I thought rather than having it get lost in the wonderful geek fest we're having in the console gaming thread at the moment, wouldn't it be great old fun to have a dedicated thread for video game music? I'm surprised we didn't do this ages ago actually (unless we did and I've just forgotten). But I thought it would be a right old time if we listed some of our favourite musical joys from our favourite games, and share the kind of musical joy you only really get in games. It's like a whole amazing genre of music in itself really, there are times where I think 'I fancy listening to a bit of dramatic epic glorious joy,' and by that I mean 'I fancy listening to a Final Fantasy soundtrack', and it's really bloody lovely.

So here are some of my all-time favourite computer game musical joy!

Sonic The Hedgehog (MS/GG Version) - Scrap Brain Zone
This was probably the first 'favourite video game song' I ever had, at the ripe old age of 7 years of age. It's probably what laid the founding joy for Iron Maiden to come into my life, about 9 years later. I have to say, when I first heard that Mutant had a song called Scrap Brain Zone, I was secretly a bit disappointed it didn't sound like this. Listen to how great it is:


Sonic 3 - Hydrocity Zone Act 1 & Lava Reef Zone Act 1
Sonic 1 & 2 both have their fair share of amazing music (the Chemical Plant Zone goes without saying), but I think Sonic 3 (& Knuckles) actually has the best overall soundtrack. These two tracks are my favourite slices of Sonic musical joy ever. I bloody love 'em. Especially Lava Reef, it's bloody amazing.



Final Fantasy VII - You Can Hear The Cry Of The Planet & Judgement Day
This is where it gets bloody epic, boys and girls. Both of these tracks have a real sense of impending doom and madness about them, but different kinds of doom. The first one is a kind of sad horrible doom (especially when you know what comes next), and the second one is a mixture of apocalyptic doom but also hope and glory because you're about to save the world. Seriously, imagine that music as a final level/dungeon/whatever soundtrack. It's amazing. The best final level music I have ever heard. Really epic and unbelievable.



Final Fantasy VII - One-Winged Angel
Pretty much the best final boss music of all time. Just bloody listen to the epic madness! If I was a massive amazing band playing at Wembley Stadium, I'd play the whole of this track as my intro music.


Final Fantasy VIII - Drifting
As emotional game music goes, this my real favourite indeed. I like Aeris' Theme in FFVII, but it's also a little bit over the top, with massive strings in your face going "CRY! CRY YOU BASTARDS, THIS IS AN EMOTIONAL BIT!" On the other hand, this track is much nicer and wonderful. The silence in between each bit is so amazingly effective, it's unbelievable. For those who haven't played it, imagine the lovely female character that you fancy floating around in space about to die while this music is playing. For a game that starts out very, erm, tediously, this bit suddenly kicked me right up the arse when I played it for the first time. Really amazing indeed.


Final Fantasy VIII - Premonition/The Legendary Beast
Ok, so just two more then. These two tracks from FFVIII are my very nearly favourite pieces of boss music goodness. Actually The Legendary Beast comes very close to topping One-Winged Angel, but I'm not sure about that yet. Premotion is more of an energetic 'oh my goodness I better defeat the evil sorceress quickly!' kind of a thing, but with a wonderful emotional goodness to it. The Legendary Beast is just mighty and powerful. Listen to how mighty it is. Imagine being about to finally complete a 50-hour game with this bloody amazing music. This is why I remember FFVIII being really good, even though it's not really that good, but the amazing music, especially towards the end, really makes a difference.



There are plenty more games that aren't Sonic or Final Fantasy that have amazing music (Okami and Shadow of the Colossus are two of them, I'll come back to those!), but that should probably do for now. I hope you have enjoyed this as much as I have.

Oh fuck yes, I love you Jon. I'm getting my groove on!!

Epic 1st bout theme from Real Bout: Fatal Fury


Epic fighting game BGM


Epic Uematsu rearrangements


Epic... epicness


And no post would be complete without this...

cool thread,i think theres an ancient one but sod it,theres always plenty on cool video game tunage on my mp3/fused in my brain from many moons ago.

my 11th birthday joy in Alien 3 on megadrive.it goes through plenty on twists and key changes.


digi-slap base heaven(in space)


my earliest memories in an arcade are of outrun.ALL the track on this game are classic
the compositions on this were great and some of my faves.i regularly go back to them and get all nostalgic.


we all love ff7 epic goodness.
how about this catchy,jolly village theme from alundra.
im currently 5hours through playing this again.last time i completed it i was in secondary school and i forgot just how amazing it is.its pretty much Zelda link to the past on ps1



and heres a suspiciously similar track on 2 other classic rpgs:

Chrono trigger's OST always wins

I agree with all FFVII and Sonic suggestions. But want to add the Robotnik themes from Sonic 1 and 2.

In terms of underrated game music this is my nomination, from the greatest pinball game of all time (even better than Crue-ball!):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_DnpZdJ_yY

Robotnik ALWAYS deserves a mention. Anybody who utters 'Eggman' shall be slapped.

I found myself listening to this last night, pretty joyous!

yesss to FF7 and 8 ...had the soundtracks blasting earlier!!

i find 'Waltz for the Moon' to be totally amazing all the time... i transcribed a fingerstyle guitar version from the orchestral piece and then reformatted my hard drive still not got round to learning it!

I love the music in Heroes 3, mostly 2min loop pieces but some of them are bloody nice!



Do and of you guys play game music on instruments? I try quite a bit of Nobuo synth licks cos they sound so fuckin SWEEEEEEEEEET! was playing Highwind theme earlier, Boss music is my fave to play though... arpeggios from next

I jam to SNK and Arc System Works soundtracks all the time. The Black Mages are pretty sweet for the Final Fantasy themes though!

I really like this song.

I think this has to be one of the best pieces of music ever composed for a video game:



Here are some more favorites:


(also, check out a track from Shinobi 3 called Idaten)

/thread

Tom, your Shinobi 3 choice there (Solitary) is amazing, that was my favourite music of the game, so bloody awesome!

And Dave, don't get me started on Earthworm Jim music, it's far too amazing for mere mortals like us! I need a whole week to talk about how amazing those games/music are. And how fucking hard they are too. Thank goodness for emulators/save states.

FUCK tha GBA ports though, what utterly unplayable bouts of wankery they were

I don't even go near them, I heard they were pretty bad! I also tried Earthworm Jim 3D a little bit, which made me nearly cry. And not in a good way.