A gaming sub free from the hype and oversaturation of current releases, catering to gamers who wait at least 12 months after release to play a game. Whether it's price, waiting for bugs/issues to be patched, DLC to be released, don't meet the system requirements, or just haven't had the time to keep up with the latest releases.
Dear patient lemmings, I am in need of your help. I'm searching for games that have some GOD DAAMN OSTs and come with a great story or/and gameplay.
Games that tick these requirements for me:
Neir Automata has an absolutely banging soundtrack. You need to "finish" the game I think 3 times to see the final ending. Push through the run as 9s it is worth it. The ending has all the feels and the ending song is with it is phenomenal.
To The Moon has a beautiful soundtrack and a story which made me cry. It's not a long game, I highly recommend it.
Syonara Wild Hearts is a video game music album. It's really simple mechanically but the songs are great and it's a proper Zen game.
Journey has a wonderful sound track, just get to like level 3 where your doing the big slide downhill and tell me that's not magical.
Similar to Journey (but not quite as good) is Gris.
Bastion has some excellent songs and is a short experience.
Terraria has a brilliant soundtrack and great gameplay, very little story though. Great in multiplayer so find a friend.
Death Stranding has some great songs, a bit to spread out though. The story is Kojimas usual eclectic madness but I enjoyed it.
How has nobody said Hotline Miami yet?
Hotline Miami
Hotline Miami
Hotline Miami
How in the fuck is Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance not mentioned yet?
A+++ OST, A+ gameplay, and a surprisingly good story for a Platinum game.
Not surprised that it was memed a hella lot not that too long ago. Absolute banger songs.
I'll add more if I think of them. Most of the others I can think of have already been mentioned.
ETA:
Outer Wilds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPa8bPqQfmo
Disco Elysium https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCmKXZZCBgQ
I can also recommend FTL, Risk of Rain and Risk of Rain 2. Really good OSTs, I'm listening to all of them regularly. They've also got great gameplay! But they're rogue-likes so basically no story in case that bothers you.
Risk of Rain 2
Anything Yoko Shimomura touches, e.g. Kingdom Hearts, Street Fighter
Anything by Akira Yamaoka, e.g. Silent Hill, Shadows of the Damned
All the games / series listed here are pretty good
Super Mario Galaxy. Full orchestral music, and the game is cracking too.
Somehow, nobody's mentioned Cyberpunk 2077 yet. Every track in this game goes so incredibly hard. The in-game radio stations are all full of absolute bangers, and even the ambient world music is fantastic and sets the mood for every scene. It's one of the few games whose soundtracks I listen to on its own.
I suspect patient gamers have held off on this one given its relatively high system requirements, need for patches to improve performance, and super recent expansion. I'm sure you're right, but speaking for myself, it's not on my to-play list for at least another year. (Only mentioning it since you seem surprised)
Hopefully not too many repeats from what others said.
Homeworld
Halo 2, 3, and ODST
Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1 and 2
Age of Empires II
Midnight Club II and 3: Dub Edition
Katamari Damacy
The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask
Kingdom Hearts
Doom
Grim Fandango: Remastered
Shadow of the Colossus
Chrono Trigger
Star Fox 64
Outer WILDS - fucking hell, fuck yes.
TUNIC - ohhhhhhhh fuck yes
Night in the Woods - I AM AN ANGSTY TEEN AND FUCK YES
Citizen Sleeper - fuck...... Yes!!
Hollow Knight (Great metroidvania, even better soundtrack), Journey (It’s just good. I struggle to describe it any other way), Project: Wingman (Neat game about blowing things up in planes. Has a fun, dramatic soundtrack.), Cassette Beasts (An open world monster catching rpg like Pokémon. The soundtrack is good, although some people aren’t fans of the lyrics.), Cloudpunk (A cyberpunk open-world exploration game. Really great ost to match the theme. Also, the game has exceptional story, especially the City of Ghosts expansion.)
Edit: Add explanations
Pokemon for the OSTs. Always so good, from the first games to the most recent ones.
The Sims 2.
The nostalgia, oh man. Sims 2 and 3 was something different. Sad to see that Sims 4 became a lackluster game.
There are lots of mods you can get to improve TS4, but you're right, it's missing something fundamental. Even things like genetics are so dumbed-down as to be almost pointless
Gris is not only a beautiful game but it also has an absolutely beautiful soundtrack.
Real glad to see Life is Strange. Still can't listen to obstacles without crying and it's been probably 7 years
I mean, I still think World of Warcraft has one of the most atmospheric sound tracks out there. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lM_RlI5qVXI
I'm back with more.
Cyberpunk Bartender Action Va11-Ha11-A The Binding Of Isaac Antibirth Ridge Racer 2 (PSP)
A couple I don't see listed:
For those who are already LoZ fans, Cadence of Hyrule will get your toes tapping for sure.
I really enjoy the OST for the Hotline Miami games. If it's your thing it goes pretty hard.
Final Fantasy XIV has a diverse soundtrack and a terrific story, but it is a huge time commitment. The story starts off pretty slow and takes a long time to build up.
A few boss fight themes as examples:
I love the soundtrack of The Talos Principle
I see some Final Fantasy mentions, but I'm throwing Final Fantasy Tactics in particular into the ring.
Undertale in case you haven't played it yet... you've played it, right?
zero escape. going in blind is a must. at least 999 had really banger music and nice puzzles and story. 999 also had its story made for the 3DS, so it's best if you play it on a DS emulator. it's also similar to danganronpa at least stylistically, and makoto has a zero escape logo on his hoodie
bloons td maybe. the music might not be that good but they're still bangers
Sea of Stars had some really catchy tunes.
I feel like I'm a little old school in this thread compared to most other replies, but idgaf:
Castlevania: Symphony of the night has the best soundtrack ever, or maybe on par with the first three Silent Hills and its just an awesome game
Also Alundra. Great story, great soundtrack, great everything.
Wait the suggestion of Jet Set Radio made me think
Now those are some classics, time to break out the PS2
This is all going to be "great gameplay" rather than "great story".
If you have a way to play 3DS games and a tolerance for punishment in your JRPG dungeon crawlers, the Etrian Odyssey series has some of Yuzo Koshiro's best work.
When you hit something more serious for the first time, you get this instead.
And, uh, there's this memorable remix of the wandering-boss theme from the first game.
You already have Persona games in your list, but let's add some more Shin Megami Tensei:
Finally ... Monster Hunter is an incredibly fun and addictive game series, and though it doesn't center the music quite as much as a typical JRPG does, it's got some great stuff. I particularly like the soundtrack of MH: World -- although the newer game MH: Rise tried something new with its mostly choral arrangements, I think they are not quite as memorable overall.
Arena battle from Monster Hunter: World (it's particularly impressive the way this theme, the small-monsters arena battle theme, and several of the town themes reuse the same melodies in different arrangements)
The Surviving Mars OST is spectacular, though the gameplay is just good.
Caveats with hollow Knight story: you won't know a lot about the story until you watch mossbag videos after getting to one of the endings.
Caveats with genshin gameplay: only the exploration and some quests are good. All other gameplay should be ignored (or doused with fire). The exploration is actually one of the best open world exploration I've played, and I've played Witcher 3, botw, AC: black flag, arkham series, and more.
Caveats with genshin story (context: currently on version 4.0+):
similar to genshin: Honkai
the music specifically in the animated shorts is so good
Bionic commando remake
All of the doom remakes
Timberborn
For honor
Jet set radio future
Earthbound and Mother 3 could be exactly what you're looking for. There's just nothing quite like them OST, story, and gameplay wise.
Little Nightmares and Little Nightmares 2 also have excellent music that perfectly complement their soul-squeezing visuals and gameplay.
Portal 2 has very little music but it is GOOD, and perfectly timed to key moments in the story. Also top notch unique gameplay, obvs.
Skyrim music is iconic for a reason.
OFF's music is similarly iconic and its story and visuals so unique and engaging you'll likely forgive it for being unapologetically RPG-maker. The latest English translation (3.0) is considered the most faithful to the original French.
FRACT OSC is a "musical exploration game" where you directly influence the soundtrack by interacting with a beautiful, surreal puzzle landscape with Tron-like visuals.
Some quick ones off the top of my head right now:
Golden Sun & GS:TLA
Megaman X
Saints Row the Third
Dynasty Warriors 4
Deus Ex
Castle Crashers
Caves of Qud doesn't have a very big OST but I happened to absolutely love it. The game is similar to Rogue (or more directly Dwarf Fortress adventure mode), as in time only passes when you move and everything is represented by a tile, but it has pretty good controller support as of a recent update.