2008 VGM Primer Written

Iconic

Forgotten

Timeless

Innovative

These are the soundtracks that help shape and define what we hear in the video games that we play. I am Nitro, and this is the M Disk Playlist Video Game Music Primer, 2008.

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Super Smash Bros. Brawl

All composer info here: https://www.smashbros.com/wii/en_us/music/music01.html

The Super Smash Bros series went from only having one composer in the first game, five different composers in Super Smash Bros. Melee, and then for Super Smash Bros. Brawl, 36 different composers were brought on for the game.The game's main theme was composed by Nobuo Uematsu, who became famous for his works in the Final Fantasy series, and had been recently composing for Mistwalker games like Blue Dragon, and Lost Odyssey, both for the Xbox 360. Like in previous Smash Bros games, much of the original music borrows the motifs of the main theme for their pieces.

What also separates Brawl from the rest of the Smash Bros series at that time is that the entire soundtrack isn't just arrangements of popular music associated with the characters of the Super Smash Bros. Brawl roster. Some of the original music from the games these characters came from were used as potential stage themes. 125 different music tracks are avaliable from the start, but by playing through the game, you can find CDs that unlock even more scores, bringing the total of different music tracks in Brawl to 258. 

Brawl's huge boost in music marked the beginning of the Super Smash Bros. franchises commemoration of the music history of the video games featuring the characters on the roster. The music had become an integral part of the commemoration of the character's history, almost as important as the stages inspired by these characters.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl aimed to be much bigger than the previous two games. The huge increase in the number of scores when compared to Melee helped contribute to Brawl's initial popularity and critical acclaim. This dedication to archiving music, whether by arranging it, or including the original as is, became a new standard for Smash going forward.

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Valkyria Chronicles, composed by Hitoshi Sakimoto

Valkyria Chronicles was a brand new Japanese Role Playing Game experience, set in the middle of a fantasy version of World War II in Europe. The setting, and the unique approach to the tactical gameplay formula traditionally implemented on grid-based maps helped make the game one of the most critically acclaimed original titles released in 2008.

Hitoshi Sakimoto, originally a Square composer, now one of the founding members of the music company Basiscape, a company that provides composers with more freedom as an independant composer than if a composer had been working under a specific developer. Valkyria Chronicles would end up being the fist PlayStation 3 game for Sakimoto, and Basiscape as a whole. 

When he spoke with the game's producer Ryutaro Nonaka about composing for the game, Sakimoto was under the impression that this would be a portable game developed by a smaller studio. He was surprised to learn that the game would be developed for the PlayStation 3. 

Sakimoto's approach to the score revolved around the relationship between main characters Welkin and Alicia "who were ordinary people, thrown into the midst of war, but whose love continued to develop as ordinary people" as described by Sakmimoto in an interview with IGN. Sakimoto would frequently use the taiko drums as his own way of emulating marching bands present during the real war. For the fantasy elements of the game, his scores included "nonsensical chorus work" to add significance to the fantasy elements present.

The game features two vocal tracks; The insert song Eternal Legacy (released in English as A Love Passed On), performed in the game by main character Rosie, with the vocals provided in both Japanese and English by her voice actresses Megumi Toyoguchi and Hedy Burress respectively. Sakimoto states in the soundtrack liner notes printed on Udon's Valkyria Chronicles' Design Archive that Toyoguchi was moved to tears after she finished recording the song. The game's opening and ending theme, No Matter How Far, was not composed by Sakimoto. Instead, it was composed by Daisuke Kawaguchi, and performed by Japanese recording artist, Juju. 

Valkyria Chronicles was both a challenge for Sakimoto, and a testimant to what he was capable of producing for a complex story told on one of the most advanced home consoles on the market at the time. He took a fantasy setting inspired by real world events, and was able to balance the authenticity of those events with the romanticized elements to create a score. But perhaps his biggest source of inspiration for the score, were the characters themselves. Ordinary people thrown into the midst of war.

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Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, composed by Harry Gregson-Williams, Nobuko Toda, Yoshitaka Suzuki, Norihiko Hibino, Takahiro Izutani, Shuichi Kobori, Kazuma Jinnouchi, and Akihiro Honda.

PlayStation 3's biggest video game at the time, and Hideo Kojima's biggest video game at the time. Such a large installment in the Metal Gear franchise needed as many composers as it had. Like the previous two Metal Gear Solid games, film composer Harry Gregson-Williams composed the scores used during the game's cut scenes. Gregson-Williams, who was recruited after Kojima and sound director of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty; Kazuki Muraoka sent a mix tape of Gregson-Williams' movie pieces to intice him into composing for the Metal Gear seires, scored for the main entry console Metal Gear games starting with Sons of Liberty, up until the last one, The Phantom Pain. 

Gregson-Williams would also compose the game's ending theme, a cover of Enino Morricone and Joan Baez's song Here's to You from the film Sacco & Vanzetti. This version of the song was performed by Lisbeth Scott. The original song would end up appearing in the prequel to Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, Ground Zeroes, as that game's opening theme. The second vocal theme, Love Theme, was composed by Nobuko Toda, and performed in Hebrew by Jackie Presti. Love Theme would become a recurring motif throughout the entire game.

Outside of the cutscenes, a majority of the score was composed in collaboration by Nobuko Toda, Shuichi Kobori, and Kazuma Jinnouchi. Both Toda and Kobori each helped Sons of Liberty and Snake Eater composer Norihiko Hibino compose one different track for the Snake Eater score. Meanwhile Jinnouchi's only prior experience with the Metal Gear series comes from being one of the primary composer of Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, alongside Akihiro Honda, and Takahiro Izutani. Shuichi Kobori collaborated with Gregson-Williams on the Snake Eater score for The Sorrow's battle theme. After that, Kobori would help score the Metal Gear Acid games. 

Norihiko Hibino, who was the primary composer of the previous two Metal Gear Solid games, only composed one track, Everything Ends, for Guns of the Patriots, with assistance from Izutani. There was one other composer, Sota Fujimori, that helped compose in-game music for Guns of the Patriots. Those pieces ended up scrapped, and became bonus tracks for the game's official soundtrack release.

The game also gives you access to an Apple iPod, allowing you to change the background music to any game in the Metal Gear franchise, as well as director Hideo Kojima's outside projects. Most of the different music tracks you can acquire for your iPod are carefully hidden throughout the game, and as free downloadable content. And speaking of the music of the Metal Gear franchise, snippets of music from the previous three Metal Gear Solid games can be heard throughout the game itself. Whether it's reliving events of the first Metal Gear Solid, or through the one on one duel with Liquid Ocelot, this game takes everything that the previous three games built up to, and poured it into this game.

Guns of the Patriots marked the end of Solid Snake's story, and the beginning of what would end up being many examples of how the PlayStation 3 could be used to go beyond what was initially thought possible in video games. Hideo Kojima would not create another game starring Solid Snake after Guns of the Patriots, but he would eventually focus on continuing the story of Big Boss before leaving Konami in 2015.

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Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4, composed by Shoji Meguro, Atsushi Kitajoh, and Ryota Kozuka

Similar to what Shoji Meguro achieved with Persona 3, he would continue the trend of using contemporary sounds, with an emphasis on vocal tracks. Meguro started his music career working on the first Persona game, Revelations. Revelations is notable for the piece, Aria of the Soul, which would become a recurring motif for the entire Persona series, as the theme used in each of the game's respective Velvet Rooms.

Unlike Persona 3, which featured three vocalists, Persona 4 only had one; Shihoko Hirata. Meguro described Hirata as a singer who convinced him without hesitation, in his own words, that she could best meet the demands of the entire score. Much of the vocal tracks were inspired by the story outline, and the theme of internal conflict amongst the main protagonist party.

Atsushi Kitajoh, who only recently joined Atlus with his first score being Trauma Center: New Blood, composed four pieces for the game; Muscle Blues, It's Show Time, Someone's Husband, and Kerorin Magic. Ryota Kozuka, whose first game he worked on was this one, composed the game's ending theme, Never More. 

Persona 4 would become so popular, it would be enhanced for the PlayStation Vita as Persona 4 Golden, dropping the Shin Megami Tensei title, marking the beginning of the Persona series standing out on its own. Two fighting games set in the Persona 4 universe would be made; Persona 4 Arena and Persona 4 Arena Ultimax. Atlus' first Persona rhythm game would be based around the music of Persona 4. Persona 4 would also be featured in Persona's mystery dungeon spin-offs, Persona Q. Any game that uses elements from Persona 4 featured Shihiko Hirata's vocals.

As stated earlier, Persona 4 marked the beginning of the Persona series branching away from the Shin Megami Tensei series, even becoming one of the most critically acclaimed role playing games released on a Sony system, thanks in part to the unique score, and Shihoko Hirata's vocals.

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Wario Land: Shake It!, composed by Tomoya Tomita and Minako Hamano

Good-Feel, the game's developer, had initially been developing educational games for the Nintendo DS. They were chosen to devleop a new Waro Land game, the first since the 2001 Wario Land 4 on the Game Boy Advance. Wario Land 4 was even an inspiration for this game's score, as Tomoya Tomi ta described the music from that game, as well as the music of Wario Land as a whole as "completely different from the music in Nintendo's other platform games."

Tomita had been a self taught guitar player since the age of 13. He got into the game industry by joining Konami's sound team, working on notable titles like Pop'n TwinBee, Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon, and Castlevania: Circle of the Moon. When much of the staff who worked on the Ganbare Goemon series left to form Good-Feel, Tomita joined them as well, with Wario Land: Shake It being the first game he composed for them. He sites the music from the Mt. Lava Lava stage as his favorite, as he feels it best compares to Wario's fierce and hot-headed personality.

Minako Hamano, whose first game with Nintendo was The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, and who became notable with her music contributions to Super Metroid and Metroid Fusion, collaborated with Tomita on three of the game's pieces. The main menu, Stonecarving City, and Glittertown.

 

Wario Land: Shake It would be Wario's last platformer title, as Nintendo would put more of a focus on the more popular WarioWare franchise. Still, Shake It would serve as a great transitional opportunity for Tomoya Tomita, who went from making memorable music for Konami, to making memorable games for Nintendo as a company.

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Inazuma Eleven, composed by Yasunori Mitsuda

Yasunori Mitsuda made a name for himself as one of the most iconic composers for role playing games, starting at Square with his first composition job being Chrono Trigger. Since becoming a freelancer in 1998, he would rarely branch out into other types of games. Like the first Mario Party, Bomberman 64: The Second Attack, and 10,000 Bullets. And then there's Inazuma Eleven.

Inazuma Eleven is a soccer game with RPG elements, developed by Level-5, who had previously established themselves as a Nintendo DS developer with the start of the Professor Layton series. Inazuma Elven would become so popular, it spawned multiple sequels, a ten volume manga printed in CoroCoro Comic, six anime series, and four anime movies. And for every single Inazume Eleven game, anime, or movie, Mitsuda worked on them all, making this franchise the one Mitsuda invested the most of his professional career in.

The combination of sports and role playing game allowed for Mitsuda to compose what he described as a "fun and action-packed score while retaining some drama." It is a fitting way for Mitsuda to bring his career to a full circle, as before becoming a musician, he did aspire to become a golfer. But he wasn't just interested in golf, he was interested in sports as a whole. The game features two vocal tracks. Riyo -The Youthful Inazuma Eleven-, performed by T-Pistonz, and is the only track Mitsuda did not work on. The other track, Pure Love of Youth, is performed by twe'lv.

Inazuma Eleven combines Mitsuda's current profession and passion with the passion he had during his adolescent years. The score for the series as a whole provides the fun and exciting enhancement to a soccer game, while simultaneously implementing the signature styles of role playing game music that had made Mitsuda famous and well known for so many years.

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Mega Man 9, composed by Ippo Yamada, Ryo Kawakami, Yu Shimoda, and Hiroki Isogai

Ten years after the release of Mega Man & Bass, which at the time was the latest installment of the classic Mega Man series, Mega Man returned to his roots. Literally. Mega Man 9 looked, played, and sounded like the original Nintendo games from the 80s and early 90s. 

Ippo Yamada, Ryo Kawakami, Yu Shimoda, and Hiroki Isogai collaborated together on the entire score under the name III: Sound Create Unit, a sound division for the games developer, Inti Creates, with Yamada being the supervisor of the group. Yamada was a sound designer for Capcom with the first game he worked on being Mega Man X2. His first composition job was the 1998 Speed Power Gunbike. After that, he woul be the primary composer of the entire Zero, and ZX sub-series. The three other composers joined Capcom with their first games being Mega Man ZX, and its arrangement album; Rockman ZX Soundsketch ZX Gigamix.

With the experience of the Zero and ZX series under their belt, Inti Creates was able to gain the necessary skills needed to make both a homage to the original Mega Man games, and a brand new Mega Man experience simultaneously. Inti Creates and III: Sound Create Unit would be involved in Mega Man 10 two years later.

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Dead Space, composed by Jason Graves

It was during this time that the two arguably biggest third party developers, Electronic Arts and Activision, focused heavily on franchises that had already proven themselves. There was little, if any, room for original properties. That is until Electronic Arts gave the green-light to their Redwood Shores studio to develop EA's first big budget foray into the survival horror genre, Dead Space.

Dead Space is a survival horror game set inside a space colony. Futuristic space settings were not unique, but it was a setting that hadn't been explored since System Shock 2, which incidentally Dead Space was originally intended to be a sequel of. The score for this game was composed by Jason Graves, who may be more well known for his scores for this game, and future works like the 2013 Tomb Raider, Far Cry Primal, Until Dawn, and The Order: 1886. But in spire of his success in the game industry, Graves' experience goes beyond that.

Outside of games, Graves has composed promotional material for Fox, CBS, A&E, Food Network, G4, HBO, and Lifetime just to name a few. Recently, he has worked on music for shows like Project Blue Book, Swamp Thing for the DC Universe app, and the Magnum PI and Hawaii F-O reboots. When describing what makes a good horror score to gamemusic.net, Graves is quoted as saying I’ve always felt that the unknown is the scariest thing...Not knowing something forces your mind to fill in the blanks...I think a good horror score musically portrays that idea of “the unknown.” 

Dead Space was a risk for Electronic Arts, who had initially been hesitant on promoting and pushing original titles. But the risk was worth the reward, as Dead Space would end up becoming their signature horror series, spawning multiple sequels and spin-offs. And throughout the entire duration of the Dead Space franchise, Jason Graves was there to enhance the sense of the unknown through his score.

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Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts, composed by Grant Kirkhope, Robin Beanland, and David Clynick

Rare had exclusively made games for Nintendo in the 80s, 90s, and the very beginning of the 2000s. In 2002, Microsoft had acquired Rare, turning it into a first-person studio exclusive to their Xbox platforms, with the exception of portable games. It wasn't until the Xbox 360's release where we saw Rare develop more games for Microsoft. Some of which were brand new games, and some were new entries to already existing franchises, like Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts.

Nuts and Bolts was a direct sequel to the 2000 Banjo-Tooie for the Nintendo 64. But what alienated fans of the Nintendo 64 Banjo-Kazooie games was that Nuts and Bolts was not a platform game. Instead, it became a vehicle construction adventure. The collectable elemtents from previous games were retained, but the game focused heavily on finding many different parts to create outlandish vehicles.

The other thing that makes this game stand out is the live orchestrated score. Performed by the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra, and composed by Rare composers Robin Beanland, who had been with Rare since the first Donkey Kong Country game; David Clynic who had been with Rare since Perfect Dark; And finally, Grant Kirkhope, who had been with Rare since Killer Instinct 2, and had been the primary composer for the entire Banjo-Kazooie series.

The Banjo-Kazooie series was one of Kirkhope's most popular works. It is also the seires that marked the end of his career at Rare. After Nuts and Bolts, Kirkhope left Rare to become a freelance composer. In 2019, he would once again be involved with Banjo-Kazooie by scoring a new arrangement of the Spiral Mountain theme for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate for the Banjo-Kazooie DLC. Clynic would remain with Rare until 2011, while Beanland is still with Rare to this day, contributing to Rare and Xbox One's Sea of Thieves.

Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts was Grant Kirkhope's last hurrah for Rare, and a chance for Robin Beanland and David Clynic to revisit a classic Rare series before branching off into new intellectual properties. While polarizing, Nuts and Bolts would leave its mark as one of Rare's most memorable scores, combining old familiar melodies with new ones, using a live orchestra.

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428: Shibuya Scramble, composed by Naoki Sato, Hideki Sakamoto, and Shingo Yasumoto

Hideki Sakamoto describes the process of composing for 428: Shibuya Scramble as having many hurdles. Primarily because, much like the game's story, the score for the game consists of multiple genres. That was indeed how the different story arcs of this game had to be enhanced. Their mood, ranging from dramatic to silly, needed appropriate music. Sakamoto references "everything from techno and funk to bossa nova and classical" as examples of what type of music you could expect in this game. At this point of his career, Sakamoto hadn't been composing for games that long. His most notable contributions before this game were Yakuza 2, and Echocrome.

The game's other primary composer, Naoki Sato, only composed one video game; this one. Regardless, he is still an accomplished musician, having won a Japan Academy Film prize in 2005 for his score for the live-action film Always Sanchome no Yuhi. He started his professional career as an anime composer on the X OVA and TV series. He would go on to compose for popular anime like Eureka Seven, and the Pretty Cure franchise. Shingo Yasumoto doesn't compose as often as the other two composers have, based on the current information available as of this production. In addition to this game, he has worked on games like Flower, Sun and Rain, Shining Soul, and Ninety-Nine Nights. The game features one vocal theme, The World Doesn't Change So Easy, performed by Aya Kamiki. Kamiki appears in the game as part of the main cast ensemble, as herself.

428: Shibuya Scramble was eclectic in both its story telling, and its score. When released, 428: Shibuya Scramble was one of the most critically acclaimed visual novels. It also became the first visual novel, and ninth overall game to earn a perfect score in Famitsu magazine. Originally released on the Wii at the tail end of 2008, it would not be released outside of Japan for another ten years, when the game was remastered for the PlayStation 4 and the PC.

WRITTEN SOURCES:

Anime News Network

Game Set Watch

HeyPoorPlayer

IGN

jasongraves.com

MobyGames

SmashBros Dojo

SoundTrackFest

Square Enix Music Online

Valkyria Chronicles Design Archive

Video Game Music Database

Video Game Music Online

wariolandshakeit.com