Here are some of my favorite music tracks from video games.
I’ve never actually played “In Sound Mind” before, but the soundtrack is exquisite. Here’s the main theme.
“Red Dead Redemption” has an excellent theme named “Compass” that plays after John Marston has finally earned permission to return to his family. As he rides, the theme plays.
The full soundtrack of Grand Theft Auto Vice City. Every single song and radio station is full of great stuff. Radio Espantoso being my favorite. Or maybe it’s the New Wave radio. Or the rap station. . .
Hmmm, for some reason it’s not letting me put a direct link to
Radio Espantoso. Here it is embedded.
The closing credits for “Portal”. A wonderfully done original song.
I’ll not link to it because I think people should complete the game and gain that reward.
The Prologue theme from the Final Fantasy series has got to be one of the best pieces of music ever composed for a game.
Honestly, I could just go on for hours about the music of Final Fantasy, but I’ll nominate Final Fantasy VI as having an especially great soundtrack - it makes use of leitmotif in a way few games have, with almost all of the playable characters having their own theme that gets reprised in various ways throughout the game.
A bit of a cheat, but Adagio for Strings as used in Homeworld:
My Only Chance from Furi
Something about Blue Valley from the Uplink soundtrack (and really the whole thing) just puts me into the mood of late-night programming sessions from the late 90s:
…the Last Ninja: all of them, but the title track from the original game by Ben Daglish & Anthony Lees was my favourite.
“War. Never had so much fun.” Theme by Jon Hare & Richard Joseph for Canon Fodder by Sensible Software.
“Into the Wonderful” by Nation 12 for Gods, by the Bitmap Brothers.
Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe theme
Magic Pockets: original (‘Doin’ the Do’) by Betty Boo and The Beatmasters.
A-10 Tank Killer. Music by Alan McKean and Mark Riley.
The ones for Portal 2 as well. Jonathan Coulton nailed it again.
In my youth, I owned a ZX Spectrum home computer, and one of my favourite games was Turbo Esprit, where you drive a sports car around a town and stop drug deals from going down. 40 years later, this jangly tune remains stuck in my head.
And how can I forget “Robocop” on the Gameboy.
Absolutely epic. Listen to all of it.
I came in here to post something from Portal - which my son introduced me to, years ago. Dunno if it is from the closing credits or not, as I’ve never played the game. But surely, that is no reason to deprive listeners of the exquisite Still Alive, which is awesomely beautiful and deeply creepy, and shouldn’t be limited only to Portal players. It might inspire people to play the game (I would, if I had that kind of free time).
I don’t play video games … but recently the “8-Bit Big Band” cropped up
in my youtube. They specialise in playing video game music, and this is
one of my favorites :-
Make time. It’s a great pair of games.
Retiring in a few months. I’ll put it on my list of things to do!
Cannon Fodder for the Amiga:
yes, that’s the one I’m referring to.
It stands on it’s own as a song and is even better (and creepier!) after playing the game.
It isn’t a big time sink though, I got through it in a few short short hours.
great catch, I was a a speccy kid before moving on to the Amiga and another great theme from those days was “Blood Money”
another one from the Amiga days.
I agree with you about Final Fantasy, although I give the edge to Final Fantasy IV over VI, with Cecil and Rosa’s theme of love being at the very top of my list. The theme from Matoya’s Cave from FF I is also up there with FF IV and VI.
ETA. I’d also add 1,000 Words from FF X-2.
Portal is a short game, about 5 hours total.
Florence and the Machine’s cover of Stand By Me, for the soundtrack of Final Fantasy XV, is a great example of taking an existing work and recontextualizing it. I honestly got teary-eyed when it played over the end credits of the game.
