Hello!

Edit: thanks for the replies! ♥

Graphics typically take centre stage when gaming. It's the first thing most people notice, so I guess I can't blame 'em. Lately I've been curious about the unsung hero of gaming - audio. What games can you think of that have really good sound?

Icewind Dale 1 & 2 - even without the EAX effects, I really like the sound. There is attention to detail when it comes to things like footsteps and background noises. The music is great, too.

Resident Evil 2 (remake) - probably the most detailed audio of any game I've ever played. Being able to hear zomboes before you see them makes it easier to move around them; something you need to do considering how limited your resources are. Not only does the game have good audio, but it is arguably just as important as graphics.

Octopath Traveller and Pokemon Brilliant Diamond - The Switch is a mixed bag when it comes to audio. Some games (usually ports) have compressed sound. The sound in these ports aren't bad necessarily, just a little worse than their original counterparts. Any-hoo...Octopath and Brilliant Diamond are the opposite. The sound is clean, clear, and beautiful. I'm wondering if the audio is running at a higher playback rate, or if they are just making good use 44/16.

Dead Space has marvelous one, especially all these machinery effects in tech rooms, I remember them even today. Of course, horror games are first what comes to mind speaking of sound.

I never thought of the importance of sound in relation to horror games specifically. Thanks for bringing that up.

The Vale: Shadows of the Crown has really good audio.

Then again, the game has to have good audio, as it has basically no graphics, being an audiogame that's designed to be playable by blind people.

(Note that the game, and even the game's trailer, expects the player to be wearing headphones. My understanding is that the game relies on 3D audio positioning to the point where the game might be rather difficult without them.)

Oh, I remembered one more thing regarding horror games: Doom 3 had poor sound on release (almost no echo etc) but John "I hate patents" Carmack and Creative Labs had made some shadows rendering method independently, and Creative patented it. So, Carmack had to deal with them and implement EAX support to the game with 1.3 patch.

This sounds really cool. We need this game on GOG. You made a slight misspelling of the title.
https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/the_vale_shadow_of_the_crown

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I thought Age of Empires II had really good sound when it was new.

This game looks pretty neat, I'll have to try it some time. It's nice to see titles that are accommodating for people with different needs. Hopefully it's a trend that becomes more common.

I'd argue that the game doesn't really "look" like anything.

On the other hand, the game does sound pretty neat.

Tazer is my medieval jam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh39AXVCGQk I apologize for not being more careful with my wording.

HoMM 3 has a good music! ^_^

some games have good music

In terms of Soundtrack, I thought Wrath of the Righteous was pretty good this year.

But if we're talking all games...I like a lot of what Falcom does in Ys and Trails. Square has a lot of good tracks for Final Fantasy. Xenoblade Chronicles 1 & 2 have some very nice soundtracks as well.

Symphony of the Night was good too.

I thikn Doom Eternal is the best, its good mix of gameplay and music, wish there was more games like it. Audio is next level stuff. Blizzard's games tend to have great audio too, we will see at Diablo 4.

Dance of pales is one of my favourite game songs ever.
Cyberpunk 2077 also has an amazing soundtrack. One of my faves from the OST is Circus Minimus, by JVzel. Speaking of Diablo...earlier tonight I booted up Diablo 2 and turned off the music. It's crazy how much I missed because the music drowned it out. For example: shrines have a hum to them when you get near one.

Not necessarily soundtracks; but as for sound design, it's hard not to include the F.E.A.R. game series. Fantasting sound ambiance.