Best Video Game Music

edited October 2008 in General Chat
Seeing as how we've got threads for Best and Worst games you've played, how about a thread for your favorite video game music? I'll start us off, and in no particular order...

Banjo Kazooie - Rusty Bucket Bay -- Theme for a level in an oily, grungy harbor, complete with giant cargo ship!

Battletoads in Battlemaniacs - Ragnarok Canyon -- The theme of the first level.

Chrono Trigger - Frog's Theme -- The theme of Frog, a knight cursed to assume the form of a humanoid frog. He has not forgotten his honor or duties as a knight, though.

Command & Conquer - Act on Instinct -- The most recognized theme from Tiberian Dawn.

Command & Conquer: Red Alert - Hell March -- The iconic theme from the Red Alert series.

Command & Conquer: Renegade - Command & Conquer -- A great theme for the first real mission.

Dark Chronicle (Dark Cloud 2) - Gundorada Workshop -- The giant facility where the secret weapon to fight Emperor Griffon will be constructed.

Dark Cloud - Gallery of Time -- A trip through time, traveling 400 years into the past to unravel the mysterious past of your 'rival'.

Disgaea: Hour of Darkness - Hystelic Kingdom -- An awesome upbeat military march from an awesome tactical RPG.

Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories - Etna Rock -- The rock theme for Etna, Demon Beauty Queen! (Japanese lyrics, though).

Doom - Hiding the Secrets -- The theme for E1M9 or E1M8, I believe. I forget which level exactly.

Earthworm Jim 2 - Title -- A snappy vocal theme with finger snapping and clapping. Difficult to describe, but just plain awesome.

Final Fantasy 5 - Clash on the Big Bridge -- The battle theme of Gilgamesh, fought on a long bridge that stretches between two continents.

Final Fantasy 6 - Dancing Mad -- The final battle themes. Four separate tiers, one awesome piece.

Goldeneye - Dam -- The music of the very first level.

Homeworld - Agnus Dei -- A sad choral piece, played during the third mission,
where you return to your race's planet to find the surface is burning, and there are no survivors left on the planet.

Homeworld 2 - Battle 2 -- One of the many battle themes from Homeworld 2.

Jazz Jackrabbit 2 - Laboratory -- It's just plain cool.

Jet Force Gemini - Sekhmet -- One can really get a sense of the majesty of the mighty warship Sekhmet from this track.

Ogre Battle - Revolt (Thunder) -- An upbeat military march, played on many of the early missions.

Seiken Densetsu 3 - High-Tension Wire -- A fast-paced boss battle theme.

Space Station Silicon Valley - Battery Farm -- The theme for level 4.

Soul Blazer - Southera -- Pirate island music!

Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together - Avilla Henya -- Played during a mission in the middle of the night, where you must defend a village from being razed.

Terranigma - Dark Side Field -- Played when the player is navigating the frozen wastelands of Dark Side (a world within Earth).

Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri - NewHope -- Track played during missions on the planet NewHope.

Tetris - Music A -- The classic game's classic music!

Zool - Candy Land -- An unexpectedly awesome rock piece for a very strange game.

That's all for now... I've already listed far too much. What about the rest of you?
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Comments

  • edited August 2008
    The music in Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga when you are fighting the burglar guy (does anyone remember his name?).
    Yes, I do have a strange taste for music.
  • edited August 2008
    Super Mario rpg forest maze theme.
  • edited August 2008
    The Silent Hill series, hands down. Examples:
    Room of Angel Absolutely chilling song, and one that gets a LOT of play from me.
    Killing Time Just awesomely catchy guitar work.
  • edited August 2008
    You mentioned some of them, but everything from the original Command & Conquer. I haven't played the game in ages, yet can clearly remember several songs. "Mechanical Man", "Fight, Win, Prevail", "Act on Instinct", "Just do it up", "Thang"
  • edited August 2008
    MaxFan wrote: »
    You mentioned some of them, but everything from the original Command & Conquer. I haven't played the game in ages, yet can clearly remember several songs. "Mechanical Man", "Fight, Win, Prevail", "Act on Instinct", "Just do it up", "Thang"

    Aye, they were all great, but I tried to restrict myself to picking one song per game I listed. Otherwise the post would've been at least three or four times as long, and I was already pushing it to begin with!
  • edited August 2008
    The music in Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga when you are fighting the burglar guy (does anyone remember his name?).
    I think it was Popple.
    Anyway, best music in a game has to go to The World Ends With You. It's generally pretty removed from what I listen to, but I love it anyway.
  • edited August 2008
    Conquests of Camelot and Space Quest III by Sierra

    Loom and Monkey Island by Lucasfilm

    oh there are so many.
  • edited August 2008
    Ooo, another one I forgot to mention is LucasArts' Star Wars TIE Fighter for DOS. The game had a dynamic MIDI soundtrack, using the iMUSE engine. Music samples used in battle ranged between 2 and 10 seconds long, and were pieced together to make a fluid soundtrack that reflected the state of the mission. If nothing was happening, say during a routine patrol, the music would be slow and somewhat ethereal. But when a rebel cruiser jumped in, the Rebel's leitmotif would play and the soundtrack would swing into a more battle-oriented theme. You need to see it to understand how awesome it is.
  • langleylangley Telltale Alumni
    edited August 2008
    Monkey Island 2. That game has wall-to-wall great music.
  • edited August 2008
    As standalone tracks...
    Gunstar Heroes - Rescue Yellow!
    Resident Evil 2 - Escape From The Underground Lab

    For overall soundtracks, these are what I pick...
    Shadow of the Colossus (Favorite: Revived Power.)
    Psychonauts (Favorite: Meat Circus.)
    Grim Fandango (Too many favorites... I'm such a sucker for Jazz... Top favorites has to be Mr Frustration Man, Smooth Hector, and Hi-Tone Fandango.)
    Final Fantasy Tactics [the original Playstation version] (Favorite: Antidote.)

    I want to say Final Fantasy 7, but that soundtrack is overused in such lists.
  • edited August 2008
    I've had the theme from the Metropolis level of the original Ratchet and Clank stuck in my head all of today: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=aHk2G_xY_5Q

    Oh god I love Ratchet and Clank 1 so much <3 <3 <3
  • edited August 2008
    I have to agree with Frog's Theme. Of course, Chrono Trigger hadsgreat music all around.

    Altogether, I think Grim Fandango has the best soundtrack. I think Casino Calavera is my favorite there.
  • edited August 2008
    I loved the music in Master of Orion II. And why hasn't anyone mentioned our hosts yet? Jared's stuff just keeps getting better and better.
  • edited August 2008
    The Metroid prime theme.I also liked the music for the first level in the original Metroid.
  • edited August 2008
    Oh yeah, I guess Mario Galaxy had some good music. Bowser's Galaxy Reactor and Gusty Garden Galaxy being my highlights.


    Cave Story was totally kicking crazy rad in terms of its soundtrack too.
  • edited August 2008
    Harald B wrote: »
    And why hasn't anyone mentioned our hosts yet? Jared's stuff just keeps getting better and better.

    This is true. Though my favorite Sam and Max song is still the Ted E. Bear song.

    ...hmm. Or the mariachis. Now I'm torn.
  • edited August 2008
    Im not sure but I heard Super Smash Bros. Brawl music is cool.
  • edited August 2008
    Banjo-Kazooie and Tooie did have great background music, that just stylistically screams "Banjo-Kazooie". I like that distinctness, and it's very light and fun. My favorite track for Kazooie, though, would have to be the music for Freezeezy Peak. The best music in the series, though, goes to Jolly Roger's Lagoon, hands-down.

    The early Sonic games had some of the best beepity-boopity music ever, in my opinion. I mean, who doesn't think Green Hill Zone had awesome music?

    Final Fantasy has some incredible music. Too bad I don't enjoy any other aspects of that particular series.

    [
    Im not sure but I heard Super Smash Bros. Brawl music is cool.

    Isn't that 90% recycled(or at least remixed) from the music of other Nintendo games?

    I'm problably forgetting a few good ones.
  • edited August 2008
    Isn't that 90% recycled(or at least remixed) from the music of other Nintendo games?

    I really liked the theme song for Brawl.Since my school orchestra played the Halo theme last year, I don't see why this couldn't be redone well.
  • edited August 2008
    Isn't that 90% recycled(or at least remixed) from the music of other Nintendo games?

    You underestimate the effect of an orchestra on music. I'm not much for 'classical' instruments (I associate them with this really annoying, terrible grating sound that they all seem to have), but there's much more life to a song performed by a group of trained musicians than that same song done in chiptune form.
  • edited August 2008
    TrogLlama wrote: »
    there's much more life to a song performed by a group of trained musicians than that same song done in chiptune form.

    I think I prefer chiptunes a lot of the time. They sound to have more depth to and charm that I don't get from orchestrated soundtracks.

    I think it's down to a matter of taste though.
  • edited August 2008
    I really liked the [recycled] chiptunes in the old Unforgotten realms series.I didn't like it when they screwed it up by putting in regular music, but other than that I really like real instruments better.By the way, I have a link to the 2nd episode of the original Unforgotten realms in my signature, but you should be able to find the rest of the episodes on youtube.

    EDIT: Not anymore!!!
  • edited August 2008
    I find there's a certain charm that you can only get from chiptunes that is difficult or impossible to imitate with orchestrations. Perhaps it's my rampant nostalgia for years gone by, when all we had in video games was chiptunes, Adlib FM synthesizers, and ancient general MIDI.
  • edited August 2008
    -Chrono Trigger: Zeal Theme
    -Chrono Trigger: Chrono's Theme

    -Halo: Truth and Reconciliation Suite

    -Final Fantasy IV: Battle Theme
    -Final Fantasy VI: The Decisive Battle

    -Mega Man 2: Dr. Wily's Castle: Stages 1 & 2

    -Bomberman: Boss Music

    -Breath Of Fire III: This Old House

    The entire soundtrack from Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

    -Sonic the Hedgehog: Green Hill Zone
    -Sonic the Hedgehog: Spring Yard Zone
    -Sonic the Hedgehog: Special Stage

    -Super Metroid: Brinstar

    -Super Mario Kart: Rainbow Road

    The entire Super Mario Bros. soundtrack

    The Castlevania Soundtrack

    That's all I can think of now.
  • edited August 2008
    i love the soundtrack of splinter cell chaos theory, sniper time from unreal tournament
  • edited August 2008
    1. "Sanctuary" from Kingdom Hearts 2; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0uEXqUfLPY

    2. Super Smash Bros. Brawl- intro theme; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whuZunX8bQo&feature=related

    3. "The Sea Theme" from LOZ: Wind Waker; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGal2fBQ3EM&feature=related
  • edited August 2008
    The Curse of Monkey Island was fantastic. Especially "A Pirate I Was Meant To Be" song.

    "And... erm... door hinge...?"
  • edited September 2008
    lately i've been really digging tetris music B (or is it C?). whichever the "alternate" one is that appears in Brawl.

    i also really love earthbound music. lately the onett theme has been getting stuck in my head all the time, and of course "polyanna", which is a really really catchy tune. of course the music for that game was composed by the legendary hip tanaka (metroid, super mario land) so of course it'll be awesome.

    and for that matter, i pretty much love the music for any game as long as it's made by hip tanaka, koji kondo, or kazumi "kk slider" totaka.
  • edited September 2008
    RobD wrote: »
    The Curse of Monkey Island was fantastic. Especially "A Pirate I Was Meant To Be" song.

    "And... erm... door hinge...?"

    We'll surely avoid scurvy if we all eat an orange...
  • edited October 2008
    Big Brain Academy. Meh meh MEH, meh meh MEH, meh MEH meh MEEEH...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FL4wulKSlo&feature=related
    Oh wait, no, actually, Wii Sports.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZb9OcoHNRI&feature=related Do, do, do, do do do do do do do do do...
    Ah, how could I forget? "More than Jerks", from Sam & Max! It's better in 205, no idea why. http://files.telltalegames.com/samandmax/music/morethanjerks.mp3
  • edited October 2008
    portal "still alive"
  • edited October 2008
    I've had the Garden music from LittleBigPlanet in my head for the past two weeks (can't find any clips of the music online unfortunately) and I'm still not sick of it yet, so I suppose it's a good contender for best video game music.

    Don't know what I'm going to do once the beta ends, and I can't get my fix of the music for another fortnight.


    To Zanarkand (FFX) is awesome too. Especially the version someone made in LittleBigPlanet.
    (I guess I talk about LittleBigPlanet too much?)


    Another (non LittleBigPlanet related) favourite is the Village of Inoa music from Alundra.
  • edited October 2008
    Every song in Braid.

    Each and every one.
  • edited October 2008
    C. O. P. S. Motivational Song, Sam & Max.
  • edited October 2008
    You all fail. The best music in any game period are the tracks from the Jet Set Radio games.
  • edited October 2008
    natlinxz wrote: »
    portal "still alive"

    Ah!I should have put that one in!



    Aperture science........we do what we want *trails off*
  • edited October 2008
    Most of the stuff on Super Smash Bros. Brawl is awexome. I specifically like Kirby Super Star - Gourmet Race.
  • edited October 2008
    ...Sonic Boom, Sonic CD, and Eternity, Blue Dragon.
  • edited October 2008
    pokemon crystal music is good. the other games are probably the same, but i've only played crystal
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