Your favourite video game music

Video Games
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I’m such a nerd that I nearly always listen to video game music and not “real” artists. There is a fitting video game song for every situation. I guess I love these songs so much cause they remind me of my love of the game itself, the fun I had playing and the compassion I developed towards the video game characters. And, of course, cause many video game songs are just so good.

So, which ones are your favourites? Here are some of mine:

Dark Souls: Gwyn, Lord of Cinder. At first it felt weird that the final boss would have such a sad piano song and not some epic battle music. But when you know the story, when you know how far you’ve come, when you know about Gwyn’s sacrifice, it is perfectly fitting. It is sad, but it is also beautiful and full of relief.

Dark Souls: Ornstein & Smough. This just might be the most epic song ever composed. It makes chills down run my spine when I think about the moment I entered the white fog for the first time and these two just immediately came at me and I desperately tried running around the room before dying. And I got up and tried and tried and tried and it was such a hard battle but I finally won! I listen to this when I have to get motivated for boring school stuff.

Bastion: The whole goddamn soundtrack. This soundtrack is a masterpiece. I can’t choose just one, two or three songs. All of them are just so good.

Persona 4: Battle Theme. And many other songs in this game. They make me happy.

Final Fantasy VI: Terra’s Theme. Me and my boyfriend went to a game music concert, and when the orchestra played this, we both cried manly tears. Even me, even though I’m a woman. That’s how good this song is.

Chrono Trigger: Frog’s Theme. This is the most majesthetic song ever composed. And Frog deserves it!

Final Fantasy X: To Zanarkand. Sorry, can’t write, crying.

Fallout 3: Main Theme. Cause war… war never changes.

Guild Wars 2: Fear Not This Night. So beautiful. Then I ruin it every Christmas by failing in the bell ringing minigame.

Walking Dead Season 2: In the Pines. If I ever want to cry, this always hits the spot. Oh, Lee, how we miss you. Me and Clementine both.

DmC Devil May Cry: Never Surrender. This is quite different from the others, but there are situations when you just need to kick everyone’s ass.

Fire Emblem Awakening: Main Theme. Oh. My. God. This. Song. Try not to get chills at 1:00. I dare you.

Uh, maybe I should let someone else post some of their favourites now… my list could get super long :sweat_smile:

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Nice topic. I like the following soundtracks:

  • Super Meat Boy
  • Mega Man 2
  • Castlevania 1,2,3.4, SOTN
  • Ninja Gaiden
  • Transistor

If you’re into retro game music these guys are awesome:


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I love me some video game music!

I’m a huge fan of the Smooth McGroove acapella stuff. If you’ve not heard of him, he has a YouTube channel where he redoes a ton of different classic video game songs with just his voice. I listen to his albums quite a bit.

I also really like the soundtrack to Dustforce by Lifeformed. He also did the soundtrack to the documentary about the Double Fine Adventure game.

Great topic.

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Excellent list. Quality songs abound.

I have trouble selecting specific songs vs. entire game sound tracks. While some individual titles stand out, sometimes it is the feeling the full score provides that I love. Regardless, let’s give this a shot.

Chrono Trigger: Corridors of Time, Schala’s Theme, The Final Battle, The Trial and the rest of the Chrono Trigger OST

Mass Effect (songs from all three games): The Normandy, Uncharted Worlds, Leaving Earth, I Was Lost Without You, An End Once and For All, and everything else from Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, and Mass Effect 3

Tear Away: Everything on this OST, with special nods to The Orchards, Gibbet Hill – Lament & Hornpipe, Gibbet Hill – Pilgrimage,

Secret of Mana: Fear of the Heavens, Phantom and a Rose, The Little Sprite, Dancing Animals

Illusion of Gaia: Lola’s Theme, Signs of the Past, The Memory Melody,

Every single song from Zelda: A Link to the Past with nods to: Overworld, Turned into a Rabbit, Dark World, Battle with Ganon

Journey: The road of trials,

Battletoads: title Theme

Mega Man X: The whole thing

Final Fantasy Tactics: Player Creation, Attack Team,

Machinarium: Gameboy Tune

Shadow of the Colossus

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon

Everything from Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn and Heavensward, some examples being Ultima’s Theme and Diabolos Theme (can you spot the chrono Trigger reference in the second song? ;-))

Ok, I have gone on far too long. As you said @Incus, “my list could get super long.” There is quite a variety of stellar video game music in the world. Thanks for posting the topic.

Edit: I have to add Sailing Icy Seas from World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Litch King. I nearly forgot how much I loved this song, one of the best from what is still my favourite period in the history of WoW.

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I have a tonne of game music, but my favourite, by a long shot is the theme to:

  • Thomas Was Alone
    It was composed especially for the game, by David Housden, who apparently worked very closely with Mike Bithell. The pieces with a cello in feel exceptionally sad and it is truly a beautiful piece of work in my mind, and my wife loves it to.

Other game music that I play fairly frequently, as I find its just pleasant background music to work to is:

  • Braid (again, a lot of cello pieces in it)
  • Diablo, Reaper of Souls.
  • Monument Valley
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@BorisY I have to agree with your choices. Excellent scores.

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I’m the same way. Video game music is my jam! I’m always looking for new stuff to add to my playlist. Picking favorite songs is hard for me, so here are some good ones that I’ve heard recently.

Hotline Miami: Hydrogen

Ni No Kuni: Main Theme and Drippy

Halo 5 Guardians: Scavengers

I’ve also been listening to DJ Cutman remixes.

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@kazooie Ah man, I love M|O|O|N. I didn’t realize that their music was in Hotline Miami (because I have yet to play it). Bonus points to that game.

I was somewhat disappointed with Ni No Kuni but I can admit the music was pretty fantastic.

Much love for DJ Cutman!

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I have to add that Far Cry 4 had some amazing songs by the way of The Bombay Royale.

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I really love the stuff made by Alexander Brandon and crew (Straylight Productions) for Unreal Tournament, Deus Ex, System Shock, Crusader: No Regret etc. That 90’s chiptune/tracker music is some of the best.

Mark Morgan and Jespyr Kyd have done a lot of great stuff. Can’t say I’ve heard anything like the (Fallout) ‘Vault Archives’ 1+2.

Quake 1. I don’t know anything quite like it.

E.Y.E. Divine Cybermancy.

Other good bits: Arcanum, Gun Godz, Chaos Overlords, Another World, Half-Life, Diablo 2, TES: Oblivion, Defcon, Barkley Shut up and Jam Gaiden, C&C95, Paradise Cracked, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (especially Call of Pripyat) Syndicate, Thief 3, Temple of Elemental Evil, Another Star, Star Wolves, Wipeout (does that count?)

Some good ones lately: Heavy Barrel, Axelay, Journey To Silius, Wizards and Warriors, (that list goes on and on)

Dragon Age Origins/Awakening had exceptional music.

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I absolutely love this song:
Theme of Simon Belmont by Ferdk. Nice guitar rendition of the Super Castlevania IV theme song.

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I’ve compiled a list of my personal favorite video game tracks not too long ago.

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Phenomenal tracks. I forgot how much I loved the music in Blaster Master.

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I love the Dark Souls music, and that Ornstein and Smough theme always sends shivers of horror down my spine!

I have the soundtracks to these games and listen to them fairly frequently: Myst, Riven, FEZ, Doom, Thief: The Dark Project, System Shock 2, Hotline Miami
More recently I’ve been listening to the wonderful Hyperlight Drifter soundtrack (even though I haven’t played the game). I also really liked the music from the Final Fantasy XV demo. The soundtrack to Dark Souls 3 comes for free with the steam purchase and I’ve been listening to that a lot too, beautiful, haunting music, especially the track Secret Betrayal.

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My favorite game music:

-Metal gear solid snake eater (Main theme)
-The Eleder Scrolls: Skyrim (Main theme)
-Terraria (Boss 1)
-Crypt of the necrodancer (Full sountrack)
-Portal (Main theme)
-Jet Set Radio (Full sountrack)
-Assassins creed (Main theme)
-Castlevania (All chambers from the 1st game)

And of course a few legendary ones like Sonic and Mario themes but i feel like
i dont have to include them here.

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And last but not least, the intro to this game. So many memories attached to it.

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Some brilliant songs in this list.

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I was thinking about this thread and I kept remembering some of my all-time favourite tracks that need a mention. Some of these are really obscure and should be memorialised.
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I think my favourite game track of all time has to be the Underwater Theme from Donkey Kong Country. Can’t believe I forgot to mention it originally. Here’s the original, but I really enjoy this hipster remix, of which there are many floating around the internet.


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A recent favourite is this song from Bernband. Really unique game, totally bizarre and visionary, It can be downloaded for free here - Game Jolt - Indie games for the love of it. Probably the most successful “walking simulator” I’ve ever played. Cool song too:
bernband trailer
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This is a really fascinating and obscure song from the game “Raw Recruit” for the ZX Spectrum. My mind is blown by the fact that they could make such complex music with this limited hardware. At first thing song sounds like a mess, but if you actually listen further the tune really takes off and becomes this unforgettable crescendo of intertwined melodies with bizarre time signatures:
ZX SPECTRUM \“RAW RECRUIT\” beeper music
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This is a cool little trailer for a game made by Cactusquid. The game and song are both really awesome. This guy eventually went on to make Hotline Miami and became famous, but this is from earlier in his career when he was just an obscure little free game dev/blogger.
Norrland Trailer
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Btw, I apologise for flooding this thread with spam, but I was looking through all these ancient Youtube links that I have saved, and I remembered this one particular video. Everyone knows the success of Five Nights at Freddies and how mechanical animal puppet things can be terrifying. But I remember, many many years before that game appeared, watching this obscure video on youtube, Even though it’s supposedly a harmless instructional video, at the time I thought there was something disturbing about this footage… I wonder if this particular series of videos was the inspiration for FNAF? :
Concept Unification 1
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I can’t really explain why, but there are so many songs in the Undertale soundtrack that just can’t get old to me. Like, I could probably listen to songs like Megalovania for days on end and still enjoy them. I wanna say it’s the variety of styles and soundfonts used in each song, but I can’t tell for sure.

Aside from that, Mother 3 has a really good soundtrack that has a powerful impact on the game’s dark tone. I also love the orchestrated tracks in Xenoblade Chronicles. I’m still playing it, so I’ve still got more songs to discover in that game.

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Life is Strange

Love the music in this game, but I didn’t realize until very recently that DONTNOD created a Spotify playlist (linked above) with the in-game tracks. Bless them. It is well worth a listen.