It's hot as balls outside with heat wave after heat wave, so I've gathered some "summery" tracks. Most of them are chill and loungy, while some of them are epic rock/orchestral, because what else can represent the struggle of having your power company periodically reduce your voltage to prevent their shit from exploding? Code: Age of Empires: The Rise of Rome - Fretless Salsa Age of Empires: The Rise of Rome - Rise Of Rome End Credits Age of Empires: Definitive Edition - Queen of Palmyra (Mean) Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings - Richspectrumsounds - Tazer Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings - BadHairlineProductions - Bass Bag [Groovy Guitar] Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings - ...Where Credit Is Due Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition - Love and Will Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition - The Monkey Book Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition - Shamburger Age of Empires III - Of Licious I'm gonna start with an Age of Empires block to celebrate the American Empire's 250th birthday! For some reason, AoE has some unbelievably chill tracks. Code: Granblue Fantasy: Relink - End of Ragnarok Granblue Fantasy: Relink - Burning Out the Blue Granblue Fantasy: Relink - Vow and Promise + Divine Revelation Granblue Fantasy: Relink - Dragon's Circle -Light and Dark- Continuing on with Granblue Fantasy: Relink, which just recently had an expansion released. It's a fully featured spinoff of the original gacha game. It may have no gacha elements, but it's still super grindy. I started listening to the music, because it was produced by Cygames, the same studio that produced Umamusume, which has the best music ever in a gacha game. Relink seems no different. Now I just have to listen to the other GBF OSTs. Code: Power Drift - Yoshihiro Kunimoto - Like the Wind OutRunners - S.S.T.BAND - Passing Breeze OutRun 2 - MAGICAL SOUND SHOWER Rad Mobile - S.S.T.BAND - Soup Up GP Rider - Issei Noro - Time Attack G-LOC: Air Battle - Issei Noro - Air Battle G-LOC: Air Battle - S.S.T.BAND - Earth Frame G -Rhythm Retake Remix- The Sega Sound Team Band has created some groovy chill tracks, perfect for summer. Code: Final Fantasy XIII-2 - Full Speed Ahead Final Fantasy XIII-2 - Chaotic Guardian Final Fantasy XIII-2 - Mitsuto Suzuki - Local Cosmos_soft_4Beat Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII - Savior of Souls Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII - Chocobo Carnivale I might as well complete the FFXIII trilogy. Code: Trauma Center: Under the Knife 2 - Gentle Breeze Zone of the Enders: The Fist of Mars - Z.O.E. 2173 Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak - The Ashoka Attacks Geek Resort - Geek Resort Theme BTS World - Friends (Hoseok Theme) BTS World - Captain (Namjun Theme) SHINY - Tin Heart (Main Theme) SHINY - Aqua Aerobotics SHINY - Bucket of Bolts SHINY - More Than Metal Persona 4 - Atsushi Kitajoh - specialist Metaphor: ReFantazio - Warriors in Valour Metaphor: ReFantazio - Formidable Foe Here's a bunch of different tracks. We've got one with a real Hindu chant, one with a fake Buddhist chant, and one from that dancing meme. And yes, BTS had a mobile game and EoSed after 4 years. The Metaphor OST was a bit disappointing. The tracks that most people were hyped about were the ones featuring a Buddhist monk. All the other tracks sounded generic as fuck to me. Remove the monk, and the OST just falls flat. It's understandable that it lost to FFVII Rebirth in TGA 2024, but not understandable that Stellar Blade lost in the same category. Code: Unicorn Overlord - Farde mal diavolo -Destroy Evil, then Come- Unicorn Overlord - Drakenhold Stage Unicorn Overlord - Osamu Kubota - Cornia Stage Unicorn Overlord - Elheim Battle Now here's a superior orchestral OST for comparison. Unicorn Overlord is a RTS game I've always wanted to try, but it looks like it would play so much better using a mouse and keyboard. It's similar to Ogre Battle, which I also didn't like playing using a controller. With Muramasa heading to Steam in 2027, there's hope that other Vanillaware games, which haven't touched the PC in 20 years, will be ported as well! It's a shame that the OST wasn't nominated in TGA 2024. It should've been there instead of Silent Hill 2 Remake. As I was listening to the OST, it reminded me of music from FFXII and FFT. Lo and behold, they're all produced by the same sound studio, Basiscape, headed by Hitoshi Sakimoto. Upon further research, they also produced the music for the Valkyria Chronicles series and all of Vanillaware's games AND (surprise, surprise) the Ogre Battle series. So I guess it's a bit unfair to compare a virgin orchestral fantasy music composer to a chad studio with decades of experience. Though to be fair, Sakimoto's first orchestral work was Ogre Battle, and it was already a banger. Fuck global warming!
