hamauzu, too. What do people in here think of Hitoshi Sakimoto?

Yeah its True Yoko and Yasunori are great , but Yuki Kajiura Took over for the Xenosaga Series too. Yuki’s Music is very awesome in my Opinion! ^-^;

Yoko shimumora.- Kingdom Hearts
Taro or Taku Iwashiro- Onimusha 2 and did one of the Kenshin Movies
Daisuke Ishiwatari – Guilty Gear
Michiru Yamane – Castlevania (who doesn’t like her??)
Yuki Kujiura – not sure what games she’s composed but i love her piano solos and the work she did in Gundam Seed Destiny
Harry Gregson Williams – Metal Gear Solid (Love this guy)
Hideyuki Fukusawa – Onimusha Dawn of Dreams

Why do i get the feeling that I’m leaving people out??……

I believe you leave out Akira Yamaoka, Masami Ueda, Motoi Sakuraba, Hitoshi Sakimoto, Masaharu Iwata…

Motoi Sakurabai- Valkyrie Profile and Star Ocean are great examples for his/her awesomeness….

The fact no one said anything about zun makes this thread fail for me =_=

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Ii3cpo42R0U&feature=related
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ky-q4APgrHA&feature=related
http://youtube.com/watch?v=rAuAmaZy71w&feature=related

Come on people T_T
Motoi Sakuraba is pretty awesome though

Michiko Naruke – Wild Arms soundtracks are great
Yasunori Mitsuda – I loved the Chrono Trigger soundtrack, and I wish I had a Wii to hear the music from Brawl.

Yasunori Mitsuda – from xenogears soundtrack…… the best soundtrack games i have ever heard…….. BRAVO Yasunori Mitsuda……..

Tsukasa Saitoh from the armored core series, Akira Yamoaka from Silent Hill, Henry Gregson Williams [or Harry] metal Gear

Hitoshi Sakimoto!!! (Radiant Silvergun, Vagrant Story, FFT – ’nuff said)

DJ Amuro.

Sakuraba is one of the biggest. I think the best with Kondo and Uematsu.

About the unknowed: Nazo Nazo Suzuki. Dynamite Headdy Music ROCKS

See yaa

I’m going to have to go with Yasunori Mitsuda at this point.

I was bored so I decided to add up the votes for the best video game composer. For people who listed a million different ones for their favorite, I just used their first listed choice. Here are the voted best video game composers and all the ones who got more than three votes. Mitsuda and Sakuraba left the others in the dust. I know Uematsu would be up there too if it was allowed and maybe Koji Kondo.

Yasunori Mitsuda 19
Motoi Sakuraba 17
Yoko Shimomura 8
Akira Yamaoka 7
Michiru Yamane 7
Yuzo Koshiro 7
Jeremy Soule 7
Masashi Hamazau 4
Koichi Sugiyama 4
Jesper Kyd 4
David Wise 3
Koh Ohtani 3
Jun Senoue 3
Miki Higashino 3
Harry Gregson Williams 3

Already been mentioned, but I’m a big fan of Daisuke Ishiwatari and Jeremy Soule and his wife. : )

Don’t know if any1 said about this one before…

Masato Nakamura (and his soundtracks for Sonic 1 and 2)
sonic 3 sucked without him

Gustaf Grefberg all the way man 🙂

Yasunori Mitsuda (Xenogears, Chrono series),
Yoko Shimomura (Super Mario RPG & Superstar Saga, Front Mission, Street Fighter 2),
Hitoshi Sakimoto (Ogre Battle 64, Final Fantasy XII, Vagrant Story).

Gustaf Grefberg all the way man 🙂

I freaking agree, he has the best style of composing there is!! Shame he is severely underrated.:-(

Sorry, but I just can’t name one. There are so many great composers.

My quick list of favorites.

Yasunori Mitsuda
Yuzo Koshiro
Hitoshi Sakimoto ( Final Fantasy Tactics/ Vagrant Story/ Gradius V/ Radiant Silvergun)
Grant Kirkhope (Perfect Dark)
David Wise (He does the music for many RARE games)

harry gregson williams

and hideo kojima

Definitely Akira Yamaoka for too many reasons… OR Noriyuki Asakura of Tenchu fame.

Yoko Shimomura or Yasunori Mitsuda or Yuji Toriyuma… So many more but these are my favorites besides the two I can’t name…

Jeremy Soule, Hans Zimmer

Yasunori Mitsuda and Motoi Sakuraba deserve the top spots with Koji Kondo and Nobuo Uematsu for sure…

But I’m surprised no one listed Noriyuki Iwadare of Grandia fame. I love Grandia music.

David Wise is also awesome!

Someone I also love from the Nintendo gang is Kazumi Totaka. He’s done games like Mario Paint, Animal Crossing, Wave Race, Wii Sports, Pikmin 2… He also loves to hide his special song in games he composes the music for. It’s like he’s leaving his mark hidden in those games. http://nindb.classicgaming.gamespy.com/totaka.shtml

Chris H???lsbeck (spelled Huelsbeck in some games)

Tim & Geoff Follin. ‘Nuff said.

Good stuff.

Manfred Linzner – Iridion, his arranged soundtrack rocks so much!
Frank Klepacki – C&C, [random praise].
Graeme Norgate – TimeSplitters, weird but good. GoldenEye is pretty good too.
Grant Kirkhope – Banjo series, even weirder but still good.
Kenji Yamamoto – Metroid Prime, on it’s own the soundtrack isn’t that good, but it fits so perfectly with the game.
Eveline Fischer – Donkey Kong Country 1 & 3, she’s better than David Wise I think.
Kinuyo Yamashita – Castlevania 1, best 8-bit soundtrack out there.
Mahito Yokota – Super Mario Galaxy, he is in the shadow of Koji Kondo, but still really good.
Ambassadors Of Funk, not really video game composers, but their Compact Disco remix of the Mario tunes are some real fun.

And of course all the Castlevania composers and a lot of the SSBB team.

I’d have to go with Yoko Shimomura (Street Fighter II), Harry Gregson-Williams and Stephen Barton (Call of Duty 4), Akira Yamaoka (Silent Hill series), Tom Salta (Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2), and Masami Ueda (Resident Evil 2).

I’d have to go with Yoko Shimomura (Street Fighter II), Harry Gregson-Williams and Samuel Barton (Call of Duty 4), Akira Yamaoka (Silent Hill series), Tom Salta (Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2), and Masami Ueda (Resident Evil 2).

I didn’t know that there was another person who worked Call of Duty 4.

martin o` donnel
(halo Series)

Wow, it took 10 pages (unless I read too fast) for Marty O’Donnel to be mentioned? Good job, IHatechocobo. I don’t know what the rest of you think, but he’s certainly done a lot with the Halo series. I’m not a huge fan of the games themselves (I prefer their storyline, along with the many books), but the music is absolutely amazing. And the main theme is instantly recognizable. His soundtracks, although not super deep, are still a work of art.

Kevin Riepl did an excellent job with Unreal Tournament 2004. I have a couple of his songs from that game, and they’re really cool too.

michiru yamane is amazing!,david bergeaud is a genius!

Tim & Geoff Follin. ‘Nuff said.

Very much agree with you there, Tim Follin’s work on Ecco the dolphin: Defender of the Future was absolutely awesome! 🙂 Have any of you ever heard his unused song for that game? I found it on his website. Listen to this: The Tick (http://www.bobspaddedcell.com/Tim/mp3s/The%20Tick.mp3)

Website: http://www.timfollin.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/

Pretty awesome music if you ask me. 🙂

i think japanese composers have american composers beat in video games
at least,anyway!

yasunori mitsuda, no questions asked.

besides kondo and uematsu, he is the only other i truly know.

Motoi Sakuraba.

Jesper Kyd (Hitman series, Assassin’s Creed)
Stephane Picq (Lost Eden)
Kouhei Tanaka (Alundra)
Reijiro Koroku (Kessen)

just wondering, does great game composers only come from Japan (ie: the japanese) & U.S (ie: Americans, ie: harry gregson williams, etc) , and not from ANY other country, for example: Korea , CHINA, India ?

anybody knows why is this?..

just wondering, does great game composers only come from Japan (ie: the japanese) & U.S (ie: Americans, ie: harry gregson williams, etc) , and not from ANY other country, for example: Korea , CHINA, India ?

anybody knows why is this?..

The US and Japan are currently the most dominant countries in the video game industry. They are prolific and command large budgets to boot (including things related to production values such as music). Europe, however, is keeping up in the video game industry. Ubisoft, which is headquartered in France, is one that most people are familiar with. I’m quite sure there are some good video game composers outside the US and Japan, but the games that they are associated with have not recieved as much exposure worldwide, thus don’t enjoy the recognition they may deserve.

One of the composers,I named on the topic, Stephane Picq, is French. He no longer composes music for video games though.

David Wise FTW! Diddy Kong Racing’s musical genious has yet to be matched. : )

Martin O’ Donnell(Halo 1,2,3)

Yasunori Mitsuda is by far the most skilled, melodic, varied, and awe-inspiring. One can feel the love he puts into each note. I can’t put any composer near his level but Youko Kanno.

I can’t believe nobody has mentioned Yoshitaka Hirota, the composer for Shadow hearts and Shadow Hearts 2. Very original and creative.

just wondering, does great game composers only come from Japan (ie: the japanese) & U.S (ie: Americans, ie: harry gregson williams, etc) , and not from ANY other country, for example: Korea , CHINA, India ?

anybody knows why is this?..

Harry Gregson-Williams is british.

And responding to your question: because only 1st world contries can have creative people actually make a living out of art(this includes music composition).

my personal favorite is Hotoshi Sakimoto. He has done an excellent job on final fantasy XII’s and Final Fantasy Tactics’ (including advance 2) soundtracks

Akira Yamaoka (Silent Hill 0,1,2,3,4)

Hitoshi Sakimoto.
Incredible composer, one of the few that has a sound which you can’t find anywhere else.

Kelly Bailey (Half-Life 1+2), Alexander Brandon (Deus Ex), Eric Chevalier (Rayman 2), and Autopilot (Descent 3)

Hideki Naganuma is my all-time favorite.

Hideki Naganuma is my all-time favorite.

What has he done? Not familiar with the name

Motoi Sakuraba FTW!

What has he done? Not familiar with the name

Jet Set Radio, Jet Set Radio Future, Ollie King, Sonic Rush, Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz, and the track "Boosted" for Sega Rally 2006.

According to Mobygames he’s also done music for Sega Rally 2 Championship, but I can’t find any other source that backs this up.

David Bergeud, Niels Bye Nielson

Other than Nobuo Uematsu, I would have to say Yasunori Mitsuda (from the Chrono series)

Jesper Kyd

Assassins Creed. Nice

michiru yamane!she is a genius!

koji kondo is a genius too!

koichi sugayama is gifted as well!

Yoko Shimomura (Mana Series, FFV13), Yasunori Matsuda (Xenosaga, Chrono Series), Koh Ootani (Shadow of the Colossus), Jermey Soule (Harry Potter Games, Guild Wars), Jesper Kyd (Hitman Series, Assassins Creed), Yuzo Koshiro (Shenmue, Streets of Rage), Bob & Barn (Primal, Medievil Series), Chris H???lsbeck (Turrican, Apidya etc etc etc), Kei Wakakusa (Elemental Gearbolr), Nobue Uematsu (FF), Yoko Kanno (Nobunaga Series, Ragnarok Online)

Jeremy Soule, Jack Wall and Russel Shaw

Yuzo Koshiro gets my vote, hands down.

Gotta agree with pretty much every post in this thread. I especially like Michiru Yamane, Koichi Sugiyama, Yoko Shimomura… and though Hitoshi Sakimoto’s motifs are a bit repetitive at times, I do enjoy some select tracks of his.

I like the guy who did the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion soundtrack too, if I have to choose someone not Japanese. xD Game music is the best~

Oh and Yasunori Mitsuda, and Motoi Sakuraba… dang, there’s so many good composers out there. @_@

Motoi Sakuraba <—This man is brilliant and is so varied!!
I love his work and it’s quite memorable. Awesome thread:D

2nd would be Yoko Shimomura <—She’s a wonderful goodness
and I’m sure we all can agree on that:)

Graeme Norgate. (some one that’s not Japanese!)
He did the music to the Goldeneye games: Goldeneye [duh!], Perfect Dark, Time Splitters, Time Splitters 2, and Time Splitters 3: Future Perfect.

Speaking of which, Time Splitters 4 has been announced!

David Wise is one of my favorites; he’s responsible for the Donkey Kong Country series. I don’t see him mentioned too much, so I felt like mentioning him.

Hip Tanaka, Jun Senoue and Toshiyuki Kakuta

Shogo Sakai (mother 3), Hirokazu Tanaka, and Keiichi Suzuki (Mother and EarthBound) too 🙂

Hajime Wakai rules (F-zero X music)

that’s a good one, personally i learn towards kenji yamamoto and hironobu kageyama(behind all the dbz ost’s)

Yuzo Koshiro(Shinobi 3 and Streets of Rage) and Motoi Sakuraba(Valkyrie Profile and Star Ocean

When Motoi Sakuraba is on, there isn’t anyone on Earth comparable to him. When he is off, though, he can be godawful.

Stephen Barton constructed some truly spectacular pieces for Call Of Duty 4 but never got a full soundtrack released, which is a travesty. He managed to make a classical rock soundtrack special, which is something I never thought possible until Call Of Duty 4’s music began blasting during the heat of battle.

–

When Motoi Sakuraba is on, there isn’t anyone on Earth comparable to him. When he is off, though, he can be godawful.

Stephen Barton constructed some truly spectacular pieces for Call Of Duty 4 but never got a full soundtrack released, which is a travesty. He managed to make a classical rock soundtrack special, which is something I never thought possible until Call Of Duty 4’s music began blasting during the heat of battle.

You’re right, I haven’t seen a soundtrack to Call of Duty 4 yet. Have you got a chance to hear the music from Call of Duty: World at War. It have some good tracks so far.

-SNIP-

You’re right, I haven’t seen a soundtrack to Call of Duty 4 yet. Have you got a chance to hear the music from Call of Duty: World at War. It have some good tracks so far.

I don’t think it’s an official soundtrack but there’s a Call of Duty 4 soundtrack, ripped maybe. Search the forums. Not bad.

Yoko Shimomura – Parasite Eve
Kou Otani – Shadow of the Colossus
Hajime Wakai – Pikmin!
Motoi Sakuraba – Tales of Symphonia

Chris H???lsbeck (Turrican + many other Amiga Titles) – Great german composer !

http://www.huelsbeck.com/music.html

Michiru Yamame – Castlevania Series
Masami Ueda, Hiroshi Yamaguchi, Rei Kondoh, Akari Groves – Okami
Harry Gregson-Williams – Metal Gear 4 Guns Of The Patriots

Michiru Yamane (for the Castlevania series soundtracks)
Yoko Shimomura (Kingdom Hearts series, Mario RPG)
Ippo Yamada (Rockman Zero series)
Yasunori Mitsuda (Chrono Trigger)
Masakazu Sugimori, Akemi Kimura, Noriyuki Iwadare (Phoenix Wright series)

Takayuki Nakamura (Ehrgeiz, especially quest mode compositions)
Masashi Hamauzu (Unlimited Saga)

Kurt Harland (Legacy of Kain series)
Masami Ueda (Resident evil series, Okami)

I think David Bergeaud is one of the best, may be Stewart Copeland also, i think Ratchet and Clank series and Spyro the Dragon Series (espacially the Spyro The Dragon) , the OST are quite good.

There are too many of them and that is the best thing right now.

Martin O’Donnell and Michael Salvatori: Halo, Halo 2, Halo 3 and Halo Wars (soon^^)

yokko kanno (did music mainly for ghost in the shell series and PS2 game) but honestly I have to agree with Ruffneck there are just too many composers to list

Tobias Enhus and Christopher Lennertz

I don’t know if it’s already been said, but Christophe Heral (Beyond Good & Evil) is awesome. I also like Stuart Chartwood (Prince of Persia).

Yoko Shimomura – Kingdom hearts series and songs on Final fantasy Versus traiiers

Michiko Naruke (Wild ARMs series)
Tomohito Nishiura (Dark Cloud 1 & 2, Rogue Galaxy)
Noriyuki Iwadare (Grandia series)

really dudes,anyone japanese ,has american composers beat by a mile!

Noriyuki Asakura (Tenchu, Rurouni Kenshin, Kamiwaza)
Yoko Kanno (Uncharted Waters, Nobunaga’s Ambition, Ragnarok Online II)
Kenji Yamamoto (Dragonball serie)

Akira Yamaoka anyone???

Kenji Yamamoto – Metroid Prime 1 2 and 3 He’s great at creating music that defines the emotion of an environment =)

Bj???rn Lynne "Worms 2", Chris H???lsbeck "Turrican" and Jonne Valtonen aka Purple Motion "Death Rally"

1. Yasunori Mitsuda (Chrono, Xenosaga)

2. Keiki Kobayashi (Ace Combat)

3. Sound Team JDK (Ys, Brandish)

4. Michiko Naruke (Wild ARMs)

5. Norikazu Miura (Suikoden IV, V)

6. Tenpei Sato (Disgaea, La Pucelle, Soul Nomad)

Yoko shimumora.- Kingdom Hearts
Taro or Taku Iwashiro- Onimusha 2 and did one of the Kenshin Movies
Daisuke Ishiwatari – Guilty Gear
Michiru Yamane – Castlevania (who doesn’t like her??)
Yuki Kujiura – not sure what games she’s composed but i love her piano solos and the work she did in Gundam Seed Destiny
Harry Gregson Williams – Metal Gear Solid (Love this guy)
Hideyuki Fukusawa – Onimusha Dawn of Dreams

Why do i get the feeling that I’m leaving people out??……

DUH!!! My favorite video game score…….

Junichi Nakatsuru, Ryuichi Takada, and Keiki Kobayashi – Soul Calibur III

That soundtrack, especially disc 2, is my all time favorite, though the composers let me down on Soul Calibur IV. I found I’ll say around 2 or 3 pieces that I liked out of both CDs together excluding Path of Destiny

Motoi Sakuraba

Sort of the same feeling I had when first listening to Shoji Memuro from Persona 3. I think Memuro’s older Shin Megami Tensei OSTs were better though I can’t say for sure absolutely what I think until I hear everything.
You misspelled Shoji Meguro.

The guy needs more recognition. His works are some of the most epic songs I’ve heard, even beating Kingdom Hearts songs.

I think many of you are forgetting the AMAZING work Yoko Kanno did for Napple Tale on the Dreamcast.

As for one of the best, I would definitely have to say Junya Nakano (Threads of Fate).

I think many of you are forgetting the AMAZING work Yoko Kanno did for Napple Tale on the Dreamcast.

Never heard of this game but I did some quick research on it and I am intrigued. Thanks for bringing this game up, I’m definitely going to be playing it sometime in the future.

I’m definitely going to be playing it sometime in the future.

Orly? If you find a copy of it, fricking props to you. Good luck though. And the soundtracks are on GH if you wanna check them out.. err.. when GH comes back that is. I recommend "Skipper", "Egg", and "A Guitar’s Rhythm". But most of them are amazing.

Spencer Nilson, Tommy Tallarico, and whoever did the Croc and Rayman soundtracks are amongst my favorites.

Richard Jacques (Metropolis Street Racing – Headhunter – Mass Effect – and more)

Keiki Kobayashi ([Ace combat 4 – 5 – Zero – 6 -] Soul Calibur 3)

Orly? If you find a copy of it, fricking props to you. Good luck though. And the soundtracks are on GH if you wanna check them out.. err.. when GH comes back that is. I recommend "Skipper", "Egg", and "A Guitar’s Rhythm". But most of them are amazing.

I was planning on obtaining it through more legally ambiguous means.

Yasunori Mitsuda – Chrono Series
I do not really know that many (who composed Battlefield 2142?)

I don’t want to read the whole post, but i will acknowledge the great Keiichi Suzuki, composer of Earthbound music (SNES).

Masashi Hamauzu…for a German born Japanese citizen…that’s just 2/3 of the axis powers right there.

Oh yeah…

Or Masaru Shiina for his work in Tales of Legendia…along with his other alias Go Shiina.

I can’t believe nobody has said anything about Tsuneo Imahori. Has anyone heard the soundtracks for Grungrave and Trigun? I prefer Grungrave myself… Imahori is an amazingly talented composer and guitarist – just look at the sheer variety of musical styles in a single soundtrack.

The highest compliment I can pay him is this: that I can truly say that his music, and his music ALONE, was the sole reason for my interest and first contact with anime, a thing which I had never heard of and that none of my friends knew about. I bet there aren’t too many people who can say this.

*edit*
Video game composer, right? Well, darn. I was thinking anime. forgive my brainfart. Tsuneo Imahori still made game music, but it was of a decidedly different flavor. Not my favorite, and not as good as his other works. But I guess I’ll just leave this little plug in here 🙂

Not sure if I’ve posted in this thread before, but either way, my list (for game composers) has been updated:

Howard Drossin, Dave Wise, Jun Ishikawa, Keiichi Suzuki, Hirokazu Tanaka, Yoko Shimomura, Yoshito Hirano, Yuka Tsujiyoko, Koh Ohtani, Eric Chevalier, Spencer Nilsen, Jon Holland, Shogo Sakai, Toshihiko Horiyama, Koji Kondo, Nobuo Uemastu, Yasunori Mitsuda

And many more. Note that this list isn’t in any particular order after the fourth musician.

Keiki Kobyashi, Tetsukazu Nakanishi, Hiroshi Okubo, & Junichi Nakatsuru (Ace Combat Series & Soul Calibur Series) They RULE!!!!!

I just remembered of Jake Kaufman, A.K.A. Virt, who composed soundtrack for Shantae and many other games.

My personal favourites are Yasunori Mitsuda (for the Chrono series and Xenogears/Xenosaga), Michiru Yamane (Castlevania series), Miki Higashino and Keiko Fukami (for Suikoden II), Harry Gregson-Williams and Norihiko Hibino (MGS2 rocks!), and the guys responsible for the Mega Man series (too many to write), as well as those already mentioned by Bret (kudos to Ace Combat 04).

I prefer Motoi sakuraba over all others, i own nearly all his CDs even older work. (the composer from Star Ocean series, Tales series, Infinite undiscovery)

This composer does game, anime music but when he just started (before star ocean 1 and tales of phantasia debut) he made a couple of progressive rock albums which are very nice too

Hard to choose a single favorite, but here are my top five in no particular order:

Michiru Yamane (Castlevania)
Kenichiro Fukui (Einhander)
Junichi Nakatsuru (Soul Calibur IV)
Tatsuhiko Nakahara (Animamundi)
Yoko Shimomoura (Parasite Eve)

Shoji Meguro, The creator of most of the Shin Megami Tensei Soundtracks, he is amazing, especially when it comes to hard Rockin’ tunes and Orchestrated music also.

Motoi Sakuraba (Star Ocean, Valkyrie Profile, Baten Kaitos, Infinite Undiscovery) Love his classic, synth and rock style, so great melodies!

Michiko Naruke for her outstanding scores for the Wild ARMs series. Wild ARMs is what got me into both games and music.

And Yasunori Mitsuda for the amazingly beautiful Chrono Cross score.

Michael Land & Peter McConnell. The music for Lucasarts’ adventure output is phenomenal, particularly the Monkey Island series and Grim Fandango.

Kenichiro Fukui for einhander

Yasunori Mitsuda (The Chrono series)
Yoko Shimomura (Kingdom Hearts series, Super Mario RPG)
Akira Yamaoka (Silent Hill series)
Tetsuya Shibata (Devil May Cry 2, 3, 4 and Marvel vs. Capcom 2)

Honorable Mention goes to Hideyuki Fukasawa for his work on Street Fighter IV.

Oh, and Ryuichi Tadaka too. He helped in the Ace Combat & Soul Calibur Series too.

Joel GOLDSMITH for CoD3
Graeme REVELL for CoD2

Grant Kirkhope, Banjo-Kazooie series.

His work is amazing, and the music of the Banjo-Kazooie series is unforgettably epic.

Hideyeki Fukasawa and Jamie Christopherson.

Fukasawa has composed Street Fighter IV and Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams amongst others; Christopherson specialises in huge holywood orchestrals with heavy percussion.

If you don’t have the Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams OST (composed by them both together), get it, it’s the best damn OST ever made.

Hideyeki Fukasawa and Jamie Christopherson.

Fukasawa has composed Street Fighter IV and Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams amongst others; Christopherson specialises in huge holywood orchestrals with heavy percussion.

If you don’t have the Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams OST (composed by them both together), get it, it’s the best damn OST ever made.

Damn straight!! I love that OST. But I didn’t know that Jamirie Christopherson worked on it. Learned something new today.

David Clynick (Perfect Dark 64)
Graeme Norgate (Timesplitters series)
Kelly Bailey (Half – Life 2)
Chris Rickwood (Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom)

ESTi (DJMAX PORTABLE Original Sound Tracks, DJMAX TECHNIKA Original Soundtrack, PangYa Portable Original Sound Track, POWER DoLLS 1 Soundtrack Resonance, The Memory of Ragnarok)

soundTeMP (Granado Espada Original Sound Track Volume 1, Ragnarok Online Original Soundtrack)

By now it’s Toshikazu Tanaka (latest Metal Slug albums).

If you ask me, Iwasaki Taku seems pretty good to me

Jesper Kyd -(Hitman Soundtrack)
Matt Uelmen (Diablo 1-2)
Michael Giacchino (Medal of Honor Frontline)

Akira Yamaoka makes good, creepy and atmospheric music.
Manabu Namiki – He makes very good things with bass and strings.
I think guy who write music to Donkey Kong Country Snes series have very hi potencial.
Author of the FF6 music is genius in my opinion.

I’ll name a couple of composers and the game I like from, not other games.

Stewart Copeland (Spyro The Dragon, Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rage!, Spyro: Year of the Dragon)

Harry Gregson-Williams (Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Metal Gear Solid 3, Snake Eater, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots)

Mutato Muzika (Crash Bandicoot, Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back, Crash Bandicoot: Warped, Sims 2)

Some others I’m too lazy to look up.

Koichi Sugiyama is better than Nobuo Uematsu or Koji Kondo

Harry Gregson-Williams
Matt Uelmen
Michael Giacchino

Here’s a few-

Hirokazu Tanaka (Metroid, Dr. Mario, Earthbound)
Kazumi Totaka (Animal Crossing, Link’s Awakening, Super Mario Land 2 and many others, and of course that hidden song that appears in almost every game he’s done the music for)
Masato Nakamura (Sonic 1 and 2)
Ryoji Yoshitomi (Wario Land 4, Wario Ware Inc., I love both of these soundtracks)
Dave Wise (Donkey Kong Country series)

Yuzo Koshiro (his work in Ys was great)
Shoji Meguro
Yasunori Mitsuda
Jun Senoue

Chris H???lsbeck for sure.

David Bergeaud, Steve Jablonsky, Eric Chevailier, Bjorn Lynne and Joris de Man (Western)

Not sure about eastern.

I’m a huge fan of Chris Tilton’s work, so he’s at the top of my list. Some other notables for me are: Jack Wall, Michael O’Donnell, and Koji Kondo.

I hate threads like these >_<.
mmm does Ryu* count? Since he does beatmania.

I’d probably have to say

Kevin Riepl
Jon Hallur
Rom Di Prisco
Trent Reznor (his work on the original Quake was just gnarly)
Graeme Norgate
Cris Velasco

also we musn???t forget Mr Motoi Sakuraba

Toshiya Yamanaka, Tamayo Kawamoto, Masahiro Yuge (short lived but still wrote my favorite music), Shinobu Ogawa, Takaharu Umezu, Yasuhisa Watanabe, Hiroaki Yoshida, Kazuo Hanzawa, Hyakutaro Tsukumo, Manami Matsumae, most of S.S.T., and just for the record Motoi Sakuraba excluding all his boring ass symphonic songs.

Go Sato; he composed lots of soundtracks for the Raiden series, and a bit for Thunderforce 6 as well

Go Sato; he composed lots of soundtracks for the Raiden series, and a bit for Thunderforce 6 as well

Same here as well. :coolegg:

Hitoshi Sakimoto – Mainly because of his contribution to the FF series. Vagrant Story OST is very good too.

Daisuke Ishiwatari (Guilty Gear series, BlazBlue) – His symphonic metal tracks in BlazBlue and Guilty Gear 2:Overture are epic (Diva, Awakening the Chaos). His other tracks are mostly good as well (Awe of She, Love Letter From, Meet Again, Queen of Rose, etc).
Go Shiina (Tales of Legendia) – Ancient Ship, To Deliver the Feelings, Guiding Star, Sea of Rage, The Legendary Sorceror, melfes – Shining Blue, Spinning thoughts – bound hands. His music embodies a lot of the emotions found throughout the game moments.
Michiko Naruke (Wild Arms 1-3 (whole), XF, 4 (Partial)) – Western style distinctive music, has good variety.
Nobuo Uematsu (Final Fantasy 7) – I only like his FF7 tracks, the others are mediocre.

My personal favorite among these would be Daisuke Ishiwatari. Most rock and metal music found in soundtracks (not just VG soundtracks) are mediocre at best. He surpassed them all. Motoi Sakuraba has some rock elements to his music, but he can’t make good use of it IMHO. "The Incarnation of Devil" is pretty repetitive. Another good point to Daisuke Ishiwatari is that some of his music are merely rearranged/remixed, but actually sounded variative and unique.

Graeme Norgate hands down

Yuzo Koshiro
Kaoru Wada

Yuzo Koshiro!

Go Shiina and Daisuke Ishiwatari. The former makes beautiful orchestral, violin-heavy works. The latter makes the best damn metal and rock I’ve ever heard.

Star Ocean’s composers.

I figured you’d say Koichi Sugiyama.

him too.

🙂

(huge dragon quest fan)

I like jdk sound team from Falcom and Shoji Meguro from Atlus.

Whos Nobuo Uematsu?

Yoko freaking Kanno and Michael Giacchino

Matt Uelmen
Frank Klepacki
Koichi Sugiyama
Yoko Shimomura
Kenji Ito
Masashi Hamauzu
Glenn Stanford
Derek Duke

meh that’s enough for now.

Manabu Namiki
Hitoshi Sakimoto
Hiroshi Iuchi
Peter Hajba
Jerry Berlongieri
Jonne Valtonen

Manabu Namiki
Hitoshi Sakimoto
Hiroshi Iuchi
Peter Hajba
Jerry Berlongieri
Jonne Valtonen

I only know one of those…

Kenji Eno: D, D2 & other related releases
Matt Uelmen: Diablo, Diablo: Hellfire, Diablo II, Diablo II: LoD
Derek Duke: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, WoW: Wrath of the Lich King
Russell Brower: WoW: Burning Crusade & upcoming Diablo III
Frank Klepacki: music works at Westwood Studios, Universe at War
Akira Yamaoka: Silent Hill Series
Masami Ueda: Resident Evil Series
Sonic Mayhem: Quake 2 & Quake 3 Arena
Jeremy Soule: Icewind Dale & Heart of Winter, Guild Wars Series, Elder Scrolls 3 & 4
Russell Shaw: Dungeon Keeper, Syndicate Series, Fable 1 & 2
Amon Tobin: Chaos Theory, InFamous [w/ Various]
Tobias Enhus: The Matrix: Path of Neo [w/ Various]
Taro Iwashiro: Onimusha 2
Mamoru Samuragoch: Onimusha: Warlords & Genma
David Arkenstone: Lands of Lore 2 & 3 [w/ Frank Klepacki]
Peter Connelly: Tomb Raider: Last Revelation, Chronicles & Angel of Darkness [w/ Martin Iveson]
Nathan McCree: Tomb Raider & 2 [w/ Martin Iveson]
Michiru Oshima: ICO [w/ PENTAGON]
Kow Otani: Wander & the Colossus
Martin O’Donnell & Michael Salvatori: Halo Series
Cris Velasco & Sascha Dikiciyan: Hellgate: London
Inon Zur: Icewind Dale 2, Syberia 2, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War, Crysis
Jason Graves: Dead Space
Michael Giacchino: Medal of Honor Series, Jurassic Park: The Lost Word
Steve Jablonsky: Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars [w/ Trevor Morris] & Kane’s Wrath
James Hannigan & Timothy Wynn: Red Alert 3 & Uprising [both w/ Frank Klepacki]
Mark Knight: Dungeon Keeper 2
Jesper Kyd: Hitman Series, Assassin’s Creed Series
Trent Reznor: Quake
Bobby Prince: original Doom Series

Marty O’Donnell and Michael Giacchino

Bill Brown: Command & Conquer: Generals & Zero Hour, Quake 2 [w/ Sonic Mayhem]

Motoi Sakuraba (Star Ocean, Tales)
Hidenori Shoji (F Zero GX)
Tetsuya Shibata (Devil May Cry 3)
Kento Hasegawa (Devil May Cry 3)
Norihiko Hibino (Metal Gear Solid 2, 3 and 4)
Noriko Matsueda and Takahito Eguchi (Final Fantasy X-2)
Hithoshi Sakimoto (Final Fantasy Tactics series, Vagrant Story and XII)
Yoko Shimomura (Mario & Luigi series, Kingdom Hearts series)
Kumi Tanioka (FF: Crystal Chronicles)
Harry Gregson-Williams (Metal Gear Solid 2, 3 and 4)
Jun Senoue (Sonic series)
Tomoya Ohtani (Sonic series)

Personal favourites are Motoi Sakuraba, Norihiko Hibino, Yoko Shimomura, Jun Senoue, Tomoya Ohtani and Hitoshi Sakimoto, because these are pretty much the only ones I’ve heard multiple Soundtracks from.

Michiru Yamane (Most notable for Castlevania Symphony of the Night & Lament Of Innocence)
Masanori Oodachi, Sotaro Tojima (Super Castlevania IV)
More Yamasan, B.B. Hasake (First Ninja Gaiden on NES)
Yoko Shimomura (Super Mario RPG Legend Of The Seven Stars)
David Wise (Donkey Kong Country Series)
Graeme Norgate (Goldeneye N64)
Grant Kirkhope (Perfect Dark N64)
Andrew Barnabas & Paul Arnold (Medievil Series)
Spencer Nilsen (Batman Returns on Sega CD & Sonic CD)
Kenji Yamamoto (Metroid Prime)
Tomohito Nishiura (Rogue Galaxy)

Jun Senoue (Sonic Series), Yoko Shimomura (Kingdom Hearts series, Mario & Luigi series), Aya Tanaka (Mario Party 5), Shinobu Tanaka (Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, Mario Kart DS), Asuka Ohta (New Super Mario Bros., Mario Kart Wii), Kenta Nagata (Mario Kart 64, Double Dash!!), and Hideki Abe (Puyo Pop Fever, Puyo Puyo 7).

Hi everyone
I have developed a game site.There are very interesting game are available. Some game like Jocuri sport (http://monstergames.ro) and the web site is http://monstergames.ro/. Just play once and enjoy the fun.

Thanks

My favorite VG composer is Grant Kirkhope, by far. Also, I really like whoever did the music for the NES Megaman games(don’t know names, since the credits use nicknames), and whoever did it for Megaman 9 and 10.

Would have to say Eric Brosius for his work on System Shock and Thief series or Chris H???lsbeck for Turrican!

Anyone mentioned Takenobu Mitsuyoshi yet? 😉

Masafumi Takada

Tenpei Sato, David Wise, Michiru Yamane.

And Kenichi Tokoi. He’s my all time favorite.

Yasunori Mitsuda > Hiroki Kikuta > Miki Higashino > Matt Uelmen > Nobuo Uematsu > Yukihide Takekawa > Norikazu Miura > Michiru Yamane > Yuzo Koshiro

I don’t even really like Koji Kondo.

I have couples of composers ( musically couples that would be great)

Yasunori Mitsuda and Yoko Shimomura.
Motoi Sakuraba and Miki Higashino.
Hitoshi Sakimoto and Yuki Kajiura.

In my opinion would be great if they collaborated.

My favorite ever has to be…Nobuyoshi Sano a.k.a. Sanodg!!!

Jun Ishikawa (Kirby series)

June Chiki Chikuma (Bomberman series)

Hirokazu Tanaka (I like him best for Earthbound)

Yuka Tsujiyoko (I like her best for the Paper Mario series)

Kiyoshi "K-Mu" Murai (Presuming she’s a she, I know her only from Animaniacs for the Genesis, but the soundtrack was downright outstanding and had a very intelligent, if not somewhat difficult arrangment– It’s always been a favorite of mine)

Shoji Meguro (I like him best for the Persona series)

Toshihiko Horiyama (Megaman series mostly. One of the best synth rock writers for video games that I can think of. Vastly underrated, but mostly due to a lack of discography I would guess)

Inti Creates Soundteam (As a whole, they do a fantastic job at always producing very high quality soundtracks that are always well composed)

Yoko Shimomura (A guilty pleasure I would suppose. We all know how great she is without having to bother to say anything about it, really)

Akira Yamaoka is easily my favorite.

Yasunori Mitsuda would be second.

Motoi Sakuraba

-Tales Series
-Star Ocean
-Valkyrie Profile
-Golden Sun
-Various Mario Spinoffs
-Baten Kaitos
-Super smash bros brawl
and other games~

Shoji Meguro! God I wish I had heard his music sooner… (SMT series, most if not all of the games)

Shoji Meguro! God I wish I had heard his music sooner… (SMT series, most if not all of the games)

I personally don’t like what he did for Persona. =D, but for the other SMT he did some interesting stuff.

My fauvorite Composers Leaving Uematsu & Kondo aside:

Hitoshi Sakimoto – An Adquired Taste, I dive into his compositions & Analyzing every bit of his work & I can safely say that he’s the most Versatile VGM Composer we have today.

Akira Yamaoka – The Only Person that I know capable of Scoring any Silent Hill game, the only Person that I can say that could replace him is Trent Reznor.

Miki Higashino – A recent Discovery of myself, her Contributions to the Gradius & Salamander Shooters is one of the most interesting stuff out there, her Magnum Opus, Suikoden I & II, are one of the finest Soundtracks ever written, it has the most varied Ethnical sounds.

Yasunori Mitsuda – A celebrity among VGM Listeners, too bad his works post Chrono Cross (except for Xenosaga) are getting repetitive. But I have great times playing his songs on the guitar.

Isamu Ohira – Though his composition are only for the Gran Turismo Series, I have great times listening to his Jazz.

Yoko Shimomura – I liked her better when she didn’t arrange Disney music, but her Original Compositions on KH are good, but not as good as Parasite Eve & Legend of Mana. WHY DIDN’T YOU COMPOSED ALL THE MUSIC FOR THE 3RD BIRTHDAY, THAT OST IS SUCH A DISSAPOINTMENT FOR ME.

Michiru Yamane – After you get used to the fact tha She Blatantly rips off J.S. Bach, you can have fun listening to her Compositions.

Souji Taro & Masanori Adachi – The 2 Persons that composed my fauvorite Castlevania Soundtrack for my fauvorite Castlevania Game (Super Castlevania IV), as a fanboy of Castlevania I wouldn’t make this list without mentioning them. =D

Matt Uelmen – Diablo & Torchlight full stop.

Those are my Fauvorites & I consider most of them better than Uematsu or Kondo. =D

Hitoshi Sakimoto – Final Fantasy Tactics the original…my personal favorite final fantasy
Michiru Yamane – Castlevania!!

I would like to say Michael Giacchino for his work in Mercenaries (the first one)

I like Sean Murray,who recorded for Call of Duty World at War.The game has marvelous soundtrack.
Koji Kondo(LOL)
Yasunori Mitsuda,from Chrono Trigger.
David Wise,the man who composed Donkey Kong Country
Graeme Norgate,for Goldeneye,KI and Perfect Dark.

Keiki Kobayashi, Tetsukazu Nakanishi, Junichi Nakatsuru, Hiroshi Okubo – All of them did the Ace Combat 5 ost, the best soundtrack…

And Yasunori Mitsuda for Chrono Trigger/Cross

Ryo Yonemitsu for his awesome arrangements.

Masami Ueda, Hiroshi Yamaguchi, Rei Kondoh, Ayaka Hirahara and Akari Groves – Okami, one of the best game soundtracks ever, period

Yeah, I just love the music too, I can’t stop listening to it. Rei Kondoh did the music to Okamiden, so that is also on my favourites list.
Stewart Copeland : Spyro The Dragon, Gateway to Glimmer and Year Of the Dragon, also incredibly good!

XD all Falcom Sound Team J.D.K. are best and Yukihiro Jindo is best Arranger for me…
try to listen Ys vs Sora no Kiseki Alternative Saga album

XD all Falcom Sound Team J.D.K. are best and Yukihiro Jindo is best Arranger for me…
try to listen Ys vs Sora no Kiseki Alternative Saga album

The Oath in Felghana is his best arrangement.

Akira Yamaoka

Stuart Chatwood

Behavior

Hitoshi Sakimoto
Kou Ootani
Koichi Sugiyama

Something like that.

Akira Yamaoka – The Only Person that I know capable of Scoring any Silent Hill game, the only Person that I can say that could replace him is Trent Reznor

Hell no. I’d hate to see Reznor do Silent Hill. His music is incredibly unique and I don’t think it would fit in an SH. I have noticed a lot of the music he does, doesn’t really fit with the stuff it’s supposed to be playing in. The Social Network soundtrack is excellent on its own, but in the movie it felt COMPLETELY out of place.

Personally, I’d like to see him do something like this, as far as games go:

A guy can always dream, right?

Mine are Motoi Sakuraba, Yasunori Mitsuda, Michiru Yamane, Jun’ichi Masuda and ZUN.

Inon Zur/Jeremy Soule
Jon Hallur (Eve Online)
Paul Ruskay(Homeworld / PC game series)

david bergeaud

Big fan of the composers of the Mass Effect games Jack Wall & Sam Hulick

Jeremy Soule

Toshiharu Yamanishi – ThunderForce 4 and 5. Some of the best music ive ever heard especially in TF4
Hiroyuki IWatsuki – You could class his music as typical video game music. To me a lot of his music encompasses all of the things that drew me to VGM in the first place.( short and catchy yet not annoying, distinctive sounds and song construction, etc) Check out The Ninja Warriors on Snes and OmegaFive on XBLA for examples.
Norio Hanzawa – This guy makes good music for action, really lively basslines. Sometimes sounds charmingly wacky with his melodies. Gunstar Heroes is one of his best ( really wasnt afraid to lay the elements on thick damn!)

The Guys at BasisScape – Tekken 6, Muramasa Demon Blade. Wonderful varied music. Plus they have some of my fave ever composers in house ( Manabu Namiki, Hitoshi Sakimoto,Kimihiro Abe)

Jeremy Soule (KOTOR, Oblivion, WH40k DoW WA, many others)
Jesper Kyd (Hitman Series, Freedom Fighters, Assassin’s Creed Series, others)
Inon Zur (Crysis, Fallout 3, others)
Dan Forden (Mortal Kombat series)
Michael Giacchino (Medal of Honor, Call of Duty, others)
Joris de Man (Killzone Series)

I also like Glenn Stafford. Man, Warcraft II OST is epic.

Without a doubt, Sanodg, Shinji Hosoe, Kohta Takahashi, Yu Miyake and Hiroshi Okubo. All Namco composers. All legends.

Kenji Ito and Motoi Sakuraba. I absolutely love the music of Romancing SaGa 3 and Star Ocean: The Second Story.

I like most Sega composers, like Hiroshi Miyauchi, Makito Nomiya, Naofumi Hayata, Takayuki Nakumara, David Leytze, a little bit of Howard Drossin and Takenobu Mitsuyoshi, Jun Senoue, and Masanori Takeuchi.

Capcom Sound Team’s composers are great, too.

I like underrated composers.

hans zimmer and Michael Giacchino

Yoko shimomura (Kingdom Hearts)
Jesper Kyd (Assassins creed)
Greg Edmonson (Uncharted)

But out of those three i would definitely pick Jesper Kyd!

One person who jumps into mind…

Nobuo Uematsu!~

Course my iPod is full of game soundtracks, so there are SEVERAL others I love!

Masashi Hamauzu, Hitoshi Sakimoto, Jun Nagao (Romance of the Three Kingdoms 4 OST, Orchestral version by the Hungary Symphony Orchestra I believe), Yoko Kanno, Koichi Sugiyama, Jeremy Soule, Motoi Sakuraba, Junichi Nakatsuru, Koji Kondo, Nobuo Uematsu, Yasunori Mitsuda (tentative about adding him to this list; his output has been poor as of late), Hip Hirukazu Tanaka, Team Heroes of Might and Magic, Team Castlevania (Including Michiru Yamane), Richard Jacques, Michael Giacchino, and Matt Uelman. That’s my list.

Jonne Valtonnen is the best arranger hands down.

Yuka Tsujiyoko – Paper Mario 1, and PMTTYD – Super epic

Jack Wall, Koichi Sugiyama, Masafumi Takada, Inon Zur.

Go Shiina – Tales of Legendia, possibly my favourite game OST of all time..

Kenji Yamamoto (Metroid series), David Wise, Eveline Fisher, Grant Kirkhope (Donkey Kong series), Hidenori Shoji (F-ZERO GX), Hirokazu Ando (SSB + SSBM), Hirokazu Tanaka, and more probably… practically all I listen to is video game music.

Shoji Meguro. Uematsu has NOTHING on him.
Daisuke Ishiwatari. Uematsu has NOTHING on him either.
(no flaming. this is just my opinion.)

Hmm well I won’t flame but I’ll politely disagree. I try not to rank composers objectively, I would rather say they specialize in different areas. ^^

Yoko Shimomura. Hands down the best. She may well have overtaken Nobuo Uematsu. This isn’t to say that One Winged Angel and Dancing Mad aren’t the best final battle themes to date, it’s just that for the first boss in Kingdom Hearts you get Destiny’s Force (10/10), then Forze del Mal (11/10) and of course Destati on the soundtrack performed by the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra. And it only got better from there: Birth by Sleep and Dream Drop Distance had phenomenal music. It was positively virtuosic. She’s also done the music for Xenoblade and several other fairly recent releases. She’s a genius. Simple as that.

Yoko Shimomura. She’s also done the music for Xenoblade and several other fairly recent releases.

Uh, she did more or less 15 songs for Xenoblade out of 90 (all of which were the worst ones, but that’s just me)

Shoji Meguro – Nocturne, DDS, P3 and P4
Yasunori Mitsuda – CT, CC, Xenogears
Akira Yamaoka – SH series

I like other composers, but since this is a thread for best composers, I prefer to mention those who have made more than one soundtrack that I really like. And regardless of the title, my favorite is still Nobuo, above all I mentioned earlier.

I won’t say who is the very best, because that’s kind of impossible to do for me since they’re all so good. But I will say that Yoko Shimomura arouses emotion

This is so true, Yoko’s music is fantastic nd a must listen to everyone.

Christopher Lennertz

Soichi Terada is my fave. Ape Escape rocks and is my #1 game of all time.

Jeremy Soule (Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim) … I like him more than Nobuo Uematsu.

Hans Zimmer (Modern Warfare 2, Inception, Crysis 2), Martin O’Donnell & Michael Salvatori (Halo Series [Except for Halo 4 and Halo Wars]), Harry Gregson-Williams (Call of Duty 4) Michael Giacchino, Christopher Lennertz, Ramin Djawadi (Call of Duty 1, Medal of Honor Series)

My personal favorite would be Kenji Yamamoto (Super Metroid, Prime Trilogy), although some others: David Wise (DK Country games), Hajime Wakai (mainly for F-Zero X and Star Fox 64), Kenta Nagata (Mainly for Mario Kart stuff), Joris de Man (Killzone games), Kevin Riepl (Gears of War 1; Love Steve Jablonsky’s work for Gears 2 and 3, but 1 is my favorite.), everyone involved with the God of War soundtracks (Still, I guess Gerard Marino does most of the ‘main themes’, so I guess him in particular.), Resident Evil soundtracks (particularly 5 and 6), Greg Edmonson (Uncharted games), and Harry Gregson-Williams (Metal Gear games). There are so many others, but these are the ones that always come to mind for me.

ratchet and clank: david bergeaud, michael bross,
tomb raider: Troels Brun Folmann, Colin O’Malley;
jason graves: dead space

I love Tracy Bush’s Tabula Rasa soundtrack. He is known as a composer of much of the Blizzard soundtrack we know and love (Diablo, StarCraft and Warcraft series).

Jun Ishikawa.

Kirby games have nice music.

ZUN is a god.

Grant Kirkhope, probably the best talent.

Michael Giacchino did some good work with the Medal of Honor series. It’s how he got his start, too.

Daisuke Ishiwatari and Kota Hoshino.

Alexander Brandon

I second Alexander Brandon!

I second Alexander Brandon!
I third Alex Brandon!! xD
Love the Tyrian OST, was an absolute fantantic use for a FM soundcard!!

Masato Nakamura – (Sonic 1,2)

The all greatest staff in Sonic 3&K (drossin,jacques,brad buxter,senoue…etc)

Toshiharu Yamanishi — Thunder Force Series (megadrive)

Yugo Kanno (Rain PS3/psn)

All KOF series (Especialy SNK Arranged albums)

Yuzo Koshiro — So many badass sountracks in the megadrive era

Daisuke Ishiwatari — Guilty Gear Badass rocking OST

Norio Hanzawa – Treasure.Co trademark music…awesome

Jesper Kid, Tim Folin, Tommy Tallarico…an so on

Mahito Yokota and Ryo Nagamatsu – Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Galaxy 2
Junichi Masuda, Go Ichinose, Hitomi Sato and Shota Kageyama – Pok???mon (All the main core games, from Pok???mon Red/Blue to Pok???mon X/Y)
Tsukasa Tawada – Pok???mon Colosseum/XD: Gale of Darkness/Battle Revolution
Jeff Broadbent for his work on Transformers – Dark of the Moon: The Game
The SEGA Sound – the Mario & Series
Rom Di Prisco – Guacamelee!
Richard Jacques – Sonic & All-Stars Racing: Transformed
Miki Obata – the Pok???mon Rumble series
David Wise – Donkey Kong Countrey Returns/Tropical Freeze
Koji Kondo – A lot of the Mario games and some of the songs in the Mario Galaxy series
Sam Powell – Rampage: Total Destruction

Koichi Sugiyama – Dragon Quest Series
Yoko Shimomura – Legend of Mana
Nobuo Uematsu – Final Fantasy VI
Yasunori Mitsuda – Chrono Trigger
Jun Ishikawa, Dan Miyakawa – Kirby’s Fun Pack
Hitoshi Sakimoto, Masaharu Iwata & Hayato Matsuo – Ogre Battle
Kenji Ito – Romancing Saga 3
Hiroki Kikuta – Secret of Mana 1 and 2
Motoi Sakuraba – Tales of Phantasia, Star Ocean
Miyoko Kobayashi, Masanori Hikichi – Terranigma
Jeremy Soule – Elder Scrolls, KotOR 1, Morrowind
Koji Kondo – Zelda and Mario
Shoji Meguro – Persona and Shin Megami Tensei
Yutaka Minobe, Tatsuyuki Maeda – Eternal Arcadia
Shinchiro Sato, Rei Kondo – Nostalgia no Kaze
Miki Higashino – Genso Suikoden 1 and 2

Mark Mothersbaugh and Josh Mancell of Mutato Muzika had some kick-ass music in the old Crash Bandicoot games. So memorable and catchy.

I also like a lot of Sega composers: Yuzo Koshiro, Masanori Takeuchi (Harley-Davidson & L.A. Riders and The Ocean Hunter), Tomoyuki Kawamura, David Leytze, and Tetsuya Kawauchi (known for HotD).

Any Capcom "Q-Sound" era composer is awesome as well…

I enjoy these composers:

Kazumi Totaka – Various Nintendo games
Hajime Hirasawa – Time Twist and Star Fox
Go Sato – Seibu Kaihatsu games
Manabu Namiki – NMK, 8ing/Raizing, and Cave games
Keishi Yonao – Hydefos, Fill-in-Cafe games and Strania
Yousuke Yasui – Ginga Force, Eschatos and the first two Custom Robo games
Shinji Hosoe – Dragon Spirit, Dragon Saber, Dirt Fox, Metal Torrent, the first two Custom Robo games, Ginga Force, etc.
Ayako Saso – Rolling Thunder 2, the first two Custom Robo games, and Ginga Force.
Yasuhisa Watanabe – Metal Black, Runark, Pu-Li-Ru-La, Border Down, Void Gear, Kaiser Knuckle, Fighters Impact, etc.
Kanta Watanabe – Panzer Bandit
Soyo Oka – Some Nintendo titles released between the 80s and 90s
Hyakutaro Tsukumo – Some Technosoft games
Naoto Ishikawa – Gaia seed
Toshiya Yamanaka – Some Arsys games
Yasuhito Saito – Some Data West games
Hiroshi Kawaguchi – Power Drift
Tamayo Kawamoto – Some Capcom and Taito games, and ThunderForce VI
Takushi Hiyamuta – Some Irem and Nazca games

That’s about all I can think of.

Yoko Shimomura – Kingdom Hearts series (lol there are 30 min versions of some of the songs from 2.5 – Everglow) and a couple of songs in SMB4 (Tetris theme and the MOTHER compilation).
Masashi Hamauzu – Dirge of Cerberus FFVII and XIII series
Hitoshi Sakimoto – FFXII

I’m pretty sure I’ll find more

David wise, Kochi sugiyama!!

Mariko Nanba and Tomoya Ohtani – Sonic The Hedgehog

Following my old post, I’m gonna throw in the following:
Jake Kaufman – Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse
David Bergeaud – Ratchet & Clank: Tools of Destruction (mostly the Groovitron music)
Mike Peacock, Darren Radtke and Chad York – Punch Out!! for the Wii

i really like sega, sunsoft, square composers like hirofumi murasaki (shinobi 3), masayuki nagao (sonic 3 & knuckles, shinobi 3), katsuhiro hayashi (sdi, quartet, ashura) naofumi hataya (sonic cd) hidenori shoji (yakuza, f-zero gx) naoki kodaka (blaster master), takeharu ishimoto (kingdom hearts dream drop distance) i

EDIT: i also like british game composers like the follin brothers i can’t believe i 4got them!

Tim Follin has to be my favourite of all time, though after him it gets a lot tougher for me to pick my next favourite.

I’m just gonna make a spoiler tag because I already know this is gonna be a really long list.
Tommy Tallarico holds a lot of value for me for a couple of his games on my Genesis/Mega Drive (Way too many to count), likewise with Grant Kirkhope, Graeme Norgate, Robin Beanland, and David Wise on my N64.
Takenobu Mitsuyoshi with Daytona USA and some of Sega Rally 2006. I never get tired of his vocals
Naofumi Hataya with The Hybrid Front, Golden Axe 2 and Sonic CD.
Yuzo Koshiro with Streets of Rage 1 & 2 (3 was weird for me) and Revenge of Shinobi.
Hideki Naganuma with Jet Set Radio (Future) and Sonic Rush.
Frank Klepacki with the Command & Conquer series and Dune II.
Hiroshi Kawaguchi with Space Harrier, Out Run, and After Burner.
Masahiko Yoshimura with Shining in the Darkness and Shining Force 1.
Motoaki Takenouchi with Jewel Master, Landstalker, and Shining Force 2.
Alberto Gonzalez with the GameBoy Turok games.
Hayato Matsuo with Master of Monsters.
Hitoshi Sakimoto with Devilish, Gauntlet IV, and Valkyria Chronicles.
HIYA! with Metal Slug 1.
Jesper Kyd with Sub-Terrania and Hitman: Blood Money.
Jun’ichi Masuda with Pok???mon (First two generations especially)
Richard Jacques with Headhunter and Sonic R.
John Baker with ToeJam & Earl 1 & 2.
Yousuke Yasui with Eschatos.

And that’s all I can list without looking up who did certain soundtracks.

Top 3 favourites are Motoi Sakuraba, Koichi Sugiyama and Masashi Hamauzu. Some of my other personal favourites include Mahito Yokota, Junya Nakano, Daisuke Matsuoka, Minako Hamano, and Kazumi Totaka.

Here is a list of my favorite I typed up as thought.

David Wise
Kazumi Totaka
Soyo Oka
Hirokazu Tanaka
Michael Giacchino
Koichi Sugiyama
Michiru Yamane
Toru Minegishi
Hajime Hirasawa
Kenta Nagata
Akito Nakatsuka
Hajime Wakai
Ryo Nagamatsu
Mahito Yokota
Shinobu Tanaka
Jun Senoue
Kenichi Tokoi
Fumie Kumatani
Richard Jacques
Tim Follin
Takenobu Mitsuyoshi
Masafumi Ogata
Naofumi Hataya
Spencer Nilsen

And I don’t care what anybody says… Koji Kondo! 🙂

Jake Kaufman – Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse

Also for Ducktales Remastered. It easily became one of my top 5 game music soundtracks of all time.

In no particular order: Yoko Shimomura, Yoko Kanno, Yasunori Mitsuda, the guys behind the music for YS, and Koichi Sugiyama. And western artist like Jeremy Soule, Martin O’Donnell (Myth the Fallen Lords), the guys behind the music for the Witcher series and Deus Ex all deserve a shout out 🙂

Ryuji Sasai! The genius behind the best tracks of Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, the writer of the entirety of Treasure of the Rudras’ soundtrack (in my opinion the best 16-bit soundtrack out there), and the composer for Final Fantasy Legend III (with the exception of four tracks). He left the video game music industry around ’96, ’98, but Square Enix managed to bring him back to arrange some of his FFLIII tracks for the SaGa 3 remake on the DS.

Michiru Yamane, David Wise, Yuzo Koshiro, Yoko Shimomura, Yasunori Mitsuda, Go Sato, probably a few others not coming immediately to mind.

my fav game composer is toshiyuki sudo (personal trainer cooking,the japan-only game DS bimoji training,the sadly now-defunct EVC,nes remix,etc) his stuff is so unique & cool especially PTC i could definitely picture hearing that stuff in a french restaurant & if that’s what he was going for then he succeeded! plus he’s kinda under-rated when it comes to VG composers don’t get me wrong i like uematsu,kondo,shimomura,& the like but sudo is probably right up there with them!

if you want to hear his stuff you can go to zophar or youtube but for simplicity’s sake here’s some links to the DS games he composed!

http://www.zophar.net/music/2sf/personal-trainer-cooking-%5Bshaberu-ds-oryouri-navi%5D-%5Bcooking-guide-can-t-decide-what-to-eat%5D.html<———– (PTC)

http://www.zophar.net/music/2sf/ds-bimoji-training.html<———– (DSBT)

Gonna throw Masashi Hamauzu out there. Very unique voice in videogaming – SaGa Frontier 2, Final Fantasy XIII, and The Legend of Legacy are each excellent. Go Ichinose and Hitomi Sato also produce some very good stuff for the Pokemon games, with an honorable mention for Morikazu Aoki and a smaller one for the not quite as distinctive Shota Kageyama.

I absolutely love Kenneth Arnold’s Ultima soundtracks. They begat the standard RPG music structure before Sugiyama did – to be fair, Sugiyama somewhat expanded it and clarified it, but Arnold was there first. And it’s dang good music, too: "Wanderer", "Exodus Castle", "Ultima Theme", but not a single track is bad, they’re all very listenable. I am honestly amazed that they’re the only videogame composition work he did. I wonder where Arnold is now…

I haven’t listened to much of his work, but what I have heard indicates that Rudolf Stember is very good. Realms of Arkania: Blade of Destiny is quite good, particularly "Blade of Destiny".

Martin Sorensen (Halo)
Disasterpeace (Fez)
Darren Korb (Bastion, Transistor)
David Wise (DKC)
Christopher Tin (Civ4)
Jake Kaufman (DuckTales Remastered, Shovel Knight)
Mike Morasky (Portal 1&2)
ETC.

Hidenori Shoji – Ryu ga Gotoku / Yakuza series
Hyd Lunch – Ryu ga Gotoku / Yakuza series
Jason Graves – Army of Two The Devil’s Cartel
Chikayo Fukuda – .hack, Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm series, Asura’s Wrath
Jesper Kyd – Hitman series (up to Blood Money), Assassin’s Creed (up to Revelations), Darksiders II
Shoji Meguro – Maken X, Persona 3, Persona 4, Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Soulless Army, Devil Summoner 2: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon, Catherine, Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth, Persona 5
Keiki Kobayashi – Street Fighter V

There are a lot of composers out there who qualifies as the best though, and I believe each and every person has his or her best(s).

David Wise, Bobby Prince, Mick Gordon

I honestly feel this is a subjective question. Don’t get me wrong, Kondo and Uematsu are both amazing, but I personally feel they get way overhyped.
IMHO, there are tons worth mentioning (some are more well known than others, but still…)

Certain composers that really stand out to me are:

– Takenobu Mitsuyoshi (Daytona USA, Shenmue)
– Yousuke Yasui (ESCHATOS, Omega Five)
– Junichi Nakatsuru (Soul Calibur, Ace Combat)
– Atsushi Kitajoh (Trauma Series, Persona)
– Hideki Okugawa (Street Fighter III, Darkstalkers)
– Yoshino Aoki (MegaMan Battle Network, Breath of Fire III)
– Naofumi Hataya (Sonic the Hedgehog, Burning Rangers, Space Channel 5)
– Fumie Kumatani (Sonic the Hedgehog, Phantasy Star Online, NiGHTS)
– Kohta Takahashi (Ridge Racer, Klonoa 2, Ace Combat)
– Yuzo Koshiro (Streets of Rage, Ys)
– Michiru Yamane (Castlevania, TwinBee, Skullgirls)
– Alexander Brandon (Unreal Tournament, Deus Ex)
– Go Ichinose (Pokemon)
– Masafumi Takada (No More Heroes, killer7, Danganropa)
– Grant Kirkhope (Killer Instinct, Banjo-Kazooie)
– David Wise (Donkey Kong Country, Star Fox Adventures)
– Satoshi Ise (Capcom vs SNK, Devil May Cry 2)
– Noriyuki Iwadare (Grandia, Phoenix Wright)
– Daisuke Ishiwatari (Guilty Gear, BlazBlue)
– Richard Jacques (Sonic the Hedgehog, Jet Set Radio)
– Kohei Tanaka (Sakura Wars, Resonance of Fate)
– Simon Viklund (PAYDAY: The Heist, Bionic Commando: Rearmed)
– Naoki Maeda (Bemani, Dance Dance Revolution)

…I could still go on and on, but I believe I’ve made my point, exhaustedly so. Please forgive the wall of text.

A favorite of mine is Hiroyuki Iwatsuki. He did alot of great stuff for Natsumi like the Ninja Warriors and Wild Guns. Jun Ishikawa is also sweet. His Kirby music is so fun and relaxing. Yuzo Koshiro for Streets of Rage but really Revenge of Shinobi for me!

It’s probably already been said, but Graeme Norgate’s soundtracks (Killer Instinct, Blast Corps, Donkey Kong Land) were top notch.

The best by far is Koichi Sugiyama. After him, Nobuo Uematsu and Yoko Shimomura.

Yoko Shimomura I enjoy immensely. I also have to give credit to the composers for FROM Software. They put out some great stuff. Especially Bloodborne.

Here’s my list:

Yoko Shimomura (Kingdom Hearts series)
Grant Kirkhope (Banjo-Kazooie, Yooka Laylee, etc.)
Toby Fox (Undertale)
All the composers for the Pok???mon games
David Wise (DKC trilogy)
Bobby Prince (DOOM 1 and 2)
Peter McConnell (Sly Cooper series, except the first game)
All the composers for Okami
Yuka Tsujiyoko (Paper Mario)
Kazumi Totaka (Yoshi’s Story)
Stewart Copeland (Spyro PS1 trilogy)
and some more

Keiichi Okabe
Keigo Hoashi
Yutaka Minobe
Noriyuki Iwadare

Probably mentioned before…

Yasunori Mitsuda (CT, Xenogears)
Yoko Shimomura (tonnes…)
Jeremy Soule (tonnes…)
Blizzard composers (Wow)
Falcom Sound Team (zwei!)
Toby Fox (Undertale)
Yuzo Koshiro (Ys II)
Motoi Sakuraba (tonnes…)
Yasuaki Fujita (Megaman 3)
Hiroki Morishita (Fire Emblem awakening)

I’m really just putting this for my benefit since it’s because of this forum that i was introduced to a lot of the tunes i’ve mentioned here 🙂

The best by far is Koichi Sugiyama. After him, Nobuo Uematsu and Yoko Shimomura.

HAHAHAHA! No.

—

Go Shiina (God Eater)
Falcom jdk (Ys, Legend of Heroes)
Yuzo Koshiro (Etrian Odyssey, Wangan Midnight)
Inon Zur (Dragon’s Dogma, Fallout)
Yasunori Mitsuda (Xenoblade 2, Chrono Trigger)
Chikayo Fukuda (.hack// series)
Jeremy Soule (Elder Scrolls, Guild Wars)
Martin O’Donnell (Halo, Destiny)
Mick Gordon (DOOM, Killer Instinct)
Hidenori Shoji (F-Zero GX, Yakuza)
Hayato Asano (Nights of Azure, Atelier, Blue Reflection)

James Hannigan is the best!

Shoji Meguro or Yasunori Mitsuda are my personal favorites

* Michiru Yamane (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oquad3rnZSI) – almost every Iga-era Castlevania, Bloodlines as well
* Yasunori Mitsuda (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xU5tQIDMAEw) – Chrono Trigger, Xenogears, Chrono Cross, Xenosaga Episode I, Xenoblade Chronicles 2, Sands of Destruction (little-known NDS RPG)
* Yoko Shimomura (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3Nl6S-tTkM) – Legend of Mana, Kingdom Hearts series, Street Fighter II
* Jesper Kyd (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmM-T2BaCF4) – Battle Chasers: Nightwear, Darksiders II, Borderlands and Assassin’s Creed series
* Cris Velasco (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cibqkqdnIi4)- God of War series, Darksiders I, Prototype I
* Shoji Meguro (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IORp_o7bnvM) – Persona series
* Mayasaki Soken (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9haLamILmk) – Final Fantasy XIV
* Tsuyoshi Sekito (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPkU0dF4JKo) – arranged Final Fantasy Origins/Anniversary along with Nobuo Uematsu
* Stuart Chatwood (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKwbptphnVU) of The Tea Party (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvpobsKQdZc) (Canadian rock band) – Prince of Persia series
* Christopher Larkin (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1unm0LS10ao) – Hollow Knight
* monomer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2GFZ1o-Djk) – The Mummy Demastered (best "chiptune-style" music I’ve ever heard)
* Cœur de Pirate (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5b1vDgK6hg) – Child of Light (Absolutely BEAUTIFUL soundtrack)

Masafumi Takada is one of my favorite. Falcom Sound Team jdk is also a strong pick, even if it includes dozens of different composers

David Wise is the best.

Keiichi Okabe, Jesper Kyd and Inon Zur.