Out With the New, In With the Old: Memorable Video Game Music

I need to stop watching these features. They're just pointless rose-tinted bitch-fests. I could get this shit talking to any old person! There is plenty of memorable music in modern games. Could it just be that perhaps you've forgotton all of the forgettable music of the past? Give it a few years and I've no doubt you'll be able to recite modern music to the same degree you can the old stuff.

I agree for the most part, but Deus Ex Human Revolutions and Frozen Synapse have two soundtracks that have really stuck with me. Over all though, game soundtracks have have gotten less memorable since olden days.

Anything from Shadow Of Colossus.. Awesome score and deffo added to the atomosphere / tension of the game

The best soundtrack in games in my opinion have always been from japanese composers, and its not a coincidence that now that the japanese developers turn their franchises into pure action stuff or to appeal more to a mass western group of gamers, music in their games have declined, or at least lost what made it memorable, to simply become part of the music of most other games.

What about ME3's beautiful score? That piano shit Had me tearful every time..

But you know, the list I made is flawed. The reason being is because I have a crapton of music I loved when I was a kid. Some games that had great tracks to me were:

Maniac Mansion

Kirby Games

Zombies Ate My Neighbors

Ocarina of Time (although I am NOT a fanboy of this series by any means)

Mega Man Legends

Xenogears

Sonic Adventure

Zone of the Enders (Both games)

Among others

1) Amazon Stage from 'War of the Gems'

2) Reploid Factory from Mega Man X 2 (along with anything else that comes from the series)

3) Anything Donkey Kong Country

4) Anything Pokemon

5) Mushroom Forest from 'Little Nemo Dream Master'

chrono cross had the best music imo. just listen to dream of the shore near another world, its brilliant.

I also have the feeling that voice acting is a big part of the reason we don't have iconic music like before PS2 area. Since you don't have any voice actor to convey emotion and life to the caracter you had to rely completely to the music to give them personality and to convey emotion ...

For me it is :

God Of War serie

All Final Fantasy in particular VI and Tactics ( PSOne )

Mega Man serie

Of course Zelda a link to the past and Mario 3 and World, also Yoshi's Island

Devil May Cry 3

Street Fighter 2 turbo

1)Mako Reactor from Final Fantasy VII

2)Chemical Plant Zone from Sonic 2

3)Dearly Beloved from Kingdom Hearts

4)Nerevar Rising from Morrowind

5)Anything Street Fighter!

Part of the reason, I remember the music from older games is because I could not turn it off, like I can now.

I appreciated music and how it lent to the feel of cutscenes or the gameplay, but now I can turn off the music and listen to my own. I think it is also important to mention, many of the older games seemed MUCH longer and had more hours of gameplay.

Nowa days there are few single player games, that can not be explored within a couple weeks of casual play, therefor we do not listen to the music for months on end anymore.

Just like mainstream music, a lot of game themes easily evoke nostalgia of times past and long lost worlds.

One of the reasons I play JRPG's is because of the music. A lot of them (old and new) have great music.

The entire soundtrack from Ocarina of Time will always be my favorite video game music. New game soundtracks don't even come close.

Sephiroth Theme - One Winged Angel

manly tears

Chrono Cross OST - Star-Stealing Girl

http://youtu.be/YoEMaWrQBQM

Donkey Kong Country 2, anyone?

I felt a little ironic that I couldn't recognize the music playing in the video's background. :)

Baten Kaitos, Final Fantasy IX (which is my personal favorite) And I mean the Pokemon games I'm surprised no one has said that yet. Maybe they have who knows. But seriously nothing summarizes my childhood like the music from Pokemon.

This was a great video. I think just like in movies, the music in video games does a lot to enhance the quality of what the user is experiencing. Not all video games need to have wonderful music, sometimes a simple soundtrack, or nearly none at all (Limbo comes to mind) does the game justice. Undoubtedly however, some of my most memorable game experiences are come imbued with a wonderful soundtrack.

Some of the most memorable songs in games are:

1. Snake Eater - Metal Gear Solid 3

2. Saber's Edge - Final Fantasy XIII

3. To Zanarkand - Final Fantasy X

4. Dearly Beloved - Kingdom Hearts Series

5. Legend of Zelda Theme

And so many more. Music is a fantastic way to make a scene moving and powerful, just like it does in movies.

Interestingly, although many probably wouldn't put a Call of Duty game on their favorite video game music list, but there is one track that stands out big time for me. The game is Call of Duty: Black Ops, and the scene is when your character is escaping from the prison at the beginning of the game. As the giant door from the cave is heaved open and you begin to dash towards your freedom the music kicks in. As you continue your way down what seems like a path of certain death, hiding behind only a mining cart and gunning down soldiers along the way, the epic music your are accompanied by speaks of freedom, and hope, telling you that you will survive. I've never felt that way playing any Call of Duty game before and I thought it was phenomenally done.

I can't stand game music anymore! Studios just use orchestras and then have an excuse for generic pieces.

Diablo 2 was a good example of this. The original game had awesome music. The expansion used an orchestra. While the pieces weren't as generic as some other pieces you hear in other video games, it definitely didn't give me the same feeling as the original game did!

From all Call of Duty games I think Modern Warfare 2 has the best soundtrack so far.

Old game music is so much more memorable because the technology was limited. You were forced to create something memorable with a limited set of tools. Now people can get lazy and have generic movie soundtrack music or they can just license music(which to be fair fits with certain games). Those that still compose music tailor-made for their game, without going the generic movie soundtrack route, are better for it.

Here are some well made soundtracks of recent years, with a rock/metal bias. Youtube these:

Splatterhouse (2010) Original Music Score

Painkiller OST

Twisted Metal 2012 OST

God Hand OST

Super Meat Boy Soundtrack

Frozen Synapse Soundtrack

YS: The Oath in Felghana OST(this one is kind of cheating since this is a remake and remixes the old music, but it at least shows you what older music sounds like with a modern touch... it can still work today)

my top 3 are

1. LOZ lost woods tune

2. Bowser's castle theme

3. the mario theme remix that is played when you hop through the earlier paintings in mario 64

I know I'll remember Skyward Sword's main theme ten years from now, but that's Zelda, it's impossible to forget.

It seems the Gile theme isn't th only thing that can go along with just about anything....

And I know why I don't find video game music as memorable as the past, for one most people play shootrs/ games with 5-10 hours of gameplay... the music doesn't usually play very long or as often as it should to set the mood, if any mood is created at all. FF games, KH, Chrono Trigger, SF, Megaman, Sonic, DMC, etc all have some of the most memorable music because thats all that played while you played the game.

I mean think about it, When you pop in a video game on your xbox do you not play music from your xbox playlist? Infact, I have some video games that When I hear certain songs I get that feeling to also. Like every time I hear linkin park I feel like playing FF7 because I played my Linkin park CD while playing that game. didn't have an ipod back then, walkmans was they way to go after all. Or saliva and seether put me in the moods for FF 8 and FF9. plus the fact that I got over 300 hours in each game... where as with say Batman arkham city, I don't really have any music that makes me want to play that game. awesome game as it may be, nothing makes me go man just listening to this makes me want to play batman.

Im currently playing Zelda LTTP and that music is the most epic ever

so many memories.... *sigh*

i'm getting old =/

(Kingdom Hearts FTW)

Music in games nowadays just seems to be lacking something. One thing why music from games like FF games sticks to me is because the game in fron of it. I like to sometimes just put some FF soundtrack playing and doing something while listening it. The music tracks go in order where you go in the game itself, and they just bring all the memories back, they're not just background music, they're part of the story. Today's games... I just don't get that feeling. It's too much background music-ish, not the epic score of FF that sometimes steals the show completely. From this generation only Xenoblade music got really stuck in my head. Games like Mass Effect, Elder Scrolls etc. have good music, but they just blend too much in the background, only stuff like main menu theme stucks because you hear it everytime you start the game, but everything else just blends in the background. Music doesn't pop out in the middle of shooting etc. and make you tap the buttons in the rhythm of the music like I like to do.

"Hello there, would you like a shausage shanguage" haha cheesy.

I agree about the music in games being important, to me the music and sound is about half of what makes a game come to life.

Music is so powerful that I even played through all of Kane & Lynch Dead Men because I liked Jesper Kyd's music so much, I didn't even like the game that much because of alot of reasons but I played to the end.

I think it's really hard to name my top 5 because there's so many so instead of just having 5, I'll list alot of other ones under them aswell, hope you don't mind and hope you enjoy it...

1. Freedom Fighters - Jesper Kyd & the Hungarian Radio Choir

2. Splinter Cell Chaos Theory - Amon Tobin & Jesper Kyd

3. Medal of Honor and Underground(PS1) - Michael Giacchino & the Northwest Sinfonia

4. inFamous - Amon Tobin, Jim Dooley, J.D. Mayer, Mel Wesson & Martin Tillman

5. Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion Soundtrack - Jeremy Soul

Prince of Persia The Two thrones by Inon Zur

Hitman 2 Silent Assassin - Jesper Kyd & the Budapest Symphony Orchestra and Choir

Splinter Cell(PS2) by Michael Richard Plowman

Sly games by Peter McConnell

The Punisher by Timothy Wynn

Red Faction Guerrilla by Timothy Wynn

Timesplitters 1, 2 & Future Perfect by Graeme Norgate

Crysis(PC original) by Inon Zur

BioShock by Garry Schyman

Fahrenheit(Indigo Prophecy to US) by Angelo Badalamenti

Metro 2033 by Alexey Omelchuk and Geogogiy Beloglazov

Metal Gear Solid(PS1) by Rika Muranaka and Aoife Ní Fhearraigh

Crash Bandicoot Warped(PS1) by Mutato Muzika, Mark Mothersbaugh and Josh Mancell

Red Dead Redemption by Bill Elm & Woody Jackson

Die Hard Trilogy(PS1) by Stephen Root

Ratchet & Clank(PS2 days) by David Bergeaud

Resident Evil(PS1) by Makoto Tomozawa, Akari Kaida & Masami Ueda

Jak & Daxter by Mark Mothersbaugh

Metro 2033 by Alexey Omelchuk and Geogogiy Beloglazov

War of the Monsters by Lisle Moore, Brady Ellis, Ben Carson, Tino Saiki, Chuck E. Myers

Tekken 3 by Nobuyoshi Sano, Keiichi Okabe, Hiroyuki Kawada, Minamo Takahashi, Yu Miyake( I know a mouthful =P)

Gears of War(1) by Kevin Riepl

Trine 1 & 2 by Ari Pulkkinen

Halo by Martin O'Donnell

Mass Effect 1 & 2(haven't played 3) by Jack Wall

You can probably see a pattern with that list but I'll explain why if your interested, Jesper Kyd and Amon Tobin especially (and some other composers, with films aswell) have a certain... touch or 'feel' to their music, I can't really explain it in words but it just kind of hugs my ears it's so nice =)

If you've never heard of any of these I've listed I hope it helps you discover them because nobody who likes game music should listen to 'em at some point, hope you have ALOT of free time if you'r going to have a listen.

It's sad that is trend is also showing up in film. Watch Lawrence of Arabia or Dr. Zhivago and they both have great film scores. Even look at Star Wars. Who doesn't remember the Star Wars themes? Music solidifies emotional responses and that is what people remember when they think of the music.

i know there's a lot of good musics out there but my favorite is

Kingdom Hearts - Hikari

Devil may cry 3 - Devil never cry

The answer, I think, is a simple one:

Because of the constraints on older systems, few sound channels were available for musicians to use. This meant that in order to differentiate tracks, using strong melody was the only way.

Composers who began in the game industry learned their craft working through these constraints and the quality (memorable quality) of their compositions was made better for it. Musicians used these days on game scores didn't face the same limitations and I feel they suffer frequently from bloated, Hollywood-styled tracks that don't have the strong melodies of yore.

My two cents...

The music from the Fallout games.....

Twisted Metal.....the first game had awesome music....

Morrowind had good music....

Mass Effect series has good music...

Metal Gear Solid series has great music....

I like a lot of the classics too....

SMB, Double Dragon, Castlevania, Battletoads, Zelda, Metroid, Ninja Gaiden [NES] and F-Zero.....

Some of the modern stuff isn't all bad, take Mirror's Edge, great score there, Left 4 Dead had some good atmospheric stuff but the second game had all that Midnight Riders stuff that was so good......reminded me of some of the late 70's classic rock....

the Batman Arkham games have good scores, I wouldn't listen to them outside the game but when you play those games it's an experience.

I'm not the biggest fan of Dragon Age but DA has good music and I've always liked the Halo franchise music.....

1. Mass Effect series - Perfect blend of game world and soundtrack, the only game series that can move me emotionally every time I play through it.

2. World of Warcraft - if you have played this game for any length of time, every song will no doubt have been cemented into your psyche. Blizzard without a doubt has made some of the best music ever put into games.

3. Final Fantasy VII - this was the game of its time, even 13 years later I still remember it a lot of the themes by heart.

4. Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - Who doesn't love the soundtrack in this game? amazing in every way.

5. Doom - Absolute nostalgia, takes me back to my childhood every time. I played this game religiously with my father when it was first released.

My favorite ever song from a video game is the theme song from streets of rage. All the music in those games is brilliant. I doubt younger gamers would get it though. And of course final fantasy used to have great music before it went all pop.

I think the biggest problem with music in current gen games is that it's mostly AMERICAN studios doing it. I'm American, and I can tell you, the American mentality is extremely "market" minded. That whole Hollywoodized action movie crap. It's one of the reasons why I'm still very much a Japanese RPG fan -especially the old games.

I don't know, my most favorite seems to be Aerith Theme from the FF7 saga(including Crisis Core and Advent Children).However, I do like listening to 2 soundtracks from the Shin Megami Tensei: Persona series.Persona 4 - HeavenPersona 3 - The Poem for Everyone's Soul

FFVII - Boss Battle (Still more Fighting) Instant bad-assifier!

My top 5 are from only 3 games.

2 songs from FF7, no idea what they are called. But basically one is the battle music.

I enjoyed the music from FF10, I loved that game. Just pick any two from that. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xoSnGQhY8I

The intro music to Oblivion.

Xenoblade Chronicles, Kirby's Epic Yarn, Ocarina Of Time, Final Fantasy VII and Super mario Galaxy 2are my favourites

So glad they included a song from Kingdom Hearts in this video, it's a game series that I find has an amazing soundtrack that really sticks with you, not unlike Final Fantasy