>Western videogame music. >Barely anything is memorable. >Japanese videogame music

It's actually really simple. Western games have no emotional impact, so it doesn't matter what music they use, you don't remember any of it.

When I hear a track from some JRPG, I remember the boss fight. Or I remember wandering around the overworld map. There are good tracks in western games, but as they aren't linked to anything, you just get slightly catchy beats.

agreed fellow Eastern man. i only play Eastern games from the likes of Poland and Ukraine

Japanese video game music is given a lot of effort because they don't see it as "video game music" but simply music. It's also part of the reason why Japanese animation gets good songs from Japanese bands and Western animation does not.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater.
Crazy Taxi (Soundtrack is American)

I'll agree with you about ORIGINAL music but you can't forget all of the amazing games like Tony Hawk.

Westren game music use to be as good (on the technical side of things, it was even better of utilizing sound hardware), but they lost the plot and started treating video game music the same as music for cinema
Which leads to tracks that work in context to elevate the visuals, but that you're never going to want to listen to outside of the scene it's intended to accompany