Silent Hill 2

Not a lot of game soundtracks have been submitted so far all thing considered, and this is a well-picked selection. A classic smorgasbord of sounds

Rating: 8/10 Best songs: Theme of Laura, Promise, Magdalene, Love psalm, The reverse will, True

I loved the vibes of Silent Hill 2! No vocals needed on this horror industrial album. Akita Yamaoka created great theme songs and background songs for this video game, and I can appreciate that despite not having played Silent Hill 2, or any of them! When you’re playing a video game, an instrumental is looped in the background of your location. You get more than a 1.5 minute clip of the song, and you can truly become engrossed in the video game and its surroundings. That aspect was an understandable detriment to this soundtrack. For the fully fleshed songs, not the 1.5 minute instrumentals, they slapped. I can understand why this album was submitted as someone’s favorite.

This is the soundtrack album of the video game Silent Hill 2. It belongs to the 2001 release (not the remake from 2024). The problem with soundtracks is that the music is created to support to game (or film), not to stand on its own. For a soundtrack this is a very strong effort and I almost get the urge to go for a replay session of the game. Still the fact it's support material stands out in several tracks. For background music or a soundtrack it's almost too good, but for an individual record as a whole, I have my doubts. Still a 3.5 star rating (so not a solid 4 stars).

Video game soundtrack. Me ha gustado. Un 4.

Thought this would be a slog, but I actually loved the collage-like style of several genres I would’ve never expected for a horror game. I’m of course lacking context given I’ve never played – this OST did make me curious to see how these tracks are used, though, which is probably a first for the user list.

This was good for a game soundtrack, especially considering the era in which it was written. That being said, I think it takes a lot to make an album a "must hear" and that bar is a lot higher for a soundtrack. This album did not make that bar, and while it wasn't bad by any means, there was nothing here to make it special. Everything about this screams a 1 to me, but I'm going to bump it up to a 2 because, while nothing on this album wowed me, there was also nothing on it I disliked.

Cool

This is my second Japanese soundtrack in a row. The other one was interesting whereas this makes me feel like I should be running down some tunnel trying not to get rolled over by a giant peach. 3/5

I haven't played Silent Hill 2 but I know the plot and gameplay pretty well just by being around video games for almost 3 decades. Since it's a video game soundtrack, is falls into the background, as designed and intended. As I said for Katamari Damacy, it's nice someone submitted video game music, but I don't think this is the right soundtrack. Devoid of the context of the game, you don't appreciate the psychological horror. I'm still not sure what video game soundtrack I would include, but there should be some representation of video game music on here. My personal rating: 3/5 My rating relative to the list: 3/5 Should this have been included on the original list? No

Eey theme of Laura 4 3

Great variation in score. From eerie piano-esque tunes to hard rock

Interesting choice… didn’t expect a videogame soundtrack. It’s good music, if a bit long and I think I’d rather experience this while playing the actual game, but not a bad listen.

Good ambient album, probably up there with best video games albums Iv heard though that isn’t a long list.

I'm sure there is a lovely case for video game soundtracks being great albums etc

Pretty cool for soundtrack music. 3 stars.

The music on this soundtrack is diverse and spans a few different genres: typical classical, ambient, rock, industrial, trip hop, and generally dark/distorted soundscapes. Akira Yamaoka does a great job composing in all of these different spaces. I imagine that in context with the video game, it probably lends a significant amount of atmosphere to what I know to be an already atmospheric horror game. Unlike many people on this project, I think a soundtrack certainly counts as an album and is a worthy submission. That said, in the case of a full original soundtrack, I do believe a significant amount of nuance and meaning is probably lost by the fact that I have not played the video game and do not know the story -- most of these songs correspond with a specific scene or vignette within the game itself. I am therefore essentially left to review this album as a piece of classical music alone. While much of this music is beautiful, many of these songs are quick little bits that are definitely meant to support visuals and additional story. If I could, I would give this a 2.5, but it definitely doesn't hit 3 territory for me.

Video game soundtrack?