Most recent ones of the top of my head:

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Metroid Prime 1 & 2
Metal Gear Solid 3
Super Robot Wars Original Generations
Kingdom Hearts 2
Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner
Lumines Plus
Halo: Combat Evolved
Sonic the Hedgehog 3

I was playing Street Fighter 2 for SNES for the first in a long time...that actually has a good soundtrack!

Other good ones:

All the Splinter Cell games (esp Amon Tobin's Chaos Theory)
F.E.A.R.
King Kong
Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance
The Lost World: Jurassic Park
Crash Bandicoot 2
Gundam Battle Assault 2
Goldeneye 007 (for 64) < classic
The Turok games
DK Country

Almost forgot Dino Crisis 2, the music is very ambient.

Kefka's theme from FF6
Actually, why not the whole soundtrack, great game too.

Katamari Damacy theme

The music in Xenogears wasn't so much GOOD but well placed.

FFIX music was great and fit the setting as well.

Sonic 1-3 and knuckles, anything after that is horrible game-wise and music.

Pokemon G/S, D/P.

One Winged Angel, the FF7 movie version, that song from the game is cool too, but i like it better on the movie

Sachiel_13 wrote:One Winged Angel, the FF7 movie version, that song from the game is cool too, but i like it better on the movie

Ugh.

ANyways, my favourites tend to be Freespace, Wing Commander, Street Fighter 2, Katamari Damaci, if only for how trippy it is. The first DooM had some really excellent tunes that helped set the mood for the levels, like House of Pain's soundtrack.

BTW, if you want to Hear the WC series music, from all five games, it's in the music section at[url]www.wcnews.com[/url]

20XD6_Tyrant wrote:

Sachiel_13 wrote:One Winged Angel, the FF7 movie version, that song from the game is cool too, but i like it better on the movie

Ugh.

ANyways, my favourites tend to be Freespace, Wing Commander, Street Fighter 2, Katamari Damaci, if only for how trippy it is. The first DooM had some really excellent tunes that helped set the mood for the levels, like House of Pain's soundtrack.

BTW, if you want to Hear the WC series music, from all five games, it's in the music section at[url]www.wcnews.com[/url]

dont get me wrong, the movie itself sucked

Sachiel_13 wrote:dont get me wrong, the movie itself sucked

Yes it did.
FF7 as a whole barely lives up to the hype, compared to some SNES and other PS1 RPGs, VII is lacking in too many places to be called "best RPG ever". It had a pretty nice soundtrack (Jenova battle music) though.

I agree. Just listening to the orchestral version of one-winged angel still sends shivers down my spine

Hmm, I would have to say from what I can remember.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
The Darkness
Gears of War
Fable
Prince of Persia: Sands of Time
Prince of Persia: Warrior Within
Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones
Black and White
Black and White 2
The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion
Half-Life 2
Rome: Total War
Medieval 2: Total War
Max Payne
Max Payne 2
World of Warcraft
Star Wars Galaxies: Empire Divided
Gun
F.E.A.R.
Halo
Halo 2

The list could go on I guess, but that's all that comes to mind at the moment.

The only game I thought that I noticed because of it's music is Homeworld.... sheesh Adagio for strings made it so depressing :(

I think it's time to bump this thread.

Been playing Persona 4 Arena to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgxmeikYOpQ

Sonic CD Japanese/European's soundtrack.
Radiant Silvergun
Soulcalibur 1
Virtual On MARZ
NiGHTS Into Dreams

Oh fuck yea, a vidya soundtrack thread. I love the soundtracks in games. Good music can make even the worst games memorable.

Halo: Not even gonna name one of the games because it's impossible to choose. Just pick any Halo game other than Wars or 4 and the soundtrack is killer. Marty O'Donnell is a fucking king. Some people mourn the multiplayer of Halo in 4, some people mourn the story, I mourn the soundtrack.

WoW: I joke about it but the Howling Fjord music was one of the main reasons I bought the Wrath of the Lich King Collectors Edition, I just wanted that OST. (Truthfully I was buying it because I loved WoW to death at the time). LK had some amazing music but that's not to say BC or Vanilla didn't. To this day I still can't listen to, say, the Burning Crusade log on music, or perhaps the Stormwind music, or the Elwynn forest music, or the Westfall music without feeling the addiction pangs. Nay, Blizzard! I will not let you lure me back with your foul siren's call! God, the worst part is I know I'm forgetting some zones. The thing with WoW was even if the song wasn't good enough to be iconic it was still good enough that you couldn't help but associate it with the zone. I miss you WoW, I really do, but I can't come back. You've changed too much. I'll always remember the times we had together

Fable 1: I don't remember much about the Fable One sound track, but I do remember thinking it was good. Oh that Oakvale music, it just makes me want to reinstall. It's such a shame the sequels never lived up to the potential. Oh what could have been....

The Elder Scrolls: I know the names of two composers. Marty O'Donnell of Bungie and Halo fame, and Jeremy Soule of The Elder Scrolls fame. If Marty is a King than Jeremy is perhaps a God. Or maybe they're both Gods. The most iconic piece of TES music is almost certainly the Morrowind theme which was so good they've essentially remixed it for each TES game since. Then you have the Oblivion theme and last, and certainly least of the three, the Skyrim theme. Fuck, now I want to go play some Oblivion even though five minutes ago I wanted too reinstall Fable, and minutes before that I wanted to resubscribe to WoW.

The Witcher: Both The Witcher games had some amazing music that really captured the feel of the world. Sample 1 Sample 2 Sample 3 Sample 4 Sample 5 Sample 6 Sample 7 and last but certainly not least Sample 8

Aion: Oh Aion, my first foray into Korean MMO's. I was so young and naive, I had so much hope. All of it was crushed by how blatantly grindy you were Jesus fucking Christ. But for as bad as you were at the time, one thing you did amazingly well was your soundtrack. From the moment I started you up and heard your lovely theme music, to the moment I entered Pandemonium, to battles in the Abyss, you never ceased to amaze my ears. I had high hopes for TERA's soundtrack given the beauty of yours, unfortunately TERA's OST didn't even come close.

Rift: Rift's soundtrack was almost entirely forgettable. Almost, except for the gem that was it's theme. Unfortunately the music takes a wild turn at the 1:07 mark and never really comes back.

Honorable Mentions go to Killing Floor and it's heavy rock background music which makes killing mutants all the more fun, Hotline Miami and whatever you call those 80's beats it puts out, Metro 2033 for it's "Good" Ending theme music, the Portal series, and Dragon Age: Origins.

Man, I can tell I'll be coming back to this thread.

Metal Gear Solid has the best soundtracks. I could go on and on about how much I do. I love all the main themes and endings. Though "The best yet to come" didn't effect me but that scene in MGS4 was a wonderful placement. Each track sets the mood perfectly though some can be generic and forgettable like some Cobras and B&Bs.

Metal Gear 2 on the MSX has the best 8bit music I heard. I recommend checking it out. Its different but its all good.

Even MGSV has a good soundtrack so far. I can't stop listening to "Sins of the Father" and "Not your kind of people". I think Sins is much more fitting as Not your people is very modern.

Also Space Oddity is awesome. It was going to be the ending theme to MGS3 due to The Boss's backstory puts emphasis on space.

Shadow of the Colossus had a stellar soundtrack. I hope Kow Otani manages to replicate this success with The Last Guardian.

Zero Escape: Being a Japanese horror game (to a degree), it has to draw you in psychologically and terrify you by putting you in the situation. The dialogue and descriptions surely do that by themselves already, but then the soundtrack takes that and throws it over the top. The soundtrack for this series is so good it has its own trope page. Whenever I think I've royally screwed up, "Demise" is the first and only thing playing in my head.

Golden Sun: This was the first series I played on GBA (followed shortly by my next entry). I was blown away by just how fantastic the sound was at the time. I still stand by that - for the level of technology, the music also drew you into the setting. It added desperation, mysticism, and so many other elements I can't even begin to describe. Echoing chimes in a ruin, an aria at the elemental lighthouses. Again, it brought the game a step closer to reality.

Advance Wars: Because it's a tactical RPG of sorts, the music has to be good when repeated numerous times. Advance Wars successfully nails this mark. Catchy CO themes, hope when you activate a Power, despair when an enemy activates theirs. I get chills when I hear "Tag Power," because I feel like it's a hopeful push to defeat whatever I'm working on, and it works. I think of "Sasha's Theme" when it starts to snow.

Fire Emblem Awakening: I don't think I need to even explain this one too in-depth. Don't Speak Her Name. Probably the most powerful piece I've encountered in the game yet.

And because I've run out of words, I'll list the rest:
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance
Tales of Symphonia
Megaman Battle Network
Star Fox 64
Mass Effect

I almost don't notice the music in most games anymore. I mean I know it's there, obviously, and it undeniably adds to the overall experience, but in most modern games I've played it's always of an atmospheric and/or dynamic nature rather than a piece that really ties itself to a particular experience. Aside from the title screen almost nothing in Skyrim stands out to me, for example... it's all just a big blurred together vaguelly LotR-ish 'epic' soundscape. Perhaps this is simply a consequence of the types of games I play these days: almost exclusively 1st person RPGs on PC, like Fallout, Bioshock, Deus Ex, etc. with the occational JRPG or platformer title on my 3DS.

Certainly nothing I've heard in the last decade has stuck with me as much as the soundtracks from my favorite childhood titles like the early FF's, Chrono Trigger, Castlevania, etc. It's also possible that part of the issue is simply that there's so much MORE music in modern games. I mean I'd recognize anything from FF Tactics but I couldn't tell you where any particular pieces shows up in the game or what any track's name was, but give me a taste of ANY track from the 8 or 16 bit Mega Man games and I'll know exactly who it belongs to.

Is it just me, or the soundtracks of new games seem to be nonexistent? Whenever I play games like AC, apart from Halo and games like Bayonetta, I don't realize about soundtracks, I mean, I do, but you don't hear them often at all.

some of my favorite video game composers:

Nobuo Uematsu
Yasunori Mitsuda
Koji Igarashi
Motoi Sakuraba
Alexander Brandon
Mark Morgan
Harry Gregson-Williams
Matt Uelmen
Chikayo Fuyuda

and i wholeheartedly agree about modern video game music lacking substance; it's used more as a backdrop rather than help engage and immerse the player in the world - 'tis sad