What’s one of your favorite game soundtracks?
What’s one of your favorite game soundtracks?
I recently started playing GTAV again and sometimes I’ll get in my car and let the radio stations play while I do house stuff. Favorite stations are the 80s one with Kenny Loggins, and West Coast Classics and Rock Radio.
I’ve been listening to the FTL soundtrack since high school!
Honestly love the Doom soundtrack.
- Bastion
- Castlevania (series, special mention for Symphony of the Night)
- Chrono Trigger/Cross
- Dead Cells
- Destiny 1/2
- Dragon's Dogma (mainly Into Free, but still...)
- Final Fantasy (series, but special mention for XI and XIV)
- Persona 4/5
- Portal 1/2
- River City Girls (probably 2 as well, but still waiting on my LRG copy)
- Scott Pilgrim vs the World (the game (the soundtrack))
- Tony Hawk (series); a bit of a cop out, as they're all licensed songs
- Zelda (series, special mention for the Cadence of Hyrule soundtrack)
And then just a lot of old nostalgia for NES games (Duck Tales, River City Ransom, TMNT, etc) and SNES/PS1 RPGs (Lufia, Super Mario RPG, Suikoden, Thousand Arms, etc)
But that main list contains the ones I either bought or downloaded because I loved the music so much.
There are games with amazing music that sets the perfect atmosphere — Celeste, Hades, Zelda (especially BotW/TotK).
And then there are games soundtracks I would also happily just put on to listen to — FFXIV, Persona 5, one particular song from Hades (Eurydice).
My favorites, in no particular order:
Fallout got me, a Metal Head, listening to 50s rock and lounge music.
Witcher 3 soundtrack. The exploration and combat wouldn't be the same without it.
Just like the other commenter, the Outer Wilds main motif (travelers) makes me emotional because of how good the game was. Disco Elysium also has had an amazing soundtrack, with the main BGM faintly using sounds from the final song, which made it really cathartic for me.
Ultrakill deserves a lot of praise, especially for the P-2 music (https://youtu.be/MG5L-1pI8bI). It works perfectly for how intense the level is, and it's absolutely nuts that the game still manages to up the ante after you've perfected every single other level. I've listened to this type of music quite often before, but I've never felt it in my blood and muscles before playing that level.
When judged on the music alone though, Hotline Miami (1) and Furi have to take the cake. Both soundtracks are just iconic, and easily stand out on their own.
Hollo knight. Especially the piano album
Fez
Disasterpeace is amazing. Also did the soundtrack for It Follows.
Risk of Rain 2 with Celeste being a close second!
Hollow Knight
I'm definitely going to have to say that Persona 5 Royal has one of the best Soundtracks of Gaming in general.
Final Fantasy VII and Chrono Cross are my absolute all time favorites. Ori and the Blind Forest is a more recent soundtrack that blew me away. The soundtrack for the Motorhead racing game is also a classic for me.
RimWorld has enough music to not feel repetitive over so many hours!
(and the youtube comments are full of stories about the colonies that people are reminded of by hearing the music again)
Honestly I'm shocked and surprised the Risk of Rain soundtrack hasn't come up. Both 1 and 2 are bangers. Chris Christodoulou (the lead composer) has a yt breaking down the soundtrack.
Stellaris' ost is also up there for memorable leitmotifs and just plain understanding the assignment.
I also quite like redout 1 and 2's soundtrack.
- Celeste
- Dead Cells
- Hollow Knight
Child of Light https://musique.coeurdepirate.com/album/child-of-light
Monkey Island 2 https://mdvhimself.bandcamp.com/album/monkey-island-2-lechuck-s-revenge
Colonization (reminded of this by the above page!) https://mdvhimself.bandcamp.com/album/colonization
Wing Commander https://thefatmanandteamfat.bandcamp.com/album/wing-commander-i-complete-original-soundtrack-mt-32-archival-edition
In no particular order:
Final Fantasy XIV and XVI (Soken is a genius)
Transistor
Nier Automata
Genshin Impact
Destiny 2
The World Ends With You
Persona 5
Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1/2
Honestly though the FF series as a whole kinda deserves its own special mention. The games have always had stellar soundtracks.
Final Fantasy 7 has been the long-standing winner here, but Persona 5 has recently started to gain an edge.
I also recently started listening to some of the Trails soundtracks and they are all fire.
I'm very quickly about to stop having "a favorite" and start having a collection of faves. Which is a pretty great place to be.
I'm surprised not to see any of the Monster Hunter games yet! Maybe that's because most MH soundtracks are more a collection of individual themes than a unified soundtrack for a world, but a lot of those tracks are pretty great.
I don't know whether it is considered polite to link to youtube recordings of tracks here. My particular favorites from World are all zone themes: "Rulers of the Wildspire", "Dancer in the Coral Highlands", "Roars across the Hinterlands". You hear these tunes a lot - whenever you're fighting something in that zone that doesn't have its own theme - so they'd better be good. Fortunately almost all of them live up to that standard!
Quite a few folks have mentioned Outer Wilds, so I'll add the DLC soundtrack. The titular song (Echoes of the Eye) that plays at the end of the DLC makes me burst into tears every time I hear it. But in a good way, haha.
Having finally finished Horizon Forbidden West last night, I've got to choose that. Instant favourite for me. Nostalgic moments when the theme kicked in in one of its altered versions, and the credits just completely floored me. Stuck around for the whole 30+ mins. Wonderful.
Away from that, Mass Effect always needs a mention!
Monkey island and grim fandango
- Hotline Miami
- Katamari Damacy
- Vice City
- Bastion
Hollow Knight and Spiritfarer.
- Stellaris.
- Rimworld.
- Dwarf Fortress (Steam version).
- Steamworld Dig 2.
- The Talos Principle.
- The Elder Scrolls 2: Daggerfall.
- The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind.
The 7th Guest and The 11th Hour remain top-tier for me. The music was half the experience, turn it up and just enjoy that creepy vibe while solving puzzles. And they're all on The Fat Man's Bandcamp now!
Also, there's an industrial rock cover album on vinyl currently looking for funding on Kickstarter. I'm super excited!
Hyper Light Drifter really deserves a mention too!
Any FromSoftware game soundtrack. Personally like Orphan of Kos.
Anything from the first four Sega Sonic mainline games. Also, Bastion and Transistor.
Myth II: Soulblighter had some beautiful mournful music (also one of the few games available for Mac OS 9)
Castelvania: Symphony of the Night
Silent Hill 1,2 & 3 (and not just the OST's, in-game background music as well);
Castlevania: Symphony of the night,
Alundra,
Faxanadu,
practically any Zelda,
Castlevania 1, 2 & 3
For my second place Flubber Mountain from Mario RPG is a banger! https://youtu.be/FaAc87l3o3o
Permanently Deleted
Chained Echoes
Witcher
Doom 2016Command & Conquer: Red Alert https://youtube.com/watch?v=TrqQxl5o3eg&feature=share7
Amon Tobins Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory soundtrack is a solid ambient/electronic album that I keep returning to.
Madden 10 has an unusally stacked soundtrack list. it is honestly absurd the sheer amount of legendary bands in that game
mlb 2k6 also has a great soundtrack, has interpol, pavement, fall of troy, pretty girls make graves, cornelius
Civilisation IVs Baba Yetu. Still gives me chills. I’ve seen it performed by a small choir and is just as good. https://youtu.be/IJiHDmyhE1A
Planet coaster. Released on streaming, it’s just so relaxing.
Ace Combat, mainly Ace Combat 5 but all of them are well known for their soundtracks.
More recently WARNO has excellent music so far, even though most of it was licensed by Eugen from third parties so it doesn't really count as a soundtrack specific to the game.
Deus Ex Human Revolution, Mass Effect 1, Diablo 2.
Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus
I have played 4 Warhammer games and never touched the tabletop. Don't know how I got into this game but once I did, it didn't leave my head. I have one shuffle list I listen to and this sits there very comfortably.
So many! Where even to start?
- Assassin's Creed II (really the whole Ezio trilogy slaps)
- VA11 HALL-A is from a phenomenal cyberpunk bartending game
- PPPPPP - The VVVVVV Soundtrack is a more chiptune-oriented album from one of my favorite games
- The most recent God of War: Ragnarök soundtrack is pretty darn good
- The Monstercat x Rocket League playlists go pretty hard if you're in an EDM mood
Infamous for introducing me to one of my now all time favorite musicians. Amon Tobin.
And a lot earlier Quake that planted the first seeds for my love of NIN.
I love Flatout soundtrack - wreck cars and listen to Symphony of destruction and other songs.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKlbTXjy-F6q9qbt1hM78aD9dvXTMOMDG
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKlbTXjy-F6qz1HCLkVOMjQS2XnxYEIGO
Recently I completed Crossing Souls. It's a game overloaded with 80s nostalgia. The soundtrack is from two composers. The first has 80s synth tracks while the other providers John Williams / Amblin like scores as the story of a group of young friends and feels like a movie from that time.
Double Dragon Neon has an absolutely banging soundtrack. I wish I could get it on Spotify, but it's only on Bandcamp. Mango Tango is amazing.
I really lime the Dark Souls 3 soundtrack. Elden Ring's is okay, but there's just something about it that isn't as cool.
Sekiro's is good in an entirely different reason. It's a different style so I wanted to mention it separately.
I also like what they did with Pokemon Black and White I and II. Driftveil City theme lives rent free in my mind.
It's a very small soundtrack, but Demon Truck has absolute banger music. Definitely one of my favorites.
Assuming visual novels count as "games", probably one of the best soundtracks I've ever run across is the one for Everlasting Summer. Both Silent Owl (Sergey Eybog) and Between August and December did amazing work on it.
My favorite would probably be Super Mario Galaxy 2 OST. That game had really good music, so good I think it got nominated for an award or something. The music is nice and riveting.
Not OST but I really vibed with Fallout 3 radio. It was cool to learn about old songs from that game.
Super Mario Galaxy (1+2). Orchestrated music should be a must for main Nintendo games at this point, outside of Zelda (and the Pokémon anime, although that one's not strictly Nintendo or used in actual games, sadly).
Every time when people talk about game soundtracks, they should include Chrono Cross
For recent games, FFXVI has an amazing soundtrack, I think the OST will be released on July 19th
I recently replayed Persona PSP, and that game has amazing soundtrack, but kinda marred by the fact that there's only one non-boss battle them, and the encounter rate is too high, so you ended up listening to the same song all the time.
Shadowrun for SNES had a pretty fantastic soundtrack. It did a lot with very little and really paints a picture of the setting very quickly. Another candidate from the same era is Planescape: Torment. It had this great haunting ambient sound that made Sigil feel so strange and ancient.
At the time though, if you'd asked me which game had the best soundtrack, I've had pointed to Tony Hawk, though I'm not sure if it was 1 or 2. The one with Party at Ground Zero. Found some great music of the era that way!
Shadowrun for SNES had a pretty fantastic soundtrack. It did a lot with very little and really paints a picture of the setting very quickly. Another candidate from the same era is Planescape: Torment. It had this great haunting ambient sound that made Sigil feel so strange and ancient.
At the time though, if you'd asked me which game had the best soundtrack, I've had pointed to Tony Hawk, though I'm not sure if it was 1 or 2. The one with Party at Ground Zero. Found some great music of the era that way!
- Disco Elysium introduced me to Sea Power, who have a bunch of cool albums.
- Outer Wilds - I think of the main theme every once in a while and remember all the awesome stuff in that game.
Ape Escape goes hard. It's not just the nostalgia.
Thomas was alone has a great soundtrack imo.
In no particular order: Final Fantasy XIV and XVI (Soken is a genius) Transistor Nier Automata Genshin Impact Destiny 2 The World Ends With You Persona 5 Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1/2
Honestly though the FF series as a whole kinda deserves its own special mention. The games have always had stellar soundtracks.
I can't believe no one has said Halo/Halo 2
Everything by Grant Kirkhope is great shout out to the Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie osts, also Skies of Arcadia
Dishonered, the drunken sailor cover goose bumbs still after all those years.
Original Minecraft and Eve Online