Video Game Music

[Franchize1990]

[YOUTUBE]vGIswJBe9PU[/YOUTUBE]

Final Fantasy X - Battle with Jecht

Went through 27+ to make sure this hadn't been mentioned which led for some good walks through memory lane. But back to my choice of music. One of the first songs to nearly completely suck me into the TV screen and make me feel like I was one of the characters fighting throughout the entire battle, even after multiple (and I mean MULTIPLE) failed attempts, this song never failed to get me hype and was one of the silver linings to losing to Jecht so much.

 

[Dagger Dias]

There's an old game called Wild Arms, that wasn't a very remarkable game for me except that I've caught myself humming the tune to its intro lately (I can't whistle to save my life).

It's an uplifting tune that plays well to the wild west theme of the game.

Spoiler

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That takes me back to the good old PSX RPG days! Wild Arms was a great game. Very under-rated. So is the 2nd game in the series. I like Wild Arms 2's intro theme from its first disc even better.


Wild Arms 2nd Ignition - Disc 1 Intro Theme

Spoiler

[YOUTUBE]mahwayhImVw[/YOUTUBE]

Such a good song that shows the extensive journey the heroes are embarking on. There were countless times that I played the game that I would let this song play all the way through without skipping it. Then it changed to another opening on disc 2. That disc's opening theme is fine too, but it doesn't touch this one. Ah, nostalgia.

 

[Dagger Dias]

Here's a really old classic from the original Game Boy. I played some Final Fantasy Adventure the other day due to being in the mood for some nostalgia. This track should be one that anyone who played this back in the day would recognize immediately.

Final Fantasy Adventure - "Endless Battlefield"

Spoiler

[YOUTUBE]QaoDOBKaZaY[/YOUTUBE]

Lots of memories of exploration come back when listening to this, as well as memories of times where I remember placing the Game Boy down to let this play for a while as I lay down listening to it. Very fitting for exploring around and defeating monsters in the open field. It's aged really well for a track that's nearly 30 years old. One of my favorite tracks from the game.

 

[Jeff Deliverer of Mail]

[YOUTUBE]vGIswJBe9PU[/YOUTUBE]

Final Fantasy X - Battle with Jecht

Went through 27+ to make sure this hadn't been mentioned which led for some good walks through memory lane. But back to my choice of music. One of the first songs to nearly completely suck me into the TV screen and make me feel like I was one of the characters fighting throughout the entire battle, even after multiple (and I mean MULTIPLE) failed attempts, this song never failed to get me hype and was one of the silver linings to losing to Jecht so much.

One of my favorite songs in a video game ever. The whole series of Final Fantasy up to this point had been great instrumental themes. Then this final battle comes and BAM! A kick asss heavy metal theme?!! I'll never forget it...and the way the fight is set up...the battle begins right when the heavy electric guitars start so you're pumped to take down the boss while banging your head. I never did beat him after multiple attempts due to rushing the game a little and missing some important weapons/spells needed to beat him.

 

[Dagger Dias]

Romancing Saga 2 - Battle Theme

Spoiler

[YOUTUBE]euNcFV5vd5w[/YOUTUBE]

I had never played this game before and ended up purchasing it on steam after reading a random email I got yesterday mentioning the release of this new remake, the first version on the SNES was only released in Japan. It's from the same series as the Final Fantasy Legend trilogy on the original Game Boy. There's a TON of battles in this game. For a game where you fight an eternal amount of battles, you need a great battle theme that you'll never get sick of hearing. That's what you get with this theme. It fits the battles fantastically and is super catchy. It could even fit with games like D&D for battles in there. Love it. This quickly became one of my new favorite battle themes. You know a battle theme is good when you look forward to all new enemy encounters, just to hear the song one more time.

 

[Dagger Dias]

Romancing Saga 2 - Battle With Kzinssie

Spoiler

[YOUTUBE]EC7pb0bnqYM[/YOUTUBE]

Named after the first time you hear it, which is in battle against Kzinssie. He is one of the Seven Heroes who saved the world long ago but have come back as monsters. The song plays again afterwards in boss fights and other important fights. It's great to listen to just like the normal battle theme, and very fitting for the much more intense fights it plays in. You feel your emperor and his/her unit's sense of urgency in the fight while the track plays. I'm glad it wasn't only used for the Kzinssie fight. It is another example of when you encounter a monster further into a monster lair only for THIS to play instead of the regular battle theme, you know that it just got real!

 

[Dagger Dias]

Super Mario Odyssey - Wooded Kingdom Steam Gardens

Spoiler

[YOUTUBE]XKBjbjZfTiM[/YOUTUBE]

I like many of the tracks in several Super Mario games, but my goodness Odyssey's Wooded Kingdom surprised me and came out of nowhere hitting me with what has to be the catchiest theme from any level in a Mario game for the past decade. My fondness of catchy songs in video games is not a secret around here, and this song is another for my list of tracks I could listen to on repeat in many different scenarios. It makes me want to keep playing the Wooded Kingdom over and over. The upbeat melody fits so well with Mario jumping around in the woods looking for purple nut coins and dark blue Power Moons. I love it!

 

[enviousdominous]

So, there was once this game developer called Sierra. They had high hopes for their brand. If I remember correctly they tried to create their own online interface that was a whacked out version of an old west town where you have to pay a monthly fee to utilize it, that didn't really catch on. They published a quarterly magazine hyping their brand, that lasted for about a year.

They also had excessively high hopes for their games. SpaceQuest 4 had a budget of $1,000,000 if I remember correctly, which was a lot of fucking money to put toward a video game in the early 1990s. For King's Quest VI, Sierra decided to commission a man named Michael Seibert to write a theme for supporting character Princess Cassima for the game. Using the melody of that song, Michael wrote a Sierra sponsored ballad called "Girl in the Tower".

Sierra was pretty happy with the song, and seemed to feel that they had a hit on their hands. Anyone who purchased King's Quest VI on floppy disk (remember those?) would be treated to a pamphlet that listed radio stations that had been sent the song by Sierra with a request that buyers call those stations and demand that Girl in the Tower be played. None of the radio stations agreed to play the song, every radio station has no record of anyone calling them to demand that Girl in the Tower be played.

I think it's a nifty tune, so I'll let the high-brow standards of the Wrestlezone forum judge its quality:

 

[Dagger Dias]

Well it was really cold in the last couple of weeks, even here in Texas. So, how about some ice level music?


Northern Hemispheres - Donkey Kong Country

Spoiler

[YOUTUBE]WG120d1z-fo[/YOUTUBE]

I have the SNES Classic and some friends from my church got together for a game night last week. We played a lot of Donkey Kong Country, among other games. This song plays in the level Snow Barrel Blast which is the level that we got to before ending for the night. Snow Barrel Blast is one of the game's tougher levels. You likely know the one if you have played this game before. It is that really tough level in the tundra during a snowstorm right after the boss fight against the Queen Zinger. The theme fits well with the stress you feel as you try to get the tricky shots of the barrels without hitting a zinger or shooting in the wrong direction. The snowstorm getting worse halfway through the level making it hard to see, does nothing to help alleviate the stress. Great song. When I hear it memories of frustrations in that Snow Barrel Blast level come back from when I was a kid. The Rambi Tokens end up being a lifesaver since you can try to get a bunch of extra lives through the Rambi bonus level. Or you could just take the shortcut found within the level.

 

[enviousdominous]

Video games don't usually conjure emotion with me. I thought that Aeris dying was a bit sad, but overplayed. The scene itself didn't grab me by the throat as much as going to see her family after. The Mass Effect games for me are an example of when a game tries too hard to make me feel empathy for the characters, and ultimately I just play the game to shoot at stuff.

I recently played Beyond: Two Souls, and I was a bit miffed at how much they tried to make me feel sorry for the main character. For my taste, it was overkill. But, a scene of the game came out of nowhere and left me in tears. Thinking about it now makes me emotional. One of the greatest moments I've ever experienced while playing a video game.

Jodie plays Lost Cause:

 

[osvaldo]

Okay, I'll try this again. Apologies if I mess this up again.

[youtube]R8JmGmyWWWM[/youtube]


Wow. That Battle of the Bridge music is great. I had forgotten about it. I believe this is a remix from the PSP version. Yeah. FF music is fantastic.

Love this music!

 

[osvaldo]

Video games don't usually conjure emotion with me. I thought that Aeris dying was a bit sad, but overplayed. The scene itself didn't grab me by the throat as much as going to see her family after. The Mass Effect games for me are an example of when a game tries too hard to make me feel empathy for the characters, and ultimately I just play the game to shoot at stuff.

This stuff is touching!

 

[enviousdominous]

So, there was this fun game released in 2007 called "I Wanna Be the Guy". I use the term fun loosely, the most fun I've had regarding the game is watching people try to play and fail miserably or absolutely finesse the insanely difficult game. It inspired a fan made spiritual sequel called "I Wanna Kill the Guy", which is basically the same type of insanely difficult game.

One part of "I Wanna Kill the Guy" is an optional boss battle, which I'm sure most of you are aware that optional boss battles tend to be more difficult to defeat than any other unskippable boss. The battle I'm about to share is no exception, and you'll see why when the beat picks up. It's an extreme version of the classic quick time event style of gaming. The music is intense, and adds to the difficulty as the player tries to concentrate on remembering the keys to push and the rhythm of how they're pushed.

I'm putting this in a spoiler window because watching this video might hurt someone who's sensitive to flashing lights, do not watch if you have a condition like epilepsy.

 

[enviousdominous]

There was once a game called Silent Hill, that combined a lot of influences from the writings of Stephen King, H.P. Lovecraft, and Robert Chambers. It gave you a feeling of dread regarding an ordinary setting made horrifying by random terrors that emerge from dark corners or thick mist. Interspersed throughout the game were odd breaks in the horror, that were a very calming scenario for the player in what would otherwise have been a boring moment.

The theme music to this game seemed to capture that idea, where the initial playing of the mandolin is somewhat erratic and indicative of nerves racing to make sense of unnatural surroundings, when you're given a slow beat of low electronic beats it's as if you're taken from that stress and have grown complacent to the horrors that caused your stress. I would honestly say that it's the greatest original theme to a video game ever written.

 

[enviousdominous]

There was an old dos game called Zone 66, and it has a theme that really emphasizes the mood of a character who loses everything suddenly. The sound of the synthesizer buzzing out a high note is indicative of the wave of emotion that seizes upon you after observing a horrifying sight.

The game itself is somewhat bland, you fly around a flat landscape and attack targets. The music compelled me to play through the entire game, in spite of the fact that you have to change the programming code of certain files to get past the bugged second level.

 

[enviousdominous]

There was once a fun game called Chrono Trigger, and its popularity transcended the usual media boundaries of popular culture.

Its music is magical, and further endears it to people who really don't play video games. One character from Chrono Trigger was named Robo, and Robo had a hip theme that was very upbeat. The odd thing about it is, it was in the same key of a very popular song that was already released 8 years before the game's release. The song was "Never Gonna Give You Up" by Rick Astley, and awareness of the similarities between the two songs seemed to come about when the concept of "Rickrolling" became a thing for internet trolls.

A young man who goes by "Brentalfloss" on YouTube made a fun video noting the similarity. Have a listen:


Chrono Trigger apparently spun a remix of a classic, so it seems fitting that an original song for Chrono Trigger was utilized to make a more modern song.

In 2013; Wiz Khalifa used the song Corridors of Time from Chrono Trigger to make a song called "Never Been" and he used the Forest Theme from Chrono Trigger to make that song's sequel "Never Been 2". I honestly dig Never Been 2, so here it is:

 

[Tsunaru]

One part of "I Wanna Kill the Guy" is an optional boss battle, which I'm sure most of you are aware that optional boss battles tend to be more difficult to defeat than any other unskippable boss. The battle I'm about to share is no exception, and you'll see why when the beat picks up. It's an extreme version of the classic quick time event style of gaming. The music is intense, and adds to the difficulty as the player tries to concentrate on remembering the keys to push and the rhythm of how they're pushed.

This is actually a remix of a song from the Touhou Project, a magical girl SHMUP series. The series itself actually has a fairly good soundtrack, if you're into Asian style trance.

I have entirely too much (according to some people) video game music on my playlist. Of the 480ish songs currently on my phone, about 465 of those are from games. Right now I'm primarily stuck in FF14, which has a lot of good themes, but the one that currently has wormed its way into my mind on loop is


Which has NOTHING to do with the fact that I've spent about 7 hours so far this week trying to clear this fight. Luckily its easily my favorite song in the game to date, so I can tolerate it playing endlessly. Unfortunately one of my healers found a video of misheard lyrics for the song which results in a lot of wipes when we just randomly start singing them. Something about bum bum chickens and air through your butthole.

 

[enviousdominous]

There was this old game called Legend of Dragoon, and it was pretty awesome.

It wasn't your standard turn-bases RPG. Your attacks would do more damage if you could tap the attack button at a certain cadence indicated only by a square shape on the screen that would soon be met by a larger rotating square that would shrink down and meet with the first one. I remember being obsessed with this game, and shockingly it still hasn't had a reboot.

Its main theme was very compelling. Have a listen:


A funny thing about this game, there was originally no plan to create CGI cutscenes. This was released in 1999 on the original Playstation. When the team at Sony CE decided to go ahead and make some CGI cutscenes, they ended up creating the most breathtaking cutscenes ever seen. It's my understanding that they were the first team to render smoke in a computer graphic video.

One cutscene stood out, and had me shouting "HOLY SHIT!" There's a part where a tower falls on two people and... just watch.

 

[enviousdominous]

Some games are like interactive novels, telling us a story of triumph over tragedy.

The Max Payne series was one of those video game franchises that "went there" when it came to depicting extreme content, while playing as a hard boiled anti-hero. The series has had a film-noir vibe to it, and the music for the games complimented that theme well.

I remember playing Max Payne 2, and after completing the game I was treated to the following song by Poets of the Fall.

 

[enviousdominous]

There's so many hidden gems out there.

Back in 1993, when PC Gaming dominated the video game industry, there was this game called "Myst" that captivated the world with it's 3D rendered environments. You couldn't freely explore the environments, you could only turn in place at specific points to observe your surroundings. The game had a very calming, but serious tone. I feel that it greatly inspired one of my favorite games of all time, The Witness.

Myst had many sequels, which I never got into. One of those sequels was named "Uru" and it was released in 2003. This game seems to have an original song by Peter Gabriel hidden within it, which is to say that they didn't seem to advertise that you could listen to an original song by Peter Gabriel by buying the game. You can only hear the song if you go to a specific place in the game, and you might miss it as just background music if you don't listen.