All on Bandcamp because that's where I get my official music :
Ridiculous Fishing: a weird fishing game that was available on iPhone for some time, then disappeared due to compatibility issues.
Guacamelee! 2: Kind of famous, but I like the soundtrack.
Eastward: a weird action RPG, like Chrono Trigger but more cozy, I love that game.
Axiom Verge: something something Metroidvania.
Neotokyo is a HL2/Source mod with an outstanding original soundtrack.
No particular order:
It's kinda cheating, but the game Capsized is a decent XBLA-era side scrolling shooter-platformer with an excellent soundtrack. That's because it uses the existing album Movements by Solar Fields.
Solar Fields actually scored a different game with an excellent soundtrack: Mirrors Edge
Uplink and Darwinia, Introversion Software's first two games, have lovely soundtracks.
Nitronic Rush, a student game that got remade into the survival racing game Distance, has one of the greatest Christmas songs ever made on its soundtrack.
The original Lemmings and its expansions used quite good chiptune renditions of classical and classic pop songs. Each platform has a different soundtrack, but Amiga is probably the best.
PPPPPP, the soundtrack to VVVVVV is very crunchy chiptune. The last track is weird though.
Outer Wilds is simply amazing.
Psychonauts and Psychonauts 2 have great, varied soundtracks.
Warframe is an underrated game IMO and it’s got some absolute bangers:
VTM: Bloodlines 1 had a fantastic soundtrack. I really love the Hollywood Theme, but Santa Monica is also a classic and there are other bangers too.
Idk if all of these are obscure enough lol
I really like the Rome: Total War soundtrack by Jeff van Dyck
In particular Divinitus and Forever, Angela van Dyck singing on those tracks just adds something more.
Banished has a nice relaxing if not slightly melancholic soundtrack
The zero escape series has so many good ones. Virtue's last reward in particular has the best ost. As an aside if you enjoy absolute bullshit storylines ala nano machines from metal gear, I highly recommend playing the zero escape games.
X-Universe games. Particularly X3, X Rebirth and X4.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lpPp2cMcDxB-9TdVyL-8u52xU0o_eWkIM
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2DE76FAF3D895DD0
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRNrultsQ-TjRZXR6TFg5rpRN2UzChGg4
Pictionary on the NES had a glorious soundtrack. One of the tracks pops into my head every few months.
Anno 1602. Probably 80% nostalgia, but somehow the keyboard synth music is just nice.
Romancing SaGa isn't nearly as famous as other JRPG franchises like Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest, which is a shame since the series has some absolute bangers in its soundtrack.
Metal Max is another one, though arguably it only has one memorable track that they remade and reused for every game.
dustforce has a great soundtrack by lifeformed. the game is a 2d precision platformer with incredible animation and gamefeel too
hypnospace outlaw is absolutely beautiful in every way
If we're talking obscure...
Citizen sleeper 1 and 2
Blue revolver
Treasure Master on the NES has a track at the title screen that's best described as a funky fresh beat
Indie Ace Attorney-like, Gyakuten Live, defined its own investigation, objection, cross examination themes. Given how beloved those themes are in the original games, they did a great job.
They sort of took it to another level with the idea of “final confrontation” cross examination themes. Last one for the newest case kind of goes insane, managing to build in both tension and uplifting battle elements. Rather than stop the music on one contradiction, it does the “rising instrumental” approach of layering the track up based on when you’ve found a key flaw in the argument. You can tell a lot of the effort for that sequence went just into getting the music to match up.
Tim Follin. He made Pictionary sound badass.
No clue if this counts, but given how little I see it mentioned in online spaces I will suggest Frostpunk's soundtrack. Even if you don't play the game, it is an amazing soundtrack that perfectly captures both the hope and desperation depicted in the game itself. Especially "The City Must Survive" is an absolute banger.
Don’t know about the obscurity, but:
“Gothic 3” all the way! Kai rosenkranz’s work here is amazing!
Mechanicus. To quote the great Mandalore "most music drop the bass, Mechanicus drops a pipe organ".
Project Wingman. Love letter to Ace Combat that gets the music on point.
Rogue Trader. The most epic track on the OST is used for one minor fight.
The ost for the original Mother is the quintessential example of 'they didn't need to go this hard.' For a Famicom game, they hired a rock musician to compose the score, who then went and made an entire album - lyrics and all - and collaborated with one of Nintendo's top musicians to simplify it down for an 8-bit cartridge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zS6anrmbG4o
He made this album twice btw.
Hylics 2: Psychedelic and dreamlike
Void Collector: Some nice jazz
Vampire Savior: Obscure might be the wrong word here, since it's a Capcom fighting game from the 90s, but I don't hear a lot of people talk about its soundtrack
Tooth and Tail: an immensely fun simplified (distilled, if you will) take on real time strategy set in a beautiful and horrifyingly brutal world of animals fighting for opposing political ideologies.
Wild ARMs, the first one on PS.
The ost for I AM YOUR BEAST is what I imagine doing cocaine feels like. Great game, with an equally solid soundtrack.
Fester's Quest for the NES
AIgent: Retro cyberpunk speedrunning platformer that is yet to release (currently only a demo is available) with a seriously kickass sountrack.
TowerFall started on Ouya console, which was based on Android, and later ported to other platforms. Name changed to TowerFall Ascension. The game is a 4 player co-op sideways pixel art action game to fight against (or together in story mode) to eliminate in an arena. One of my favorite all time multiplayer games ever.
I recommend the Ascension soundtrack, as its the same as the original but polished and enriched more. It has this oldschool vibe and I don't know how this sounds for anyone who never played the game. For me listening to this soundtrack has some personal meaning and connection with friends.
One of my favorite indie card rogue-likes, Monster Train 2, has an absolutely amazing soundtrack. Monster Train 1 is also good (same artist, Jordan Chin) but they really caught my attention, the games are criminally underrated.
Monster Train 2 track example: https://youtu.be/KlS3jkEhi7o
Hopefully more people play these wonderful games.
Super Galdelic Hour - a mini-game collection for PS2 with an extremely catchy soundtrack.
Some highlights:
EXA_PICO universe has a fun mix of hymnal chorus and electronica due to the music being diegetic. Priestess cyborg girls sing to do magic so the spells have crazy names that look like programming files.
All sung in the crazy made up magic/programming language of the universe complete with its own grammatical syntax and written characters.
This has been going hard in my mind for 33 years.
Jurassic Park Game Boy OST Level 1
I wish I had more to contribute but it’s early and I’m on a phone. I’ll get back around to this thread later. Great post!
There's a game i played a while from a big game bundle i bought called Lenna's Inception. The game itself was OK, nothing special imo, but the OST was really good, it has some solid boss fight music
I'm a huge fan of the soundtrack to a game in development, but not released beyond a demo yet, called "Rhythm Quest". It's a button masher that feels like it blends a Guitar Hero and Mario kind of vibe. The person making the game is also the composer of the chiptune music in it.
They have released the first half of the game's soundtrack on Bandcamp and it's pretty good. Can't wait to buy the full game when it hopefully releases. The developer puts out sneak peak update videos every few weeks.
I have to give a shout-out to the Age of Wonders soundtrack. Since it's for a strategy game, most of it has a very "even" tone that works great for a work or studying soundtrack.
For those who prefer their tunes to be less bit-crunchy, the Age of Wonders 3 OST happens to be mostly a remix / remaster of the original!
since Rome ttw was already mentioned, some of my all time favorite game soundtracks:
[edit and some more] rimworld
Im just gonna say it, i dont care that youre looking for underrated or missing tracks. Im just going to toss out my recommendations of:
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