The soundtrack to World of Goo is sometimes beautiful, sometimes cool, sometimes just awesome, but always fun.
Here’s a few I particularly like:
Donkey Kong Country: Slipslide Ride:
Donkey Kong Land: Kremlantis:
Donkey Kong Land: Great Girder Grapple:
Super Mario Galaxy Music: Good Egg Galaxy:
Yoshi’s Island:
I’ve been listening to the soundtrack of *Machinarium *over and over again - particularly this track, By The Wall, by Tomas Dvorak. The soundtrack is like the game: understated, beautiful, jazzy, electronic. This song makes me shiver.
ETA: An EP including that song is available for free official download here
Street Fighter:
Megaman 3: Magnet Man:
Oh gosh, how did I forget World of Goo? Terrific music, very Danny Elfmanesque without being too twee. I actually prefer the music to the gameplay, heh. (Though the animation was adorable.)
Thanks to all the posters offering links along w/ the songs, the Ducktales Moon song almost made me tear up a little hearing it again 20 years later.
I haven’t read all the post yet, but I couldn’t find any mention of FF7’s final fight scene music (Sephiroth!) using search, so I’ll post a link: One Winged Angel
Half? Try almost ALL.
Probably 90% of my music CD collection is video game music. The other 10% is anime music. I do not own a single American artist/band album as no artist makes more than 4 or 5 songs that I would like
Graphic adventures are side-scrollers need music to keep you into the game. Otherwise people may just realize they’re playing a little colored dot trying to jump onto another colored dot. RPGs are immersive and need to set mood and atmosphere. That is why FPS don’t generally have the best music. Most of their stuff is “generic rock sounding music”, at least that’s what I think
As a long time gamer, I have had the pleasure of appreciating VGM throughout my life. I suppose it feels like how I think people who grew up liking the Beatles would feel.
Final Fantasy tops my list, I have the soundtrack to all of them except 3, the real 3, not the American 3. Dancing Mad from FFVI is pretty good, it’s actually 17 minutes long so here’s the first part, the better part in my opinion. FFVI has a ton of great ones like Gau’s theme, the whole Opera scene, the battle themes, Relm’s theme, etc.
Xenogears has already been mentioned and that one is absolutely stunning. Also, both the Final Fantasy composer and the Xenogears composer collaborated to work on an earlier project, Chrono Trigger, which also was pretty damn good.
Many of my favorites have already been mentioned like the Mega Man series. 2 and 3 tops my list, with 2 edging out 3 because of Air Man, Metal Man, Bubble Man, Flash Man, and Quick Man.
An old NES game that isn’t too well know but has spectacular music is The Guardian Legend. Also, how could anyone forget Ninja Gaiden and Ninja Gaiden 2? I would hum those all day after beating it, both because I loved it so much and because those are fucking hard games that didn’t let you save!
The original Metroid had some nice tracks, the best being Brinstar. Damn, I’m really old…
Also F-Zero had great tracks, especially Big Blue
I loved most of the soundtrack from the first Parasite Eve game. Someone remixed parts of it:
Everyone enjoys One Winged Angel, but I think people tend to overlook the main theme on the world map before Meteor is summoned. It really conveys a sense of the scale and beauty of the world, and this being the first CD based Final Fantasy title, gave an inkling of what we could expect from the series going foward on the PSX.
Just found out that a favorite band of mine are doing the soundtrack for a new wii ware title:
Max and the magic marker (trailer). The band is called Analogik and can be heard here.
Everything about that trailer is awesome.
Arcanum’s soundtrack is fantastic, and in perfect key with the game itself.
I also like the way Planescape Torment’s various places and characters themes meshed with each other and the protagonist’s. Clever arrangements, there.
I’m surprised no one has mentioned it yet, but Star Control II has some of the best music, especially for it’s time.
Here is sample of some of the music in the game:
And my personal favorite (the Yehat music)
I almost forgot, the Streets of Rage series had a pretty cool 90’s techno soundtrack starting with the first couple onwards.
I was 13 years old when I played Streets of Rage and I think it was the first time I noticed and thoroughly enjoyed a soundtrack as an integral part of the game experience.
I see what you mean. I swear - the last time I checked it was a video link and not a jpg. Anyway, trailers can be seen hereand here.
Agreed. Both Stalker 1 and 2 have beautiful atmospheric soundtracks that enhance the eerie and lonely landscape.