I think a lot of other people have good points. I DO still think video game music is often excellent, but not universally. I think modern video game music is higher variance—games where someone obviously cared about the music have both good melodies AND good instrumentation. But there’s a lot of games where nobody cared at all.
The best video-game music I’ve heard recently was from Braid and Bastion. In both cases, the music is clearly a central “character” of the game, obviously cared deeply about by the creator. Braid falls into the “silent protagonist” category. Bastion oddly enough has a lot of dialog, but the narration is intertwined with the audio in a pretty deliberate fashion.
I think a lot of other people have good points. I DO still think video game music is often excellent, but not universally. I think modern video game music is higher variance—games where someone obviously cared about the music have both good melodies AND good instrumentation. But there’s a lot of games where nobody cared at all.
The best video-game music I’ve heard recently was from Braid and Bastion. In both cases, the music is clearly a central “character” of the game, obviously cared deeply about by the creator. Braid falls into the “silent protagonist” category. Bastion oddly enough has a lot of dialog, but the narration is intertwined with the audio in a pretty deliberate fashion.