I was listening to my playlist of video game best songs, and I realized that there is probably a ton of hidden gems that I never listened due to never playing the game or never paid attention to.

So I would love to hear what songs you recommend: either from barely mentioned games or soundtracks from known games that you think are underrated.

All on Bandcamp because that's where I get my official music :

Ridiculous Fishing: a weird fishing game that was available on iPhone for some time, then disappeared due to compatibility issues.

Guacamelee! 2: Kind of famous, but I like the soundtrack.

Eastward: a weird action RPG, like Chrono Trigger but more cozy, I love that game.

Axiom Verge: something something Metroidvania.

Neotokyo is a HL2/Source mod with an outstanding original soundtrack.

Tooth and Tail: an immensely fun simplified (distilled, if you will) take on real time strategy set in a beautiful and horrifyingly brutal world of animals fighting for opposing political ideologies.

• cassete beasts ost
• the doom community is a treasure trove for cool music especially James Paddock and Esselfortium made stuff that made it into my daily playlist. Just listen to the soundtracks of Eviternity 1 or 2, both are great.
• Andrew Hulshults music, but i don't think he counts as unknown or underrated anymore
• black mesa had some tracks i liked
• gothic 1 and 2 had a good soundtrack, which somehow never gets mentioned when people talk about them.

AIgent: Retro cyberpunk speedrunning platformer that is yet to release (currently only a demo is available) with a seriously kickass sountrack.

Banished has a nice relaxing if not slightly melancholic soundtrack

Warframe is an underrated game IMO and it’s got some absolute bangers:

• We All Lift Together
• Sleeping in the Cold Below
• For Narmer

Tim Follin. He made Pictionary sound badass.

Pictionary on the NES had a glorious soundtrack. One of the tracks pops into my head every few months.

Don't forget Lullaby of the Manifold! It's simple but it's one of my favorites.

They go insanely hard with their music. They even made an entire fake nineties boy band for one of their questlines that sounds so authentic it's scary.

Omg yes On-Lyne completely slipped my mind, they’ve got a lot of great tracks too

I have Ridiculous Fishing on Android as an APK from a very old humble bundle.

Some time ago I still managed to install it, though Android complained a lot because it was not supposed to be compatible (made for a way older version). Only minimal issues with unused screen space.

Just tried again, but now newer Androids just block old apps completely. For "safety reasons". Shit.

VTM: Bloodlines 1 had a fantastic soundtrack. I really love the Hollywood Theme, but Santa Monica is also a classic and there are other bangers too.

Romancing SaGa isn't nearly as famous as other JRPG franchises like Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest, which is a shame since the series has some absolute bangers in its soundtrack.

Metal Max is another one, though arguably it only has one memorable track that they remade and reused for every game.

Treasure Master on the NES has a track at the title screen that's best described as a funky fresh beat

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hUu6E-5lPTw&pp=ygUedHJlYXN1cmUgTWFzdGVyIE5FUyBtZW51IHRoZW1l0gcJCTAMAYcqIYzv

That is clearly a funky banger! Thanks for sharing!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJwh3erQlyE

Hylics 2: Psychedelic and dreamlike

Void Collector: Some nice jazz

Vampire Savior: Obscure might be the wrong word here, since it's a Capcom fighting game from the 90s, but I don't hear a lot of people talk about its soundtrack

Idk if all of these are obscure enough lol

• Battleblock Theater - all the level songs
• Phantasy Star Universe - Mizuraki C.D.
• Panzer Dragoon Saga - Premonition of War
• Ironsword Wizards & Warriors II - Stage Theme 02
• Anachronox - Bricks, Normal 1.0
• The 13th Doll - Path 2 6 Points
• Shivers - The Secret Hall
• Mystic Towers - Atmosphere 3
• Anticipation - Yellow Puzzle (the songs are really short but the way they flow with the game is good, so I linked a gameplay video)

Yes I love the soundtrack of Romancing Saga. To me Kenji Ito and Masayoshi are absolute music beasts.

Metal max is less my kind of soundtrack but I can imagine it being liked!

Ahah they are all already in my playlist! Great choices and Sleeping in the Cold Below is one I replayed so much 😂

The range of warframe soundtracks is insane and they are mostly hits than misses. Lullaby is clearly something i will add to my list.

Also was not expecting boyband stuff from warframe. Curious on the origin of it. Still, good stuff.

Game: Aer
Song: Home

I really like this one, its energy and liveliness is always increasing my mood.

And for full OST: Citizen Sleeper & Sunless Sea. Both have really well fitting soundtracks and convey the melancholy or adventurous/exploring spirit.

Damn I miss that game. Yeah they were really fitting and I remember hearing these on loop and somehow never getting old while playing.

Thanks for sharing, it does pull nostalgia heart strings lol.

Anno 1602. Probably 80% nostalgia, but somehow the keyboard synth music is just nice.

Im just gonna say it, i dont care that youre looking for underrated or missing tracks. Im just going to toss out my recommendations of:

• Nier Automata
• Clair Obscur
• Baldurs Gate 3, specifically Raphaels final Act

There's a game i played a while from a big game bundle i bought called Lenna's Inception. The game itself was OK, nothing special imo, but the OST was really good, it has some solid boss fight music

Super Galdelic Hour - a mini-game collection for PS2 with an extremely catchy soundtrack.

Some highlights:

• Staff Roll
• Hip Sumo Wrestling
• Hi! Ho! Woodsman

Ha I was going to say the same, and wasn't sure if it's just nostalgia.

Listened to it this morning on the way to work actually!

I really like the Rome: Total War soundtrack by Jeff van Dyck

In particular Divinitus and Forever, Angela van Dyck singing on those tracks just adds something more.

I have to give a shout-out to the Age of Wonders soundtrack. Since it's for a strategy game, most of it has a very "even" tone that works great for a work or studying soundtrack.

For those who prefer their tunes to be less bit-crunchy, the Age of Wonders 3 OST happens to be mostly a remix / remaster of the original!

(PC98) Grounseed - Real. Life (Opening)

(PC98) A Girl Who Chants Love At the Bound of This World YU-NO - Different World 1

(PC Engine) Ginga Fukei Densetsu Sapphire - Boss Theme

The main menu and pause menu music in that game was supposed to be Angel by Massive Attack but they couldn't get the rights to the song so someone on the team just made a song that sounds suspiciously very similar to Angel. Great game btw

hypnospace outlaw is absolutely beautiful in every way

The zero escape series has so many good ones. Virtue's last reward in particular has the best ost. As an aside if you enjoy absolute bullshit storylines ala nano machines from metal gear, I highly recommend playing the zero escape games.

dustforce has a great soundtrack by lifeformed. the game is a 2d precision platformer with incredible animation and gamefeel too

Wild ARMs, the first one on PS.

No particular order:

It's kinda cheating, but the game Capsized is a decent XBLA-era side scrolling shooter-platformer with an excellent soundtrack. That's because it uses the existing album Movements by Solar Fields.
Solar Fields actually scored a different game with an excellent soundtrack: Mirrors Edge

Uplink and Darwinia, Introversion Software's first two games, have lovely soundtracks.

Nitronic Rush, a student game that got remade into the survival racing game Distance, has one of the greatest Christmas songs ever made on its soundtrack.

The original Lemmings and its expansions used quite good chiptune renditions of classical and classic pop songs. Each platform has a different soundtrack, but Amiga is probably the best.

PPPPPP, the soundtrack to VVVVVV is very crunchy chiptune. The last track is weird though.

Outer Wilds is simply amazing.

Psychonauts and Psychonauts 2 have great, varied soundtracks.

Fester's Quest for the NES

Citizen sleeper 1 and 2

Blue revolver

If you still have the game, the soundtrack is just .wav files in one of the directories 😊

Don’t know about the obscurity, but:

“Gothic 3” all the way! Kai rosenkranz’s work here is amazing!

Hmm interesting that you say that.

I tried a few years ago to extract the soundtrack, and my result was utter failure. The codec in the WAVs seemed to be some kind of fucky version of PCM I never managed to decode cleanly. Some attempts produced recognizable outputs, but with lots of noise.

Maybe the codec has been included in the common libraries in the meantime or the player you used recognizes the format while the ones I tried didn't. What player did you use?

since Rome ttw was already mentioned, some of my all time favorite game soundtracks:

aoe2

c&c generals

War of Ages

castle crashers

risk of rain 2

Mario kart 8

[edit and some more]
rimworld

unrailed

• La-Mulana for sure
  • The gate of guidance theme really stood out to me.
  • Oh, and the village's theme too, and several others.
• Virgo Versus the Zodiac Isn't the type of game I'd normally look at if it wasn't part of a bundle, but the soundtrack was so good (and the game itself was pretty enjoyable too).
  • The Time Keeper
  • Tzardom of the Sun
  • The Royal Servant

X-Universe games. Particularly X3, X Rebirth and X4.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lpPp2cMcDxB-9TdVyL-8u52xU0o_eWkIM

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2DE76FAF3D895DD0

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRNrultsQ-TjRZXR6TFg5rpRN2UzChGg4

Ah, no I actually had the same issue with the GoG version. I have an original disk which contained the working version. Do you also have the GoG version? And does it play correctly in game for you?

Either way, I can send you the .flac or .wav if you'd like.

No clue if this counts, but given how little I see it mentioned in online spaces I will suggest Frostpunk's soundtrack. Even if you don't play the game, it is an amazing soundtrack that perfectly captures both the hope and desperation depicted in the game itself. Especially "The City Must Survive" is an absolute banger.

Oh interesting. I have both, but I don't remember which I tried on. The music works fine in game, so I thought it was simply a proprietary format they used to mush it all onto one disk, as you did back then.

I'll give it another try just for the challenge tonight (UTC+1, here), but otherwise I'll happily take you up on your offer, thank you! I'll let you know!