Whoever said Wild ARMs is dead right. Only the first game, mind you; even the Alter Code F soundtrack pales in comparison. Wild ARMs 1 has the most amazing soundtrack for a game I've ever heard and it's the only one I can listen to in full in one session; without skipping tracks or parts of tracks or w/e.

I have to wonder why several years after their initial release, people are still blowing up off of Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger/Cross music.  Sure, some of it's great, but there are so many other good soundtracks out there--you just have to look beyond level 1 Nobuo Uematsu and Yasunori Mitsuda material.  I'm not saying that they're bad, they're certainly very talented and I enjoy a lot of their work (although, none of the recent stuff is particularly stellar), but it seems odd that all of these VGM fans only listen to what is readily available and I usually see a lot of the same stuff (o man one winged angeL!!! NOBUOU IS GOD)


Anyway, here are some notable composers that I enjoy:

Masashi Hamauzu (SaGa series, Dirge of Cerberus, FFX, Musashi Samurai Legend)

Yasuhisa Watanabe (Senko no Ronde, Border Down)

Koichi Sugiyama (Dragon Quest series)

Norihiko Hibino (His recent release "The Outer Rim". I like his style when he fuses jazz and other styles, but I don't care for most of the MGS music)

Tamayo Kawamoto (RayStorm and other SHMUP soundtracks, she has a very unorthodox style and does mostly electronic-sounding material)

Eriko "Guts" Imura (Klonoa soundtracks, Door to Phantomile and Lunatea's Veil to be specific)

Shoji Meguro (Shin Megami Tensei series)

Junya Nakano (Dewprism, FFX, Another Mind)

Akari Kaida & Yoshino Aoki (Their work on Breath of Fire III was great)



Honorable mentions: Akira Yamaoka (Silent Hill), Jun Chiki Chikuma (Bomberman Hero, SNES Bomberman games), Tim Follin (Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future), Yasunori Mitsuda's "Moonlit Shadow" soundtrack, the Namco sound team that worked on Ridge Racer Type 4, Michiru Yamane (Castlevania: Symphony of the Night) and Capcom's Street Fighter III: 2nd Impact soundtrack for having an assortment of catchy tunes.