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I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions on some other VGM composers I might check out. I have about everything Uematsu has done as well as Mitsuda (except for Radical Dreamers' OST). I'm looking for people of their calibre or better. BTW, any thoughts on the Star Ocean soundtracks? Haven't heard them, but thought they might have a similar feel.
Hitoshi Sakimoto did the ahhh... yeah. Try him out.
Sakuraba Motoi did the Star Ocean 2 OST, not Sakimoto :p
Yes, he's my current favourite composer :p Out of all the game albums I've got, the ones composed by him have the highest percentage of tracks form their albums on my playlist, quite often over half of them, which I don't think I've done to any of Uematsus or Mitsuda's works - I've got all except 2 tracks of the Valkyrie Profile OST on my playlist now (73/75), which was composed by Sakuraba, I don't think I've put that high a percentage of any other OST on my playlist. He also composed the soundtracks for Tales of Phantasia, Tales of Destiny, and Tales of Eternia, so there's another 3 albums for you to look at. And he did the Golden Sun soundtrack apparently, shame there's no OST for that game :p
I suppose his style varies less than Uematsu's does though, in that I recognised it was him immediately when I first played Valkyrie Profile, since it sounded similar to other games I'd played where he'd composed the soundtrack, probably due to the type of synth he uses, but I wouldn't say it's a bad thing, since he puts the instruments he uses to very good use. He usually puts interesting bass rhythms in his tracks too. My favourite tracks o his though tend to be the ones where not only is the rhythm interesting, but it appears to change several times throughout the track, sometimes so much that the time signature of the track appears to change too, from waltz to 4/4 and back again, and it's done seamlessly so sounds weird but right at the same time :p
Another composer you might like is whoever did the Suikoden soundtracks, can't remember who that was, but those have another different style to them :p
EDIT: I found a list of composers and games here (although I think it might be a little out of date), so if you know a game for a soundtrack which you liked, you can look up the composer here, or alternately see what else a composer you know has worked on :p
Besides the FFs, one of my favourite game soundtracks is Spencer Nilsen's work for the Sega-CD version of 'Ecco the Dolphin'. It's a great synth woodwind score, with some sampled whale song in a few tracks. If you're looking for something a little different, it's worth a look. What's even better... the game CD itself can be used as a soundtrack CD in any normal stereo. Just don't play the first track - it contains the game data. That'll do bad things to your speakers.
You can get a copy of this game at many second-hand stores for only a few dollars.
Akira Yamaoka's Silent Hill soundtrack is great, but CREEPY!!!!! It's not really melody based, but hey, there's a time and a place for that.
Also, Naoki Maeda and Takayuki Ishikawa who appear in DDR under a plethora of pseudonyms are both very talented.