Tonberry

9/10 - Fantastic, and really sells the feeling for the region super well! Here's the theme to one of my favourite games of all time, Mafia 2. Suspenseful and emotional stuff.

I think in most open-world games nowadays, you're able to remove the trackers to an extent. But as far as where it's not displayed at all, or to a very limited degree here are a few off the top of my head. Zelda - Breath of the Wild. There are small pips on the map for certain quests, but they're very limited. Elder Scrolls 3 - Morrowind. You have to read the questlog and decipher the directions to a place as instructed by the questgivers. Quite immersive, actually. Sea of Thieves. You have to either decipher maps of islands or read clues on notes, or simply know the geography to know where you need to go. Assassin's Creed Odyssey/Valhalla. You still see points of interests on the map, but there's a setting where, when on a quest, you'll get simple hints instead of being shown exactly where to go. I quite like this system. Instead of stuff like showing you a trail to a house by a waterfall the questlog might say something like "They can be found in a cottage by a waterfall to the northeast of Jorvik".

This is nice. I kind of thought it would release even later as it wasn't that long since it was officially unvelied. Hope it turns out good and not rushed!

6/10 - I'm not a huge fan of those blaring foghorns, but it does indeed invoke an epic feeling. I always liked the theme to the first game the most, personally! I haven't even played this game but I heard the theme at a concert and fell in love, but I won't cheat so I'll post the original version. (If you like it I strongly recommend looking up the version made by the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra from the video game music concert "Score")

7/10 - I really love those heavy strings thoghout the song. Gives me Rohan and Witcher vibes. The chanting is also really powerful and fits the setting of the game very well. The game was also a huge disappointment for me, as a huge Ring-head it just fell completely flat. (So happy this thread is gaining some momentum! Really nice to see everyone's submissions and thoughts so far!) PS: Regarding your thoughs on the Pokémon song you rated, it might be nice to know that in-game, the song is actually dynamic and changes based on what happens in the battle, I definitely don't recall it sounding as rigid as that version! :) My next submission is this mastapiece from Mario Kart 8

Something to do with connection if I remember correctly. I misremembered the date btw, it must've been early 2010, because the game was on its way out, and the servers were never quite stable. I remember me and my friend mostly said F it and carried on playing something else haha, we had had just bought it for fun for like 8 bucks anyway :)

Mafia 2, despite having a TON of cut content, is legitimately one of the best games I've ever played.

Final Fantasy 11 on Xbox 360 took ~12 hours to download, install, and update in 2008. Then it crashed at like 90%...

I think it's at worst a convenience, and natural at best. Which isn't a bad worst at all, as I believe that it should be the standard, or at least close to. If the PS5 hadn't been able to play PS4 games it would have had like three games as of writing this which would've been inexcusable. Although I can understand some companies being sticklers if the reason is that it's too difficult to reliably have backwards compatibility constantly, be it through hardware or emulation, but seeing Jim Ryan's braindead statement about Gran Turismo or whatever made me realise that we need back-compat, as many executives just view games as products of their time never worthy of any sort of archival or functionality simply on the, frankly completely out of touch, statement that "who would want to play an old game when there is a new one?". In short, I'd consider backwards compatibility is objectively a good thing, both for the health of the medium, and as a kind of show of respect to the industry as a whole.

7/10 - Valhalla has some really nice tunes. My personal favorite is the one that plays in Ravensthorpe. Here's a song from Chrono Cross that always makes me happy:

10/10. Totally iconic, and really let you know that Halo was serious business when it released. It felt like a real "mature" and epic sci-fi game compared to most of its time where you just blasted mindlessly. As for your comment, isn't that part of the fun in threads like these? Where we can find completely new things to listen to and thus rate? :D Here's my next submission:

Seconding Read Dead Redemption 2. It may be pretty rough around the edges, but you really get to learn to feel like a family in that game, so that when you come home to your encampment, it really does feel like you have been away for a long time, what with all the people in your gang wondering where you've been and how you can interact with stuff.

8/10 This one is amazing just because of how whacky it is! It's not my style of music but it's so fucking funny Made me think of Guilty Gear, so here's my next submission:

This is a fun activity that used to be really popular on an old gaming forum I used to frequent, and I think it'd be fun here on VGR as well. Who knows, you might find both forgotten classics and new favorites! The rules are simple. All you have to do is rate the video game music from the post above yours in a reply, while you link a song of your choice for the next person to rate! And so on and so forth! I'm thinking a 1-10 grade score is the one people are the most familiar with, and you may of course add a little comment or insight as to why you chose that particular grade, but you may rate however you wish! One reply/link per post as to avoid clutter I think would be best. I'll kick it off with what I consider a real classic: Have fun!

To me it all depends on a few things, but at it's core it's super vague and subjective. My answer, speaking as an artist, and a developer, and a consumer all at once, is both yes and no. All games fit into being a form of expression, but that doesn't mean that every game tries to achieve the same results on an artistic scale, much like movies. Take two popular movie franchises that are also popular amongst people who play a lot of games, or nerds. Lord of the Rings, and the Marvel films. The Lord of the Rings films are the biggest budget indie films in the world. They were completely handcrafted with clear intent in every area. It was made locally in NZ, and the production set out to make the film they wanted to make, and succeed. If you watch the behind-the-scenes stuff you can clearly see each and every person on the production team putting so much energy and passion into telling this story. The intent of the creators is palpable throughout the entire experience, which is an important thing when it comes to defining art, at least for me. Compare this to the Marvel films which, enjoyable in their own right, fall into the category of being entertainment first-hand, and not really anything more than that. There's nothing wrong with this, of course, but the point still stands, in that the intent of the makers of these film series vary greatly. Compare these two examples to two vastly different games, but still games. Ico, and Fifa. Ico is an entirely handcrafted experience made from a clear idea, and it shows constantly throughout the game. Whereas Fifa isn't much more than entertainment, as that's what it's supposed to be. The intent of the creators there isn't to evoke emotions other than just entertainment. Within this debate there is often a misconception that art has some kind of required prerequisite. It either has to be auditory, visual, or a bunch of other arbitrary labels which I feel make the entire discussion kind of poinless because at the end of the day, it's subjective and everyone's viewpoint on it is completely different. I disagree with the notion that in order for something to be art it has to lack a function, which is false when taking into account that literature, music, film or paintings absolutely have a function. They evoke emotion and reaction from the person absorbing them, which may change that person's outlook on things, transforming them as a human being. There are just as many games being nothing but toys, as there are movies being nothing more than something to make the end of the fiscal year report look better, or drawings that are just pointless scribbles. To me, it's about the intent of the creator, and the recipients willingness to absorb that. TLDR; it really just depends on what you think at the end of the day. I believe some games classify as art, but not all of them. It's a form of expression that can have alot of artistic value in it, and at the same time not. It's all totally relative to both product and individual. Footnote: There's also an argument to be made for digital interactability being its totally own artform, as video games really are completely unique when it comes to the way you're absorbing/consuming it. Edit: I think your reasonming is very interesting @Shagger. It's definitely the most eloquent way of reasoning against it being an artform. I will have to think about that in the future. I've been thinking along the same tracks but instead ended up at my "It's too vague to define" standpoint.

Kirby's Adventure/Nightmare in Dreamland for sure! Though I haven't played the one on Wii or the ones on 3DS, and only a little of the Switch games. I'm also a big fan of Canvas' Curse (or Power Paintbrush as it was called in Europe) but haven't played it in ages.

Trick or treat! or "Bus eller godis!" as it's said in Swedish

Been playing more World of Warcraft Classic. I spent the day powering through boring-ass Dragonblight to reach level 73 so I finally could travel to Grizzly Hills and take in some of that sweet sweet music and mountain air.

It's really really go- Well, there you have it!

I always wanted to try the GoT game since I got into the series really late (like last year), but hear it's kind of lost media now?

What are your favourite licensed games, and with that I mean games that are based on, or tie-ins of, existing properties. I grew up in the early 2000s, where it seemed like every other game you got was a licensed game, and the quality could range from pretty bad to kind of great. What are your opinions on them? Any favourites? Some of my favourites include: The first two Harry Potter games (Mainly the adventure games on PS2, but the GBC versions were neat little JRPGs which was cool) Simpsons: Hit & Run Naruto: Rise of a Ninja (I didn't even like Naruto that much but it was so fun running around the world) King Kong (which actually felt like a real big-budget game for its time) LotR: The Two Towers The Hobbit (The PS2 adventure game was sooo good) Aladdin for the SNES These kinds of games kinda died out once development costs became so high, and all it took was often just a mobile game tie-in if anything, but I bet lots of people have fond memories of games of this caliber. It felt like the experience from going to the cinema as a kid got a whole new dimension since you could play the stuff you watched in a way.

I watch series/movies on my TV. I hate the cramped feeling of sitting by the computer just to watch stuff, it always feels like I have to be in "battlestation"-mode and for the same reason I almost exclusively play PC games when they're only available there, like MMOs for instance. I much prefer relaxing in the couch watching something on a large screen, or playing with a controller.

In the first game, when you get to the Yellow Devil boss fight, you can use Elecman's ability, and then mash select to pause and unpause the game which makes the move hit a million times, making a super tough fight real easy. In Megaman 2, almost every boss is weak against Metalman's ability, so get him first if you want to have an easier time. In Megaman X, do Chill Penguin's stage first to obtain the dash boots as early as you can, it'll make the entire game tons more fun. EDIT: Oh! The biggest tip I can give to anyone trying out Megaman games for the first time is, enjoy yourself. They can be pretty tough, but they're also really tightly designed for the mostpart, so if you pay attention to the layouts of the levels you can usually come out on top once you learn patterns and whatnot. And there's no need to play them in release order if you don't want. Play the ones you think look the coolest and see what sticks. Man, I wish I could play Megaman for the first time again.

I do recall hiding money or something like that in one of those little slots underneath the Gamecube if I remember correctly. And I've also heard stories of people using the LAN/addon-compartment on the back of the PS2 as their weed stash, and no one ever who actually used it for what it was supposed to do.

Seconding this! I'm also rather fond of Sonic Mania and Sonic 3. And I played through Sonic '06 and had a blast because I played it with a good pal, but it's not a good game at all even though I had fun, haha.