Best music from computer games

[LaGoosh]

The perfect example of ultimate wish fulfilment game music. This tune makes you ready to fight the whole world.

 

[The Gaffer]

@LaGoosh If you were playing at launch it took on a bit of a comedy guise as - with the broken AI - you'd invariably drop into compounds/fortified areas and methodically hack your way through 100 people calmly sitting on car bonnets, smoking cigarettes and staring at the walls as Anxiety: The Soundtrack pumped. 

[Sphinx]

Early grime track from Wolverine: Adamantium Rage - 1994

 

[Merzbow]

Not strictly from a game but there's a 30th anniversary Ridge Racer remix album, this track from one of the sound guys from Tekken 8 is kinda mental.

 

[TildeGuy~!]

Streets Of Rage music composers Yuzo Koshiro and Motohiro Kawashima done a DJ set in France at the Red Bull music festival back in 2018 

 

[Merzbow]

Not a good game at all but it has some great harsh sounding music.

[LaGoosh]

Talk to anyone who's played Max Payne 3. Say the word "airport" and they immediately know what you're talking about:

Perfect synching of music, action and violence. A brilliant and haunting song. As soon as it starts you know you're in one of those special moments in gaming.

 

[RedTwoster]

Aerie’s theme, from the Distant Worlds concert in London. Just beautiful, very few things in entertainment get me as emotional as this song. 

Very few things…but this certainly does:

The final boss theme in Omori. It’s hard to find a version of this that doesn’t include spoilers, but you’re safe to listen to this if you’ve not played the game. If you have played it (and I imagine the vast majority of you have not) you’ll understand why this fight is so powerful and affecting. 

From one slightly obscure song from gaming that depresses the life out of you to another…

Fun fact: the game that this is from, The House in Fata Morgana, was at one point the highest rated game on Metacritic. It’s a visual novel and a very good one at that, albeit one with a few uncomfortable Japanese tropes. I’d still recommend it though, particularly if you like the genre. The story, in the end, is pretty beautiful. 

And moving away from the miserable music…

Final Fantasy XVI’s tremendous boss music. Best boss theme from the whole series, in my opinion. 

And a jolly one to finish things off…

Very few tunes get me as nostalgic as this one does. It’s the sound of the first games console I saved up for and paid for myself, the sound of the first PlayStation game I 100% completed, and the sound that reminds me I’ve regressed as a gamer as I could never 100% this now!

Edited October 26, 2024 by RedTwoster

[FLips]

Definitely nostalgic for that Crash 2 Warp Room music.

If we're going with nostalgic tracks for me, here's a few cuts from ol Flips' brain.

Back in 2000 my Mum took the time to convert our garage (it was more like a brick shed attached to the bottom of our kitchen) into a little games room for us. Aside from the fact it still had our big top-opening freezer in there (and still does now it's my Dad's toolshed) it was completely cleaned out and now our Micromachines and PS1 were in there. I was also into marbles at the time for some reason. I still remember the room stank of citronella.

Anyway, while my PS1 was in there I played Jade Cocoon for the first time and loved it. I didn't understand the mechanics well enough to complete it but I got into the late game dungeons. I remember one Sunday I went to the car boot with my Nana and came home with a WWF 1991 Annual and played a bunch of Jade Cocoon. Great times.

Another one that fixes me into a specific time and place was playing Age of Empires II on my mate's PC whenever I'd go round his house. I think nearly all my mates had PCs in the house but he was the only one where the PC was his and in his room, so we would go to the corner shop and buy a few cans of cherry coke and a handful of Bubbaloos and play a bunch of Age of Empires, INCA 2: Wiracocha and Champ Man 00/01.

One of the best things about becoming a wrestling fan in the early 2000s was just absorbing every bit of wrestling I could from anywhere I could get it. It was so strange, I'd never even heard of wrestling growing up, nobody I knew watched it at home or at school, nobody talked about it even during Austin 3:16. Then one day walking home one of the lads in my class, James, locked me in a crossface chickenwing because he saw Bob Backlund do it and I was just hooked from there, watching the "who ran over Stone Cold?" story on Channel 4.
Soon enough my best mate was also into it too, then then going into 2001 a lad moved in across from my Grandad and his whole family was into it. By the time 2001 rolled around I had a great circle of friends that suddenly were all now into wrestling. We'd all share tapes, magazines, games, everything. We'd constantly be told off for wrestling at school, and have big royal rumbles and ladder matches on the field after school. My Grandad would cut me the wrestling page out of the Daily Star and save it for me, he also saved up tokens and got me a Best of World of Sport DVD which was how I was introduced to Big Daddy, Giant Haystacks, and so on, and saw the unmasking ceremony of Kendo Nagasaki.

The lad that moved in had WWF Super Wrestlemania on the Mega Drive and even in 2000/2001 with my PS1 I still played my Mega Drive so I borrowed it and remember thinking the opening title screen was really good, and if you stayed on the wrestler select long enough you could hear their theme music! Shame the game was rubbish, but I still enjoy the music now and again.

Another "rubbish fighting game with great music" that I grew up playing a bunch of was George Foreman's KO Boxing. I have no idea why I owned this. My Grandad was into boxing so maybe he got me it to try and get me keen on it. It didn't work though because it must have took me years before I beat Bullet Lorenzo or whatever the first guy was called.
The title music is a banger though, which is a good job the amount of times I got sent back there. I remember when I finally beat the Bullet though I ran to tell him.

 

[RedTwoster]

20 minutes ago, FLips said:

Anyway, while my PS1 was in there I played Jade Cocoon for the first time and loved it. I didn't understand the mechanics well enough to complete it but I got into the late game dungeons. I remember one Sunday I went to the car boot with my Nana and came home with a WWF 1991 Annual and played a bunch of Jade Cocoon. Great times.

Jade Cocoon is a game I always wanted when I was younger, but never had the chance to play outside of the demo. I’d actually clean forgotten about it until reading your post. Is it a game that’s worth playing all these years later, would you say?

[FLips]

2 hours ago, RedTwoster said:

Jade Cocoon is a game I always wanted when I was younger, but never had the chance to play outside of the demo. I’d actually clean forgotten about it until reading your post. Is it a game that’s worth playing all these years later, would you say?

Oh for sure. It's not Final Fantasy VII or anything but it has a lot going for it now. Unique concept with a lot of variation on monsters, developed alongside one of Studio Ghibli's animators so all the characters and pre-rendered backgrounds look stunning still, and it's fairly short for an RPG at about 10-15 hours. Back when I was streaming during covid I played it and still got a lot out of it.

[TildeGuy~!]

Persona 3,4 and 5 all have amazing music so here’s the live concert.

 

[RedTwoster]

17 minutes ago, TildeGuy~! said:

Persona 3,4 and 5 all have amazing music so here’s the live concert.

You know, outside of the final boss in Persona 5, I’ve not found the soundtracks of any of the games to be particularly memorable. But that final boss theme is a banger, so here it is:

Talking of banging boss themes, the one in the Live-a-Live remake is sensational:

How can that not pump you up? Same goes for the final boss theme in Sonic 3 & Knuckles:

The Sorceress boss fight theme in Final Fantasy VIII is another favourite of mine…

And the Beatrix boss theme in Final Fantasy IX rarely gets the love it deserves:

 

[LaGoosh]

53 minutes ago, RedTwoster said:

You know, outside of the final boss in Persona 5, I’ve not found the soundtracks of any of the games to be particularly memorable.

Blasphemy! So much of the soundtrack in 5 is absolute gold. The chill out normal world music in 5 is some of my favourite stuff in games. Like this gem:

Like a warm blanket for me.

 

 

[Merzbow]

The music is half of what makes those games special, cool as fuck stuff.

Speaking of cool music... SOMEBODY SAID I'M GOOD GIRL!!