Underrated video game composers?

[Evaccaneer Doom]

Thought about this yesterday, forgot until now to make a thread.

Since Tim and Geoff Follin have become a cult classic video game composing duo, I figured I might as well name some others that people still likely don't know or think about.

-Ryu Umemoto: Mainly composed for PC 98 games and a fringe few CAVE games before his death in 2011. His most well known works include Shop Demo (which plays somewhere in Grounseed, I don't have an answer as to when), the original Yu-No and Desire, Eve Burst Error along with Ryu Takami, many of the Black Label arrangements for Espgaluda 2, and the Akai Katana ost

Shop Demo
Yu-No Opening
Reflector
Search I (also known as "Brain" in original ost)
Madness
Seseri
Seseri vs Seseri
Nehanmon

-Akihiko Mori: Composed for a lot of different games before his death in 1998. His best and most well known is the ost for Mystic Ark, though he also composed for the Japan only Lennus II (Paladin's Quest sequel), Seifuku Densetsu, PC Engine Power Drift, Super Air Diver, etc. Last year one of his songs got a GaMetal cover.

Hey, Let's Fight! (SNES)
Hey, Let's Fight! (GaMetal)
Match Time (or "A Decisive Time" sometimes)

-Andy Tunstall: First composed for various Sonic fan games, most conistently the Before/After the Sequel games was where he had the most. When LakeFeperd (team behind both) pivoted to their own indie game, Andy went with them and composed a lot of the memorable music of Spark the Electric Jester.

Frigid Fortress Past
Frigid Fortress Future
Relic Retreat
Caria Valley
Reynol Complex
Special Boss
Mare Desert
Ghosts with Guitars
Fluid Air
Mantra

-Kenji Kaneko: Mainly only composes for Neptunia, and they're awesome. If these songs were in any other game besides Neptunia, people would probably be giving the man his flowers.

Noire
Lastation Ver V
Nepgear Ver V
Solid Park

-Kenichi Arakawa: Another PC 98 composer who adapted to later tech. Composed for a wide variety of games like Ace of Spades (PC-98), the Viper series (PC-98), The Dark Spire (DS), Rusty (PC-98), Superlative Night Dream: Cotton, etc

Hits 4 U
Ace of Spades soundtrack
Battle
Mid-Boss
Royal Tomb Boss

-Shade: Yet another PC-98 composer, but with the added bonus of his most famous song getting covered by THE S.S.H. He composed for Mime, the Rance series, Only You, etc.

Wish (PC-98)
Wish (S.S.H.)
The Last Edge
Ontology

-Natsuko Naitou: She is a very enigmatic composer. Very limited knowledge on her. But what we do know is that she was a somewhat consistent composer in CAVE. She often composed alongside other composers like Manabu Namiki (which means there may be stuff she specifically created that hasn't been noted as such) but she's also the composer of Mushihimesama Futuri's famous final boss theme as well as the singer of Dodonpachi Dai-Ondo and Muchi Pokyu, two image themes for the console ports of Dodonpachi Resurrection and Muchi Mucho Pork respectively.

Cry! Scream!
Dodonpachi Dai-ondo
Muchi Pokyu
Hamu Hamu Pepper


-Takeaki Watanabe: Another PC 98 composer. Composed for Metal & Lace 2 and Black Bird. He also composed one song used in Irisu Syndrome. Information is also iffy here.

Vs Caviar
Danbai
Explorers
Digital Beast
About 10 Hours Looking At The Ceiling

-I.C. Kaze (aka Nobuhisa Shinoda, which I just learned): Composed a few remixes but is also the sole composer of Illumination Laser and one of two composers for Flame Zapper Kotsujin.

Into The Last Battle
Tower of Dolls (unofficial I.C. Kaze remix)
Orange Type L
Illumination
Infinity Blue

-Takeshi Abo: Composed for Rhyme Star, Neptunia and is the composer of Lease from My Merry May. Probably more but finding credits for Neptunia music is draining as fuck and linking all of this takes forever, but it was how I found out he did the best battle themes in the game

Dimension Zero
LEASE
World 4: Seabed (or Bottom of the Sea)
Will Be Venus

and one more.

-Yasuhisa Watanabe: You know that one meme of the cat with the harmonica? This is the composer of that song. It's called "Purple Town," and it originates from the Dreamcast version of Border Down. Of course, that's not the only thing of note here. He worked with ZUNTATA up until 2003, composing for Metal Black, Sylvalion, Gun Frontiers and a few others including arrangements. Other than that, there's also Senko no Ronde, Custom Robo (also V2), arrangement albums for CAVE rereleases, Kira Kira Star Night, and Ginga Force.

Purple Town
Dual Moon
Snow Fox
Time
Girl of Power
Born To Be Free
Morning Kisses
Pokey Step
Breastdeep Candy
Goliath Stage
Illicit Ideology 9-1
Illicit Ideology 9-2

I spent a while compiling this list and even making sure every song was actually composed by the person for the love of the game but I'm curious to see what others come up with.

 

[tenkai star]

Motoaki Takenouchi composed video game soundtracks for a very short time in the 90's, but did an incredible job doing the shining series post-SF1. I wish he had continued in the industry. I have a ton of nostalgia for his work.

 

[DunkeyKong]

Hirokazu Ando, he did most of the Kirby's OST

This one for example

 

[Aziamuth]

Tenpei Sato from Disgaea and probably other NIS IPs

 

[DPRWesley]

One that comes to mind is Ben Houge, composer for Arcanum (2001) for PC amongst a handfull of other titles. His music really helped tie that majestic, bug-ridden masterpiece of a game together. Another that gets my vote is Keith Zizza, worked on Lords of Magic (1997) amongst a collection of other 90s PC strategy games.

 

[FlamGardeno]

Max-LL. He composed music for spiritfarer and oh god it s so good. My brains can understand why he isnt popular, even game isnt so famous, but my soul never

Spiritfarer (Main Theme) - Max LL
Into the Mines
At Sea

 

[E0N]

Ryota Kozuka. Mainly composes for Atlus. Recently did SMT 5 OST. This is just a small sample of his talent.

 

[Izzy]

Noriyuki Iwadare
Lucia (Lunar: Eternal Blue)

 

[MelMel]

I know Hyakutaro Tsukumo
awesome shmup composer

 

[DanVzare]

My favourite composer is easily Yoko Shimomura.
I'm not sure if she's underrated though, but considering she did the music for Street Fighter II, Super Mario RPG, and Kingdom Hearts, and the Mario and Luigi games, it's kind of surprising you don't hear her name more often.

I mean, she's literally the person responsible for the masterpiece that is Guile's theme.
So I suppose she's only underrated in that I think she should be as popular as John Williams for what she's contributed to game music, but she isn't.



(And considering the huge number of Japanese composers being listed, I think I'll throw Alexander Brandon's name out there, to help balance things out. The guy made the music for Unreal, Deus Ex, and Jazz Jackrabbit 2.)

 

[Ikagura]

It may sound weird but I'll put Hiroshi Iuchi in the list simply because, despite how renowned Ikaruga's ost is, has only made merely several tracks in his game career (only like 2 tracks in Light Crusaders).

I'm a bit sad that he hasn't made more compositions but his work is still top tier.

I'll also add Manabu Namiki for his work at Cave. Co, Ltd as well as a part of Metal Slug 6's ost.

Maybe Hideaki Kobayashi but Phantasy Star and Sonic's OSTs are too well known so I'd say Fumie Kumatani, her tracks are good but less known than her colleague's.

As for western can I add Chris Hülsbeck?

 

[Denmdm]

Don't worry, Kenji Kaneko also made the music in the Agarest Generations of War series. It shines even more than in neptunia, you should check it out.

 

[Fenir]

Akito Nakatsuka

 

[Ikagura]

Akito Nakatsuka

This is a good ost.

Why when Zelda gets symphonies they skip this entry? Kondo is good but he's not the sole composer.

 

[>pitchshifter]

Saki Kaskas & Rom di Prisco

 

[Antilocal123]

Kai Rosenkraz
Nathan Mcree
Steve Kirk
Keichii Sugiyama
Akitaka Tohyama
Hidenori Shoji

 

[AnonymousCookieMonster]

Only one i can think of is Bjorn Lynne. He does the worms soundtrack, but also seven kingdoms, Alien Breed 3D among other games.

Albums/Music

 

[Evaccaneer Doom]

As for western can I add Chris Hülsbeck?

Feel free, cause I myself can't believe I never put Chris Hulsbeck in that long list lol

Post automatically merged: Feb 22, 2025

Max-LL. He composed music for spiritfarer and oh god it s so good. My brains can understand why he isnt popular, even game isnt so famous, but my soul never

Spiritfarer (Main Theme) - Max LL
Into the Mines
At Sea

Funnily enough, this made me realise I never put Konjak (solo dev and composer of the Noitu Love duology and Iconoclasts) in that list, oof. I'll take a look a little later.
In fact, I'll take a few songs from every composer listed in replies to check out later, thank you all for the answers! Hopefully when I come back the list of replies and composers gets even bigger.

Post automatically merged: Feb 22, 2025

Hirokazu Ando, he did most of the Kirby's OST

This one for example

Both of the Kirby composers are goated as fuck. Check out some of Ishikawa's pre-Kirby work too (Arcana, Hyper Zone, etc)

Post automatically merged: Feb 22, 2025

Tenpei Sato from Disgaea and probably other NIS IPs

I LOVE One Hundred Roses

 

[Big Finger Jim]

Yasumasa Kitagawa, Hiromitsu Maeba, and Tomohito Nishiura.

They made the soundtracks to the Great Ace Attorney games and the Layton crossover. Genuinely the most beautiful music I've ever heard.

 

[Ian Naxieas]

Saki Kaskas

RIP Saki Kaskas. He was taken from us far too soon...

I don't know how underrated he is, he did do most of the Final Fantasy 12 soundtrack, but Hitoshi Sakimoto gets my vote. He's done so many fantastic soundtracks, Final Fantasy Tactics, Valkyria Chronicles 1-4, the Ogre Battle/Tactics Ogre games, Vagrant Story and many others. He has a very distinct style that I can't get enough of, it actually hits my whimsy button pretty hard. He did do a bunch of his best soundtracks with Masaharu Iwata and he has an impressive resume himself, so maybe he's the real underrated composer.

 

[stealthRUSH]

Kenji Eno of WARP ( rest in peace )

 

[Mini_Man.XW]

Steve Kirk, he absolutely shot it out of the park with Voodoo Vince's soundtrack.

 

[Parasite_Steve]

Graeme Norgate

Graeme Norgate

Bafta Nominated composer of GoldenEye, Perfect Dark, Timesplitters & Crysis Series, Killer Instinct, Donkey Kong Land, ,Blastcorps ,Jet Force Gemini, Second Sight and Twist Pilot I've remixed Goteki, Inertia, Sigue Sigue Sputnik, Code 64, Seize, De/Vision and Attrition.

graemenorgate.bandcamp.com

Composer for the Timesplitters series, perfect dark and killer instinct among others. Pretty decent bloke too. I interacted with him a couple of times when he still had his facebook account.

I don’t know if he still counts as underrated though but I rarely see his name mentioned outside of inner nerd cycles:
Hitoshi Sakimoto
He’s responsible for the Ogre battle series, Final Fantasy Tactics and its related games set in Ivalice, Radiant Silvergun, Vagrant Story, Valkyria chronicles, etc.

Noriyuki Asakura
He’s had quite an illustrious and long career but I always remember him best for his wildly imaginative, idiosyncratic and atmospheric work on the Tenchu soundtracks.

 

[King Koopa's iconKing Koopa]

Michiru Ōshima. Composer for Legend of Legaia and Ico.

 

[Ikagura]

Tatsuyuki Maeda for Sonic.

While Masato Nakamura (Sonic 1&2) and Jun Senoue + Brad Buxers (Sonic 3 & Knuckles) are more known for their compositions, the person behind Sonic 3D Blast and the Advance series made many nice tracks, they're just less known.

Graeme Norgate

Graeme Norgate

Bafta Nominated composer of GoldenEye, Perfect Dark, Timesplitters & Crysis Series, Killer Instinct, Donkey Kong Land, ,Blastcorps ,Jet Force Gemini, Second Sight and Twist Pilot I've remixed Goteki, Inertia, Sigue Sigue Sputnik, Code 64, Seize, De/Vision and Attrition.

graemenorgate.bandcamp.com

Composer for the Timesplitters series, perfect dark and killer instinct among others.

Perfect Dark's OST is above Goldeneye's in my eyes.

I don’t know if he still counts as underrated though but I rarely see his name mentioned outside of inner nerd cycles:
Hitoshi Sakimoto
He’s responsible for the Ogre battle series, Final Fantasy Tactics and its related games set in Ivalice, Radiant Silvergun, Vagrant Story, Valkyria chronicles, etc.

I loved his stuff in Treasure's games and Gradius V.

Post automatically merged: Feb 25, 2025

I'll go for indies this time and Danny Baranowsky, despite how massively popular Binding of Isaac is, is still quite obscure.