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This is just a completely random, off the cuff post, to ask – what is your favourite video game soundtrack of all time? Let us know in the comments below, and feel free to add YouTube links so we can all listen! I’ll list a few of my personal favourites, then I’ll leave it to you guys to go nuts!
Secret of Mana
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons Of Liberty
Chrono Trigger
Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening
Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge
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Agreed, although all Final Fantasy’s on the original PlayStation all had great soundtracks. VII just blew them all away.
I mean the Turk’s theme has got to be the coolest tune in a video game, ever!
Highwind theme FTW, as well as the Golden Saucer Chocobo Theme… damn it they are all awesome.
Yeah, FF7 would be no. 1 on my list too. To this day, I still have the fight music as a ringtone on my iPhone (albeit, the Advent Children piano version).
FF8 would be a close second… Liberi Fatali an FITHOS LUSEC WECOS VINOSEC are both great numbers.
FFX also had a few moving tunes… the hymn of the fayth amd the Music that plays when your on Mt. Gagazet.
But FF7 is No 1 for sure
Pokemon red: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNJJ-QkZ8cM
titanic adventures out of time: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jpWoAEbB6M
medal of honor: frontlines : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLiRgNFvfGw
Red Dead Redemption. Every time you engage an enemy the perfect music will fade up and solidify the intensity. PLUS who can ever forget the greatest gaming moment (possibly ever)** Spoiler That moment when you cross over into Mexico. Beautiful.
Red Dead Redemption gets my vote. Such brilliant music that really heightens the emotions in the game.
I love the Monkey Island music as well. I wish they would put a hint of it in the next Pirates of the Caribbean movie. They basically take place in the same universe anyway…
Vampire: The Masquerade – Redemption or the original Unreal Tournament has my money.
*facepalm*
Diablo, as well. The Diablo soundtrack was absolutely phenomenal.
Uncharted and Uncharted 2 had some amazing music.
I’m also a little partial to some of Inon Zur’s Dragon Age: Origins stuff.
Chono Cross had a great OST.
Oh, and Silent Hill!
I’m probably forgetting loads here but that’ll do for now.
lol you should have uploaded Thanatos’s Lich theme from SoM.
My top 3:
1. FF8
2. Legend of Dragoon
3. Terranigma
It’s kind of cheating, but I think Super Smash Bros Brawl should get a mention.
Not only does it take a ridiculous amount of classic Nintendo themes, it also has many variations on those songs. Quite awesome.
Still prefer RDR because the music compliments the game, but for sheer quantity Brawl is hard to top.
Yes! The live orchestral soundtrack for Melee is the only game music I keep permanently on my iPod. So good!
Pretty much any of the Metal Gear Solid games.
I’ll also give a mention to Heavy Rain. By coincidence I watched David Fincher’s movie Seven on Friday night after picking it up cheap on BluRay last week. Then on Saturday I was playing Heavy Rain (offline gaming FTW! :P) and Heavy Rain is so close to Seven in terms of both look and also the soundtrack that it could almost be part of the same movie, or at least set in the same universe (except a more dodgily-acted part of said universe).
Agree about Monkey Island. Would also like to add the obvious Nintendo choices of Ocarina of Time and Metroid Prime. Both are fantastically atmospheric while also being catchy in parts (especially the OoT tunes you play yourself).
Too tricky to find decent links at work – somebody else is welcome to add them if they agree with me though!
Definitely go with American McGee’s Alice.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxfDF_j79qw
All created by an ex-Nine Inch Nail. Hoping he’s doing the music for the new one.
for single track, the tristram theme from Diablo is amazing!
Jet Set Radio Future for the original Xbox had an amazing Japanese themed dance music album!
I’m thinking Halo 3: ODST but then there are several old SNES games that had brilliant music, I just can’t remember them. Myst was pretty awesome music too.
RDR because everything fits so well with what you’re doing. Scott Pilgrim because it felt perfect with the whole series. Donkey Kong Country because I still hum most of the songs from it at random times and of course Super Mario Bros because I love everything about that game!
Final Fantasy VII takes the cake, but that’s boring. I could go on about how Uematsu is an incredible composer, and how his own band the Black Mages does his stuff even better, or how they managed to transcend their MIDI-like limitations to create music which remains engaging to this day, even against orchestrated opposition, but really, everyone knows all of this already.
So, tied for second place in my heart are:
#2 – Halo, Combat Evolved, and #2 – Starcraft.
Both of these games had amazing themes. I can still hear Starcraft’s music echoing through my head, and Halo’s main theme is just an amazing triumph of modern videogame scoring which proves that not all is lost.
Sadly, no YouTube links from work 🙁
Chrono trigger was SOOOOO damn good
My favorite of all time goes to the severely underplayed warhammer 40,000: chaos gate…. man that music is SO damn EPIC!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnsuVZ86aGU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVteYGIHuEQ&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=zjrfAfbt72Y#t=206s
SO – DAM – DOOG!!!
Also, rock n roll racing on SNES 😛
Metal gear solid 2
Deus ex ( how no one has mentioned this yet is beyond me)
And perfect dark
That brings back a few nightmares from my past..
“midz warp pls”
“u lvl 555”
“Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. Give us today our daily bread and forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us…”
Dear god yes.
This game almost destroyed my life. I developed an unhealthy addiction to it, neglecting my friends, family, and I lost weight playing it. lol.
We should market MMOs as the next big weight loss thing. When I played, I weighed 55kg. Now I weight ~70kg. Clearly the lack of weight was due to the MMOs >.>
Definitely not because of my crazy metabolism and the fact that I just don’t eat the much.
3 pages and no ‘So you were called corporal eats-a-little back then right’ joke?
Kotaku, I am disappoint.
but I DO eat a lot!! really!!!
Yeah I’ll go this too. Absolutely brilliant. Probably the best part of the game 😀
Other than that, I loved FF9 and Link’s Awakening as well!
There’s a couple of recent ones I’ve loved.
Weirdly, despite the fact it’s not one of the Orchestra ones, this is my favourite music from Mario Galaxy 2.
I love the music in Donkey Kong Country.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPTm-8YqJfw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEjZgTmVCg4&feature=related
Gotta be Bioshock for me – it completely captured the mood of the game, and is very enjoyable to listen to on its own also.
But most of the suggestions here are pretty awesome too (Red Dead, Starcraft, Monkey Island…)
Total Annihilation.
It has an epic orchestral soundtrack, which helps to emphasis the large scale battles within the game.
It’s very new, but my personal favorite soundtrack is EASILY Portal 2. Each of the most amazing scenes had fantastic music. My favorite piece would probably be ‘In Charge of Everything’
Followed by the beautiful, sweeping soundtrack of World of Warcraft. That original open theme will forever remain one of my favorite gaming pieces.
Third place? Hmmmmm… probably Super Mario World’s theme. My god. There’s really no suitable description of it.
Finally, the original Halo theme. Yup. Iconic, beautiful and brilliant.
Modern game OST’s – I loved the S.V.E.R. soundtrack by Apocalyptica – bought it off iTunes. I also have the Armored Core 4 Answer soundtrack on CD – also very cool.
Old school – call me strange, but the old MIDI soundtrack for Doom conjures up some serious memories – there was even a version of Mouth for War by Pantera in episode 3. Epic. The Wipeout games had awesome tracks, most notably Wip3out.
I also was a huge fan of the Starfox Adventure game (honestly underated) and this was one of my favourite tracks from that gem:
I can’t single out a specific soundtrack myself. Chrono Trigger would be right up there, Along with Metal Gear Solid 3.
My Favorite tune? “Crossing Those Hills” from Final Fantasy 9. Best world map music ever.
That MGS2 opening music is one of my favourite pieces of music ever.
Other game soundtracks I love are FFVIII and Lost Odyssey. The final boss music of LO made me buy the sountrack immediately upon finishing the game.
I know this probably won’t be seen, but:
The World Ends with You: Twister-Remix
Super Mario Galaxy 2: Bowser’s Galaxy Generator
Crash Bandicoot N-Tranced: Warp Room
I’m so, so, so excited for the Mass Effect 3 sound track, Clint Mansell has scored two of my favorite films/film soundtracks in The Fountain, and Requiem for a Dream so I’ll be incredibly disappointed if ME3’s music doesn’t blow my mind.
My number one favourite video game soundtrack of all time is Final Fantasy VI. In particular, Opening Theme/Terra’s Theme still gives me chills whenever I hear it, and of course Dancing Mad.
A very, very close second is Chrono Trigger. I would probably even say that I can’t split the two of them.
Some other favourites include Ocarina of Time and Sonic the Hedgehog 3.
My all time favourites, in no specific order:
Chrono Trigger
Final Fantasy 7 (6 and 8 had some excellent tracks too)
Zelda: ALttP and Link’s Awakening
Diablo 1
Terranigma
Quake 2
It’s hard to pin one down. The Dig comes to mind. So do Halo, Monkey Island, and Metal Gear Solid 2.
Scarface, Now I know its pretty much the same OST from the movie but when you jump in your Delorean-ripoff car and it starts with “PUSH IT TO THE LIMIT!”
awesome
I know it’s already been said.
But Final Fantasy VIII…
Also Final Fantasy X
and the Metal Gear Series
I have the Midis’ of doom 2 converted to MP3 playing in the car at the moment, the opening level of budum ba dum ba dum ba da dum dum is just so fantastic to come back to over and over again.
the whole set is moody and just so well done.
I’m going to throw in some ones that I love that don’t often get a mention – specifically the persona series, nier and the wild arms series.
Thank-you! I knew I’d played a game recently with an awesome soundtrack but shamefully couldn’t remember it: Nier!
What’s the game like? I’ve heard mixed things about it. I haven’t played it yet, just found the music on YouTube and fell in love.
I fell in love with the game as well as the music. there’s a few tedious things(like the fishing!)but if you stick with it it’s well worth it. One of the few games that make it worthwhile to do Newgame+ as well.
All of the Kingdom Hearts series had such beautiful music, even thinking about the scenes on some of those tracks make me cry still.
Yeah I’m such a softie 😛
Sonic the Hedgehog 2.
And anything Zelda.
And Chrono Trigger.
And the Halo music (I have the Halo 3 double cd at home…).
I really love the classic Sonic games themes, particularly Sonic 2 and Sonic & Knuckles
I’ll second all Squenix (Chronotrigger/Terranigma/Final Fantasy/etc.) and Nintendo (Kirby/Mario/Zelda/etc.) soundtracks, as well as a lot of Sega and Capcom titles (big fan of Megaman and Bionic Commando).
Couple of big favourites though would be Kameo, Katamari, LBA/Twinsen and Settlers IV, as well as specific tracks from titles like Humans, Tyrian, Hostile Waters, Halo, Rise of Nations, Dungeon Siege and Fuzzy’s World of Miniature Space Golf.
In no order:
World of Warcraft
Dragon Age
Mass Effect
Kingdom Hearts
Battlefield 1942 – I love this live track: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ti8O5RbsQxg
Some of the OCRemix tracks are quite good too.
Mechwarrior 2.
I still listen to it nowdays.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJ0LAs9KiXc&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RB0oxICsbOI&feature=related
Deus Ex.
I don’t remember anything other than the opening theme at the Main menu, the rest of the soundtrack could be “Friday” and I’d still call it the best ever.
Actually I just remembered Red Alert 2’s incredible soundtrack. Let’s call it a tie then.
You have linked the wrong Metal Gear youtube video. Where’s the Aussie pride?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfKA4b5SFq4
—
Blah blah blah FF, etc. It’s so easy to point out some great soundtracks back in the oldddd days.
Try limiting it to 2008+, see how that list goes. 🙁
Chrono Trigger had so many amazing songs that worked well within their setting. The Enhasa song in 12,000 BC was my favourite.
Also in Final Fantasy V was a song called Lenna’s Theme. The Super Nintendo had some good audio for a console of it’s time.
More recently we had Ocarina of Time & Final Fantasy VII & VIII.
None of the PS3 or 360 games I’ve got have soundtracks that I think are particularly memorable to be honest. FFXIII was quite forgetable, although the battle theme gets stuck in your head, it isn’t that pleasant.
This thread gives me so much nostalgia.
Since there’s already plenty of SNES era music on here, I thought I’d go find some of that Quake 2 soundtrack I mentioned earlier.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_Zi7s4vcZg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGwZgjOHNeo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBG7sWvlKY8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHldGIjMhVs
rrrrRRRROCK!!!
Some good ones already listed.
Most memorable ones for me would be the original MGS, all of the PSOne Final Fantasy games, and the Baldurs Gate 2 title music.
The Samurai Champloo ps2 game did some decent Nujabes feeling stuff.
I whistle the Mario 2 Overworld theme when I’m not paying attention to anything.
Valkyria Chronicles’ soundtrack is very pretty indeed.
But my favourite of all time goes to FFX. Particularly the piano collection.
Along with some already mentioned, I get nostalgic about old games so I’d have to add Speedball 2 and Flashback (thenfollow up to Another World) from the Amiga days. Flashback in particular had some of the cleanest, most distinctive audio of any game I’ve ever played. I suspect you could play me any single sound effect from that and I’d identify it immediately.
Hmm Mark, there’s an alternative for Remember This? … Identify an audio grab.
That would be awesome. If nothing else it would get some less well known music out so everyone knows about it.
Oh, and some Terranigma love. 🙂
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3mqIDAVObA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueNUYuQZdF4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vqLjeeHxZM
This thread really made my day.
I could list so many soundtracks. F Zero, Zelda, Total War series, Chrono Trigger, Morrowind, Bionic Commando Rearmed the list keeps going on 🙂
of Course the next Elder Scrolls!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjqsYzBrP-M
One particular Indie game that has an awesome soundtrack is Star Ruler. http://artembank.bandcamp.com/album/star-ruler
Most defiantly the all the Metroid series!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZJxKl5hZPg
Myth: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rwh51o_XWMI&feature=related
For me there is no competition:
Lufia II – Rise of the Sinistrals.
It was ahead of its time.
No mention of Lumines? The music was outstanding, and the game itself was addictive as crack.
I can’t believe nobody has mentioned Brütal Legend. I’m not even much into heavy metal, and I was completely blown away by the soundtrack to the game.
Vagrant Story without question
Other mentions include
Drakengard (Drag On Dragoon)
Final Fantasy IV
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3
Silent Hill 2
Suikoden II
….and dare I say it….
DJ Hero
Command and Conquer Red Alert
There are many games with great sweeping orchestra pieces but few games have great metal and electronic music as the Command and Conquer series. Red Alert had some of the best of these. My favourite ever piece of music is amongst them “Crush”
I believe this is it, I can’t listen to it right now as I’m at work
Shenmue – the music itself feels like Yokasuka and there are many themes for each area and every single building you go into. Ambience at its finest. http://youtu.be/UiqJzCp1vSQ
Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind – an amazing theme and beautiful ambience that changes depending on if you are exploring or battling etc. http://youtu.be/Rhaq4JP_t6o
Wipeout 2097 – the greatest futuristic music in any one game. http://youtu.be/tlq-zVi4j9Q
Never played killer7 but this is one of my favorite tracks from the game :3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYnhxc5XAfw
White Sugar
Sonic 3 & Knuckles: Lava Reef Zone is an amazing tune.
Lava Reef Zone http://youtu.be/wo_4R17gYSY
Snow Cap Zone http://youtu.be/hYxlqTpZ-24
Soul Calibur: http://youtu.be/iMkeO5ZAS5Y
http://youtu.be/hTnkiC0GvHs
The Deus Ex OST was pretty amazing.
Also Mass Effect (not so much the sequel) and Assassin’s Creed 2 for more recent games.
I’m a sucker for choral and orchestral scores, plus the retro sci-fi feel of ME was really great.
wow i can’t believe noone’s said the Quake OST yet. or maybe they have.. i never did check pages 2, 3 or 4.
anyway. trent’s old work was amazing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mv5Jvr2Fp48
Sonic Mayhem brought us the beautiful sounds in Quakes 2 and 3, equally fantastic too. \m/
oh my god and the baldurs gate soundtrack, woah! HOW COULD FORGET.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GI_ij_zcfTY
fantastic stuff.
Most of the Chrono Trigger soundtrack for me, along with basically every song from Terranigma.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJA_guRUM8I
most notably.
Prince of Persia – Sands of Time, Final Fantasy VI and Beyond Good & Evil.
For licensed soundtracks I’d have to go with Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2.
Oh! Honourable mention to Earth, Venice Rooftops and Ezio’s Family in Assassin’s Creed 2. The melodic theme shared by those songs is frickin’ beautiful.
I dunno if I have any particular stand-out favourites, and many of the ones I like have already been mentioned, so just throwing some others out there:
– Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP
Pretty much brand new still. The soundtrack to this game was one of the best parts about it. Especially because the game feels like it was built around the musc, or maybe the music built around the game, so everything is incredibly cohesive. Brilliant game too, if you’ve got an iPad or iPhone it’s absolutely worth checking out.
– Descent II
This one has a special spot for me. I grew up gaming on Macs. One year we got a new machine that came with a bunch of bundled games, and one of them was the Mac CD release of Descent II. It’s industrial metal stuff, fairly well done, and when you’re fifteen in the 90s and the game’s music is printed on the CD in Redbook format so you can listen to it in your CD player, that’s basically all you need. 🙂
– Okami
I’m an enormous fan of Okami. The soundtrack is great, with some absolutely stunning high points. I suspect that divorced of the visuals they lose a bit, but some of the overworld themes are still absolutely brilliant. And the end credits…
– Touhou
Not so much the actual game series soundtracks as the enormous cult following that has sprung up around the game. There’s hundreds of groups that have done remixes, re-arrangements and the like, covering everything from electronic to jazz to metal.
At risk of cheating…
Rock Band! Best music of any game ever, and it gets more complete every week! 🙂
I can’t believe this hasn’t gotten a mention until now. The entire Homeworld’s soundtrack is absolute gold
FFVII gets my vote as well, but there’re quite a few honourable mentions – the windmill theme from Zelda: OoT was amazing, the Swing de Chocobo theme from… FFIX? was fantastic, House of Cards from Baten Kaitos, most of Rez, most of Ouendan, and i rather liked Pheonix wright too 🙂
FFVII, Shenmue (SHENMUE!!!!) and probably A link to the past are my favourites.
Also, Rock’N’Roll Racings midifest was pure awesome. 😛
Id have to say the Kingdom Hearts series Soundtracks and Final Fantasy XIII. Its great stuff 🙂
well, scott pilgrim the game, because i love anamanaguchi, and basicly any final fantasy…
Apart from now having the loop from bobble bobble stuck in my head!
Outrun the arcade game
Streets of Rage on the Megadrive
GTA4 Vice City on the PS2
Prince of Persia on PS3 (soundtrack by Stuart Chatwood from the Teaparty)
My recent favourites are:
the Dark void soundtrack by Bear McCreary of Battle Galactica Fame
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgfdARh6nI4
The prince of persia 2008 soundtrack, a very subtle but memorable soundtrack.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNDnoWMyJ8M
Old classics include
Shadow of the colossus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3PRXFLJYcw
Klonoa 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfDW8MJ_wlQ
We love Katamari
Only one mention of de Blob?? (well, two I guess)
And NO mentions of HotD Overkill???
Worst thread ever.
“Driv3r” (Driver 3… I hate that title)
The actual game was pretty disappointing, but I liked the music so much I bought the soundtrack on Amazon for like 3 bucks… That CD is still in my car while the game is long gone from my collection…
Any album that features Iggy Pop as some kind of cosmic DJ between tracks is an instant classic
i really wish they would remaster some of these songs, with a full on orchestra and everything.
i’m sorry, i know it’s bad, but i’m a sucker for Steve Jablonsky, so i love the Gears of War 2 soundstrack… also as a single tune, the Mjolnir Mix from halo 2, that guitar is AWESOME!
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