There’s no lack of games out there with really great soundtracks. Plenty of people have tried to reduce these into some sort of definitive top ten list, but this does no justice to the sheer amount of amazing musical works that have accompanied games over the years. In this series of articles, we will showcase a various soundtracks, taking some time to wax poetic about them, hopefully exposing some gamers to new, wonderful music in the process, or at least reminding other gamers of some of gaming's greatest tunes.

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A Night at the Opera

Showcasing Gaming's Greatest Soundtracks

Xenogears

Sure, we could slap the entire Xenosaga series in here as well, but we’ll focus on the game that started it all. The game’s composer, Yasunori Mitsuda, had already sent waves through the industry for his score in the SNES RPG Chrono Trigger, but game was a decidedly more epic outing from Mitsuda. Right from the opening animation sequence players were greeted with an orchestral score that started off slowly, and grew to cacophonous levels as a huge starship was destroyed.

Xenogears ran the gambit from epic battle music, to subtle pieces while exploring cities, and everything in between. It's easily one of Yasunori Mitsuda's best early soundtracks.

Every step of the way, the music feels so right for what’s happening in Xenogears. The battle music pumps along, whenever there’s a cut scene of some sort the tunes match up perfectly with what’s going on. This is a long game too, so being able to produce such quality music that needs to span so many events is no mean feat.

There’s plenty of debate out there as to the quality of Xenogears’ story, but few can find bad things to say about its soundtrack. It's no wonder that Mitsuda stopped making music exclusively for Square after this game, and went freelance instead. His earlier works were reason enough for him to be considered one of the best game composers in Japan, but the score in Xenogears really cemented this.

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Rez

The fusion of action and music in Rez is something rarely seen. While this symbiosis is the central focus of the game, the music in and of itself can easily standing on its own two feet. The tracks are firmly set in the world of electronic music, with a harsh, abrasive, mechanical feel to them. The game is set in a computerized

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virtual construct where the AI running it is trying to shut the whole thing down, so players have to take on the role of a hacker entering the network to prevent this. As such, this very virtual-sounding soundtrack makes a lot of sense.

Rez combined music and gameplay in a way never seen before or since its release. The tunes themselves work great in-game and yet can stand up on their own.

Sega actually brought a lot of talented electronic music artists in to contribute to Rez. The likes of Ken Ishii, Cold Cut, and Keiichi Sugiyama all have tracks in the game. (I’m a bit partial to Ken Ishii myself, so that’s one big reason for me to like Rez’s soundtrack.)

What really makes the music pop in the game is how it continually grows over time. It’s all so simple early in each level, then slowly but surely more parts come into play, and by the time you’re near the end of a level music is roaring around everywhere in a bombastic swell of sound. All the while, the player contributes in their own way to the music in how they shoot at the enemies on screen, with each shot and explosion contributing more to the ever-growing musical beat.

The manner in which Rez combines music and gameplay is something that is truly unique, making this a game that will be remembered (and enjoyed!) for years to come.

Super Mario World

All of the old NES Super Mario Bros. games had very memorable tunes, but their one weakness was that they got repetitive very quickly. By the time that the franchise made it onto the SNES, though, composers had a lot more that they could work with, allowing them to create much richer scores that didn’t wind up being 30-60 second long loops. With Super Mario World, we were greeted with the usual Mario Bros. cheerfulness in its music, but there was so much more of it, and the songs lasted a fair bit longer.

Most every Super Mario Bros. game has had a number of standout tracks, but when the series came to the SNES it feels like Koji Kondo really wanted to show off what the console could do with music.

Everything from running through your typical stage, to the overworld maps, to the boss fights felt like a big leap forward for the game’s music compared to its NES predecessors. Listening to the game’s score, one gets the sense that its composer, Koji Kondo, really wanted to make Super Mario World’s soundtrack stand out, and showcase what Nintendo’s new system could do musically.

There’s no denying that just about every Mario Brothers game has a number of tracks that can still get stuck in our head to this day, but we wanted to single out Super Mario World in this article for doing such a good job in upping the ante as to what a platformer’s soundtrack could be.

Streets of Rage 2

We could do an entire article dedicated to the works of Yuzo Koshiro, given the sheer number of excellent musical scores that he’s pumped out over the years, but for today we’ll focus on what is arguably one of his most popular: Streets of Rage 2.

Yuzo Koshiro has contributed to countless amazing game soundtracks, but for many Streets of Rage 2 remains their favorite.

Listening to the game’s music now, it’s easy to see that club music of the 1990s was a powerful influence on it. A number of stages had very dance-y sounding tunes that had players tapping their toes while punching street thugs in the face. The game also occasionally drifted into a more jazzy tone, which made for a nice break from the dance music.

Thankfully Streets of Rage 2 gave players the ability to listen to all of the game’s music from the options menu. I, like I’m sure many others did, spent a lot of time on this screen just listening to the songs over and over again.

roygbiv

February 11, 2009