The Monkey Island games are defiantely my favorite in terms of music. Great variety of themes based around modern reggae beats for a pirate game? Brilliant! In fact all the old LucasArts games had great tunes. I loved the music in the original TIE Fighter. They managed to create original music that fit in perfectly with the existing themes. The music would also be ‘composed’ on the fly in battle, with new themes coming in and out and the mood changing according to the situation. Very cool.
Oh, and can’t forget The Longest Journey! Too bad adventure games are pretty much dead, they always had such great music.
I second the music from the Maxis games, too. SimCity3000 is classic, and I’ve always really liked the music from SimIsle.
Engywook, Square Insider’s FF forums are almost always comprehensible, and usually literate.
Or maybe I’m just biased because I hang out there…
Final Fantasy X is the only FF I’ve ever played with the sound permanently off. Other than Otherworld and the Hymn of the Fayth, the music is extremely forgettable. Throw in the mostly appalling voice acting, and the mute button has never looked so tempting.
But yes, the FF series does tend to have a good variety of music. As for the tendency to keep remixing certain tracks, I’d put that down to the inbred nature of the series. Just as it’s required to have Chocobos, moogles, and a Cid, it’s required to have at least one track that’s been in at least one previous game.
Devil May Cry (PS2) has some nice J-Rock pieces. My favourite would have to be the first ten seconds or so at the beginning of the first Nelo Angelo fight. For a game which focuses solely on killing things with as much stylish violence as possible, it’s pretty cool to hear some (admittedly brief) organ arrangements.