Reprints, compilation albums, and previously unreleased material. Generally, we love all of these things. When great music becomes unavailable, it’s a problem. On the other hand, a glut of reprints and compilation albums can be too much, so we’re not in the business of celebrating or honoring all of them.
But we have three out of our six nominees that we want to give special awards to. Again, our nominees are:
Bare Knuckle Original Soundtrack
Donpachi / Dodonpachi / Dodonpachi II Soundtrack
Shinji Hosoe Works Vol.1 ~Dragon Spirit~
Eternal Daughter 10th Anniversary Original Soundtrack
Live A Live Original Soundtrack
Rockman EXE Transmission Sound Track
Without further ado, the winners…
The bronze medal goes to the full Bare Knuckle Original Soundtrack. That’s Streets of Rage in North America. And it’s all three of them. Including the Game Gear source audio for I and II as bonuses, and a fourth disc featuring 40 minutes of Yuzo Koshiro doing some Live DJing back in 2002. Prior to this release, it would’ve cost, at minimum, $100 to find all of this audio separately. Now it’s all in one place for a reasonable price, and it’s a great trip down memory lane. Especially for all you Sega fans.
Shinji Hosoe and friends earn the silver medal for Rockman EXE Transmission Sound Track. The album was released as part of SuperSweep’s “Game Music Discovery Series” — the soundtrack had never existed until now. Hosoe, alongside Ayako Saso and Yousuke Yasui, provided one of the most interesting Rockman OSTs of the last decade, and it’s about time the music for this GameCube game got a proper release.
Many Super Famicom (SNES) soundtracks have held up very well after 20 years. But for many Western fans of the 16-bit era, they’ve been missing out on a particular gem from Square (Enix) that simply must be heard. It is Yoko Shimomura’s first soundtrack with Square, for a beautiful game (that I still think S-E needs to remake and localize!) called Live A Live. Seven mini-RPG scenarios, each with a character theme, battle theme, and a few other songs. And then, a surprise 8th scenario, and then a monumental final scenario with metric tons of boss battle glory. The game is great, and the soundtrack perhaps even greater. This OST re-issue also includes two special bonus tracks originally found on a ridiculously rare/obscure mini-CD included with a Japanese strategy guide. Now it’s all in one place. And you’d be a fool not to grab it before it’s too late.
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See all of our OSTOSTOTY 2012 winners here:
Best In-Game Soundtrack
Best Sound Design
Best Fan Arrange
Best Arrange Album
Best Other Album
Bare Knuckle, bronze? ARGH! Would’ve expected it as a shoe-in.