jukebox - Mad Monster Mansion (Banjo-Kazooie)

no halloween special this year, sadly. haven't had the time to think of something for a special. in light of this, have a spooky game tune.

going to be writing a review on it eventually, but Banjo-Kazooie is one of those games from my childhood days that i fondly remember, and still enjoy to this day. could go on about it, but i'll save that for when i actually write the review some day or another. it's also got a fantastic soundtrack for a cartridge-based N64 game.

composed by Grant Kirkhope, his whimsical style can be recognized in many games he's worked on, from Rare classics like Banjo-Kazooie and Viva Pinata, to more recent games like Kingdoms of Amalur and Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth. of course, there's also mention of the upcoming Yooka-Laylee, but that's for another time. but yeah, go check his stuff out. and maybe support him on bandcamp. he's a coo dude with some really coo tunes.

jukebox - Home (Undertale)

been a while since the last time i did a jukebox entry, so in light of my recent review of Undertale, have a sampling from its soundtrack.

Undertale's soundtrack is a lovely blend of chiptune tracks, orchestraic compositions, and a dash of eletronica and rock inbetween. sometimes in the same track, even! the tracks fit the character or area they represent incredibly well, as in the case of Home, which plays when you're in the house of the motherly monster Toriel.

Toby Fox put a lot of love into this game, and it's soundtrack is no exception. you can purchase the soundtrack off his bandcamp here, though it can also be bought as a DLC off Steam. both soundtrack downloads include some spoilery tracks, so maybe you should hold off on buying it until you've finished the game. which you can also get off steam.

jukebox - Fireworks Factory (Spyro: Year of the Dragon)

there will be a day when i'll write something on the Spyro games. that day isn't today, but at the very least i can show off one of the tracks from the PS1 Spyro trilogy.

without going into much detail, the PS1 Spyro games are a wonderful little set of collectathon platformers with fun challenges and colorful environments. they also have a pretty kickarse soundtrack that still holds up today, composed by former The Police drummer Stewart Copeland. Ryan Beveridge composed a few tracks for the third game in the series (Spyro: Year of the Dragon) as well.

if i made jukebox posts for all my favorite tracks out of the trilogy, i'd probably end up with around 40 of them cluttering the site, so have this one. also, the Spyro trilogy happens to be on the Playstation Network store for six bucks per game if you wanna pick up the series on your Playstation Portable or PS3 (but not PSVita for some reason. damn it, Sony).

jukebox - The Concept of Love (Jet Set Radio Future)

things going pretty slow on my end what with trying to juggle article work and commission sheet work and other things together, so have another jukebox entry.

while i haven't played too much of the Jet Set Radio series (JSR i own the steam version of, Future i've yet to find a copy of), the games have a REALLY wonderful punktastic soundtrack, with genres ranging from hip-hop to techno and electronica to rock'n'roll to probably some others i dunno much about.

this track and most of the best (original) tracks in the series were composed by Hideki Naganuma, who has done music work for various other Sega games such as Sonic Rush and the PSP Kurohyo titles. Hideki's got a really funky style to his compositions, and they're worth more than one listen. his soundcloud can be found here if you want to listen to some select tracks.

jukebox - Nerevar Rising (TES: Morrowind)

been meaning to do a segment like this for a while. dunno why i haven't done it yet, but i guess now's a better time than never. basically the jukebox will feature some of my favorite musics from video games, films and animated media, and even some musicians.

while i'm at a tossup between whether Morrowind or Skyrim is the best out of the Elder Scrolls game series, there's no denying that Morrowind has a fantastic soundtrack, with its title theme "Nerevar Rising" being one of my top favorites in the series. while Oblivion and Skyrim had their own versions of the theme, the original Morrowind version is still my favorite (though, i'd be lying if i said Skyrim's theme didn't get me pumped up).

this piece was composed by Jeremy Soule, who composed the soundtrack for Morrowind as well as some other games in the Elder Scrolls series. he also composed for various other games such as Icewind Dale and Guild Wars. his official website can be found here.

by the way, i highly recommend the Elder Scrolls series if you're interested in sandbox-ish roleplaying games where you can do what you want and be what you wish. i highly suggest starting out with Skyrim first; Morrowind's gameplay and controls can be a bit tricky for newcomers.