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Little Big Adventure Soundtrack

Little Big Adventure Soundtrack, Philippe Vachey, 1994

Little Big Adventure is probably one of the most fondly-remembered PC games of the 1990s. A resounding commercial success, Little Big Adventure maintains a steadfastly loyal fan base decades after its release. That has a lot to do with the sheer amount of charm and personality that developer Adeline Software managed to fill Little Big Adventure with. Other innovations like the game’s open-ended world and novel 3d perspective helped turn this action adventure into a genre classic.

Just as fondly remembered as the game is the Little Big Adventure soundtrack, and for good reason. In short, after Wing Commander and Ultima: Worlds of Adventure 2 – Martian Dreams, Little Big Adventure was the next big step forward for Western orchestral game music. It came from a somewhat unexpected source. Self-taught composer Philippe Vachey had only worked on a few French computer game scores before Little Big Adventure. His most notable score was Alone in the Dark, even if the music was less effective outside of the game.

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Might and Magic VII: For Blood and Honor Soundtrack

Might and Magic VII: For Blood and Honor Soundtrack, Paul Romero, 1999

By the time of Might and Magic VII: For Blood and Honor‘s release, Paul Romero and Rob King had firmly installed themselves as the Might and Magic franchise’s go-to composers, thanks to Heroes of Might and Magic and its exceedingly ambitious sequel. They had also written the music for Might and Magic VI: The Mandate of Heaven. That score was a curious if not entirely successful hybrid of fantasy and science fiction elements.

The Might and Magic VII: For Blood and Honor soundtrack continues this inclination for experimentation and eclecticism. It turns out to be the best Might and Magic score (excluding Heroes I-III). Interestingly, Might and Magic VII ran on its predecessor’s engine and didn’t make many changes to the gameplay formula. For Blood and Honor‘s music, on the other hand, is a quantum leap over The Mandate of Heaven. In fact, in its seductive lushness, Romero’s score almost feels like a mismatch for the game’s blocky 3d graphics.

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Octogeddon Soundtrack

Octogeddon Soundtrack (PC), Big Giant Circles, 2018

“Every game before Plants vs. Zombies, I was just making a game. Now, after making Plants vs. Zombies, I’m making a game in that shadow.” That’s how developer George Fan described the not necessarily easy task of following up one of indie gaming’s biggest successes. But while Octogeddon didn’t sell by the bucketload like Plants vs. Zombies did, it still ranked as another success for Fan, with consistently strong feedback from reviewers and gamers. Like Plants vs. Zombies, Octogeddon works from a deliciously silly concept – this time it’s a homicidal octopus that swears revenge after seeing his friends served as sushi, vowing to destroy the world’s most famous landmarks (think Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty etc.) Fan decided to mix the arcadey nature of the gameplay – including hilarious weapon/tentacle upgrades – with rogue-like elements that helped to keep the game’s early levels challenging, even upon repeated playthroughs.

The Plants vs. Zombies soundtrack – courtesy of Laura Shigihara – had become one of game music’s first indie breakthrough successes back in 2009. Shigihara didn’t return for Octogeddon and instead, scoring duties went to Big Giant Circles (aka Jimmy Hinson). Looking at Hinson’s discography, the charming, action-packed 2D aesthetic and gameplay that Octogeddon sports was right in his ballpark – consider his previous chiptunes-pop smashes Pocket Mine and Extreme Bike Trip. Other scores released since those fairly succinct works had given Hinson the opportunity to create more expansive soundtracks – and Octogeddon is his most successful attempt at a full album-length score yet. He’s is helped on a few tracks by Fan, who has his material arranged by Hinson, ensuring a coherent album flow.

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Outcast Soundtrack

Outcast Soundtrack, Lennie Moore, 1999

Being a pioneer is rarely easy – and your efforts might go initially unappreciated. Such was the fate that befell Outcast, a sci-fi action adventure game that was revolutionary in more than one way. Its concept of a three-dimensional open world that players were free to explore preceded other games of this ilk like Grand Theft Auto III by several years. Then there was Outcast’s voxel-based graphics engine, which produced a stunningly realistic extraterrestrial world – more successfully maybe than any other game before it. That visual splendor came at a cost though. Back in 1999, only the most powerful PCs were able to properly run the game. Of course, that limited any opportunities for financial success, and a Dreamcast port and planned sequel remained unreleased. However, Outcast created a legacy among gamers that was strong enough for a remake – Outcast: Second Contact – to be released in 2017.

Obviously a very bold title, Outcast benefited from what was still a rarity in 1999 – a fully live-orchestral game soundtrack. A professed fan of John Williams and Alan Silvestri, Outcast’s director Franck Sauer placed an ad in several film music magazines in 1996, looking for a “Hollywood film composer.” Ultimately, the job went to Lennie Moore, for whom Outcast would prove to be the beginning of a fruitful career in video game music. A graduate of Berklee College of Music in Boston, Moore had worked on several scores for film, television and commercials, with documentary Trinity & Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie being the standout. That movie had also seen Moore collaborating with the forces that would bring the Outcast soundtrack to life – conductor William Stromberg and the Moscow Symphony Orchestra.

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Secret Weapons Over Normandy Soundtrack

Secret Weapons Over Normandy Soundtrack, Michael Giacchino, 2003

Among Michael Giacchino‘s WWII scores, the Secret Weapons Over Normandy soundtrack is conceptually and emotionally the most straightforward one. There’s none of the anguish and tragedy of Medal of Honor: Frontline here, none of the subtle character beats of Medal of Honor: Underground, or even the few injections of solemn patriotism of Medal of Honor – and the viciousness of Call of Duty, released almost at the same time as Secret Weapons, seems worlds away. Instead, the Secret Weapons Over Normandy soundtrack takes Medal of Honor‘s ‘war-as-adventure’ aesthetic to its extremely entertaining, bombastic extreme.

How to locate Secret Weapons Over Normandy within the context of Giacchino’s body of work? You might accurately describe it as a return to the original Medal of Honor‘s ballsy gung-ho attitude. That spirit is channelled through Medal of Honor: Frontline‘s superior grasp of orchestral colours, but without its sense of tragedy. This is partially due to Secret Weapon‘s arcade-like nature, which didn’t require a score of operatic emotional range.

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Sentinel Returns Soundtrack

Sentinel Returns Soundtrack, John Carpenter, 1998

Sentinel Returns was the entirely unexpected sequel to 1980s computer cult puzzle game The Sentinel. That 1986 title was one of the first games to feature solid-filled 3D graphics. Its successor wasn’t as revolutionary, but it still had a striking visual appeal all of its own. The world of Sentinel Returns was an entirely surreal one, unsettling and gloomy. It was full of bizarre flesh-meets-metal inhabitants that only had a vague resemblance to real life objects.

Sentinel Returns might have been a puzzle game, but its world was that of a nightmarish horror title. It’s no surprise then that horror maestro John Carpenter’s Sentinel Returns soundtrack is a perfect fit for the game. However, Carpenter’s involvement in Sentinel Returns is still a bit of surprise. Remember, Western movie composers crossing over into video games was still an absolute rarity in 1998.

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Star Trek: Starfleet Academy Soundtrack

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy Soundtrack, Ron Jones / Brian Luzietti, 1997

The Star Trek: Starfleet Academy soundtrack is a prime example for how – and why – the conventions of Hollywood film music have been so deeply ingrained in orchestral game music right from the start. Star Trek: Starfleet Academy was part of the short-lived craze surrounding games based on full-motion videos in the mid-1990s. And if your game looks like a film, it makes sense to also make it sound like a film.

And so, developer Interplay decided to use a live orchestra to record Starfleet Academy‘s soundtrack. In 1997, this was quite a novelty. Still, a live orchestra was integral to capturing the Star Trek franchise’s trademark romantic spirit of bold spacefaring. Interplay even went one step further and hired Ron Jones to write the Star Trek: Starfleet Academy soundtrack. Jones had done outstanding work on Star Trek: The Next Generation and would be able to maintain the Star Trek franchise’s characteristic sound.

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Taikou Risshiden V Soundtrack

Taikou Risshiden V Soundtrack, unknown composer, 2004

There’s no doubt that Koei’s most prominent franchises of historical war simulations are Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Nobunaga’s Ambition – both of them spanning several dozen games and ports. However, Koei worked through this particular subject matter in other games as well, for example the Taikou Risshiden titles. The first game in this particular franchise – almost unknown outside of Japan – was released in 1992 for PC-98, Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis. The series continued up until Taikou Risshiden V, which saw the light of day in 2004 – and apparently concluded the franchise. The Taikou Risshiden games set themselves apart from other Koei history simulations through their sandbox-style gameplay that gave players greater freedom in choosing their path to victory. For example, available job classes included not just samurai but also pirates, merchants and blacksmiths, while gamers were free to roam the game’s world at their leisure.

Musically speaking, the Taikou Risshiden franchise had always held promise, but ultimately failed to make waves – despite renowned anime composer Michiru Oshima scoring the first game in the series early in her career. Finally, the Taikou Risshiden V soundtrack managed to unlock the potential that lay dormant in these games, producing one of the best orchestral PS2 scores that charms listeners with an exquisite wealth of melodies and colours. Unfortunately, there’s no information in the English-speaking parts of the internet about who composed the music – and while the game’s Wikipedia page details a score album, such a release isn’t confirmed by any other sources such as VMGdb.

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The Abbey Soundtrack

The Abbey Soundtrack, Emilio de Paz, 2008

A murder in a Medieval monastery? A wise monk, accompanied by a young, inexperienced companion, investigating the crime? It’s hard not to assume that The Abbey’s plot was more than a bit influenced by Name of the Rose. Then again, it’s an intriguing, still original enough set up for an adventure game. The Abbey wasn’t as well received as Name of the Rose though, with reviewers handing out mostly middling scores.

Where The Abbey differed most clearly from its obvious inspiration was in its surprisingly sumptuous soundtrack. James Horner had scored Name of the Rose with a low-key, largely synthetic soundtrack that divided film music fans. The The Abbey soundtrack takes an almost diametrically opposed approach. The score utilises a full live orchestra, organ and two choirs (male and boys) to create the sort of gloriously melodic bombast one would expect from a historic movie epic, rather than from a relatively obscure adventure game. The surprise is even greater when one considers that composer Emilio de Paz wrote this outstanding score while also working on The Abbey as project leader and lead designer.

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The Lost Angelic Chronicles of Frane: Dragons’ Odyssey Soundtrack

The Lost Angelic Chronicles of Frane: Dragons’ Odyssey Soundtrack, Jordan Steven, 2011

With the rise of mobile gaming, one of the most popular genres of the 16-bit era made its triumphant return: 2d JRPGs. Given that these games often came with amazingly varied and ambitious soundtracks, the resurgence of these sorts of games heralded good news for game music fans. One of the best retro-styled JRPG scores of the new millennium turned out to be The Lost Angelic Chronicles of Frane: Dragons’ Odyssey.

Intriguingly enough, there’s not a huge amount of information on the game out there. Dragons’ Odyssey is the localised version of a Japanese mobile RPG called Lost Memory of Angel Story Frane 3. A PC version was released on Gamersgate (which is not available anymore at the time of writing in 2018) and a planned Steam release never materialised. The available screenshots suggest a fairly generic product but give no indication of whether Dragons’ Odyssey featured strong gameplay or not.

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