Topic: The Best Game Music

[Bazooka]

Agreed, dreamy and inviting to a new world. Just wish these wankers would release the next games on consoles.

[Glebe]

Soul Reaver.  It's just epic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNWSDvDqm9g

Good call Cerys. Always wished they'd do a Soul Reaver/Legacy of Kain movie.

The Medievil games had some cracking music (and on a side note, the late Paul Darrow voiced Zarok!):

The Enchanted Earth/The Sleeping Village.

[popcorn]

Shout-out to the underground theme with its deranged breakdown about 10 seconds in, too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0SuIMUoShI

NICKED

[Mister Six]

NICKED

They fucked it by not changing key. The key change is what makes it. The chumpy fucks.

Four more, as I've not seen them mentioned in this thread:

Electric De Chocobo from Final Fantasy VII is relentlessly chirpy - no pun intended. Such a great shift in gear after the gloominess of Midgar.

The theme from Flashback on the Amiga. Going from that moody bassline to the ridiculously epic (for an Amiga) simulated brass band, really made it feel like a cinematic experience.

The Gameboy RoboCop theme. Aye, everybody knows this one and it was used on an Ariston ad and all that, but it's brilliant, just a weirdly chilled out electro surf rock thing to listen to while you blow away crims.

Finally, of course, It's a Skull (Valhalla via Amiga Power, courtesy of one of AP's own readers). Uploaded to YouTube by our own Madhair60, apparently! Insanely, I can remember all the lyrics, something like 25 years after it came out on an AP coverdisk.

[Kelvin]

Mario Galaxy hasn't been mentioned yet, maybe because it's almost become a cliche to talk about how good the music in that game is. But then the music sounds like this...

Bouy Base:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z29bt-wjS88

Battlerock Galaxy:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYhmHovdBxY

and of course, the souring main theme:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBrwceBdDQQ

A few years ago I'd have mentioned "Gusty Garden Galaxy" too, but it's been used in so many subsequent games as a kind of go to reference, that I'm actually getting a bit fed up of it now.

[The Boston Crab]

Replaying Galaxy at the moment as per the other thread but I had forgotten how amazing the music is in that game. Even the low-key background burbles and twinkles are incredible. It's just a really happy place to spend time. It feels like the product of inspiration and genius. The very best at the top of their game, much like BotW. As much as I loved Odyssey, it didn't often feel like that. It largely felt like a very strong team working hard and throwing lots of ideas around to see what would stick. Some of the ideas were incredible but there was nothing to underpin it all, whereas Galaxy feels like the fundamental concept and feel are so wonderful, they almost couldn't go wrong. Sorry, just remembered it's the music thread.

[Poobum]

Pretty much my favourite PS1 game was Colony Wars, doesn't seem to get the credit it deserves. Gameplay was superb, even for me being shit at it. Massive variety in missions, some great scenarios, never got bored of attacking massive space stations. Did get annoyed at having to defend stuff that just kept getting blown the fuck up whilst I incompetently chased my own vapour trail like a special boy given a day in a ship. The music was wonderfully bombastic and added to the whole feel of being in massive outer space, whilst blasting away, engaged in viscious dog fights.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=de6wTikX8Cc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxXgmW0gwD4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnu0xhjZxGQ Gives me the total Babylon 5 vibe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MChvDi0qj6A

[Spiteface]

The intro music for Yakuza 0 is a fucking banger:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxrXgtSL2Rk
I don't need to mention Streets of Rage in here again, surely?
Also, Rashid's theme in Street Fighter V is worth fighting against him just to hear:
RA-SHI-DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

[the]

I love the textures of the layered FM synth programming on the Mega Drive, and I've become a bit obsessed with this brooding, menacing arpeggiated number from Rambo III (which features some amazing programming and complicated compositions in such an early MD game).

[Twed]

Yerzmyey does amazing things on the ZX Spectrum. Not only is it leagues above most Speccy music, but there are sounds in this you don't hear anywhere else.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VC7i1Qnt1DI

[boki]

Nice!  Away from the AY chip that was present in the 128k models, I was always taken with the title screen music from the 48k conversion of Konami's Ping Pong.  That's quite an achievement with the speccy's humble beeper.

[Twed]

I love the mad crowd screaming.

[Thursday]

This, from Judgment is the greatest piece of music ever composed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=7826&v=py6cJm7Bxuc

[samadriel]

Oh man, how did I forget Mick Gordon? His soundtrack to the first two seasons of the new Killer Instinct is pretty damn good, but first prize must go to his Doom 2016 soundtrack. Here is him discussing the brief from Id, how they developed the soundtrack, how he built up the raw, nasty sounds that make Doom come alive.

[Spiteface]

Been playing "Garou: Mark of the Wolves" lately, and Rock Howard's theme "Spread the Wings" basically is "Children" by Robert Miles

https://youtu.be/XNVDj1Yu0e0?t=51

[NJ Uncut]

Xcom's music from old to new has ALWAYS been boss!

[The Boston Crab]

Been playing "Garou: Mark of the Wolves" lately, and Rock Howard's theme "Spread the Wings" basically is "Children" by Robert Miles

https://youtu.be/XNVDj1Yu0e0?t=51

Absolutely brilliant. So weird but great.

[Thursday]

Bumped because I went back into Super Mario Maker 2 for a bit earlier and there was a level with a version of the Gusty Garden music from Galaxy, and god this is the most joyous thing ever and I really hope they bring Galaxy to switch... fuck I'd pay full price for it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWhhMxrX-Us

Also a complete tone shift, but the latest raid boss music in Destiny 2 is a banger

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCae_Cj9aTM

[PlanktonSideburns]

Genuinely spent a whole summer playing the Vib Ribbon soundtrack every morning.  It's just so, damned, joyous, with its fantastic j-pop songs slowed down and sped up like a kid using their big brother's decks for the very first time.  I think Sunny Day is my fave thing on there.  Never listened to the sequel (or the other Katamari album for that matter), though I doubt it'll sound anywhere near as vital.

yea that album is fantasic, earnest, wild, amazing

[popcorn]

Thanks for the reminder. Now enjoying Overflowing Emotions. And yeah the slowing and speeding up of the tape is super effective and I don't think I've ever quite heard the same effect in other stuff.

[chveik]

quite like this one by Lauren Bousfield (aka Nero's Day at Disneyland)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhTX7Czq3xo

[The Boston Crab]

Bumped because I went back into Super Mario Maker 2 for a bit earlier and there was a level with a version of the Gusty Garden music from Galaxy, and god this is the most joyous thing ever and I really hope they bring Galaxy to switch... fuck I'd pay full price for it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWhhMxrX-Us

I replayed a good chunk of Galaxy earlier this year and I was blown away by the music in pretty much every stage, as well as the incidental pieces and sound effects. It's still unbelievably playable, too. As much as I loved large sections of Odyssey, the controls and cap stuff require practice and I've never managed to get back into it despite trying several times. And the music doesn't even come close.

[Thursday]

Yeah some of the extended cappy stuff, while good, was just so fiddly. I couldn't reliably pull it off, especially not in a high pressure situation, so it just wasn't that much fun.