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Your favorite game OSTs
Last night while my wife was going through my Spotify to pick a song to listen to while I was driving, she mentioned that 90% of my library consists of instrumentals. (Most of which are game OSTs) I find it much more pleasant to listen to, instead of song with lyrics.
Which made me wonder, there might be some hidden/not so hidden gems that I might be missing out on!
Please share your favorite game OSTs with everyone. (New gems, old gems! Either the entire OST or even 1 song of a game! we don't discriminate!)
Bonus point if it's on Spotify
What I currently listen to:
- Armored core 6
- Shadow of the Erdtree
- God of War: Ragnarok
- Nier: Automata
- Devil May Cry 5
- Celeste
- Scarlet Nexus
- Zenless Zone Zero
- Silent Hill
- Flipwitch (Which I understand to be an 18+ game, which I have NEVER played. I just happened to find the OST on shuffle and it got me addicted. Try the song "A Witch's Thoughts")
- Cult of the Lamb
- Fable
- Atelier series
My mind immediately went to Bastion, and Transistor. Both games by Supergiant Games.
I think they do have some vocals though, it’s been a long time since I’ve listened to them…but now I’ll probably listen to them while working tomorrow.
Hades as well (and Pyre though the game has nowhere near the staying power). Darren Korb is a fucking legend.
Just checked out both of Bastion and Transistor on Spotify.
Thank you so much! While there are a few vocal songs, a lot of them are instrumental and beautiful.
Already added a couple to my favorites!
The Dustforce OST is one of my favorites. I liked the game quite a bit, but I spent way more time listening to the soundtrack than I did playing the game.
If you're into chiptune/electronic, I like the VVVVVV OST too.
Cave Story has a charming soundtrack, but I haven't found any kind of official version on Spotify. It is up on YouTube though.
Edit: Oh, also, if you're feeling in an intense/aggressive mood, Hotline Miami has a lot of great music. M|O|O|N, Perturbator, and Carpenter Brut were all good finds that I first heard in that game.
Loved the Dustforce recommendation!
Already added "Cider Time" and "Elvish Piper Academy" to my favorites!
VVVVVV's OST is really nice too, but will be adding those to my seperate chiptune folder. ;-)
Will look into Cave Story once I get home! Can't access Youtube at work unfortunately.
Dustforce all day every day.
If you don't like lyrics ...I'd recommend getting tested for being neurodiverse.
Donkey Kong Country 2
Diddy Kong Racing
F-Zero X
Halo (series)
Geometry Wars 2
Guilty Gear (series)
StarCraft
Universe At War
VVVVV
Undertale - Megalomania
Gravity Circuit
Ups for StarCraft and VVVVV!
Oh yeah.
I adore Pokémon soundtracks. Gold/Silver in particular is my beloved, and I think the Black/White and Black/White 2 soundtracks did some amazing experimentation within the game's musical structure and the confines of the DS hardware. Legends Arceus is stellar, with some wonderfully dynamic backdrops and beautiful callbacks to the gorgeous scenery themes in Diamond/Pearl/Platinum. Samples: GSC Rival Battle, Colress Battle, Legends Arceus Forest, DPPt Lake Theme
I am SEPARATELY pointing out the Pokémon Trading Card Game game & GB2 because they're some of the coolest fuckin chiptune pop-rock imaginable and shipped on Game Boy hardware without any special post-processing tricks. Just good ol hackery. Medium is the message. Samples: Ronald's Theme, Fortress Leader
The Shovel Knight base soundtrack is functionally a prog rock chiptune album, which is good from a guy who makes prog chiptune albums. Samples: Backed Into a Corner, The Starlit Wilds
Speaking of virt, his non-chiptune stuff slaps and carries the same driving energy. Especially the soundtracks for Mighty Switch Force and its sequel. Samples: Whoa I'm in Space Cuba, Dalmatian Station
I've come to realize that when I play Zelda games, I'm ultimately looking for set-dressing like Wind Waker; its aesthetic, mood, and especially its soundtrack are so varied and magnificent. Zelda music is great, but I don't think anything singularly touches it. Samples: Gohdan, Dragon Roost Island, Molgera
Bemani's music team for DDR, Sound Voltex, IIDX, etc is great. Nekomata Master particularly kills it, though, and Backdrops is a wonderful rhythm game sampler. Sample: Good-bye Chalon
Random shoutout to the Ar Tonelico series, which I've never played but I feel like I don't need to because the soundtracks carry the game's themes and lore beautifully with a wildly unique style and language meshing that itself meshes folk and tech. They have some of my favorite songs.
I'm a huge proponent of older games' MIDI sequencing being part of their vibe, and no amount of reorchestration touches how well FFVII and its synths nailed everything. Sample: Main Theme
I think the defining bit of Sonic the Hedgehog music - and really what keeps him alive - is that the series has a pulse on what cool contemporary music to use and what the pop culture zeitgeist sounds like. Sonic R and Sonic Adventure 2 are timeless. ...ly stuck in their 90s and late 90s/early 00s vibes, but God do they do it well. R is so wistfully optimistic, and SA2 smooshes like five different soundtracks together with a glue stick and asks you to throw glitter at it. Samples: Living in the City, Metal Harbor, Supporting Me, all of Rouge's tracks
Neon White helped me nail down exactly what I wanted out of electronic hardcore. You absolutely lose yourself in its music; I've never been interested in time trial gameplay, but damn did I grind out everything in Neon White. Samples: Rigged Game, House of Cards
I laughed out loud!
I originally ripped the soundtrack of Sonic R from the PC game disc back in the 90s. I’ve carried those files forward with me, from computer to computer, ever since. It is currently uploaded to my Apple Music account so I can listen to it alongside the rest of my library.
By modern standards? It’s definitely dated and ultra cheesy. Did kfwyre know or care about that when he was a kid? Definitely not. He was so into it.
It's so cheese, but the bops aged so fuckin earnestly.
If we are being honest, Sonic R is far from having the cheesiest songs.
Though I also unironically love those songs too.
Thank you for all these recommendations!
I am not able to access Youtube at work, so I'll have a look at these when I get home.
Big YES to Ar Tonelico. I am not able to see your link or check the song's name, but off the top of my head I believe my favorite track is called Exec.Sphilia or something similar.
Just love the made up language and it sounds so enchanting.
Lmao yeah it's the second one I linked. Again, NEVER played the game, but having a musical call-and-response back and forth with the entity you're fighting via half faux-programming language half faux-magical cant is so fucking cool.
One of these days you should check out Resonance of Time / End of Eternity. It’s got a similar world concept minus the singing program interfaces, but it’s got a really great soundtrack and a really unique battle system from Tri-Ace. It’s a seriously underrated gem.
You may or may not enjoy listening to some of the music of Noriko Mitose. I would check out the album Yorlga, which features songs written by Yoshitaka Hirota, whom I mentioned earlier in this topic also works in VGM (if I’m right, it’s how the two met).
I can tell you for certain that the Ar Tonellico soundtracks are definitely better than the games. I would play the first one because it’s a really interesting experience. The developer, Gust, was at the time known for making games that seemed really shallow and simple but ended up being deeper and more interesting than you would expect.
That being said, the sequel got an amazingly mangled translation, and further sequels were not well crafted games. Gust has since become an Atelier game factory - though to be fair, those games are pretty great and they look and feel fantastic.
I share your love for Sonic music, including Sonic R. Snatched that game up when it released for Sega Saturn and never looked back! Honestly the game has aged very poorly, but at the time it knocked my socks off. The graphics were were on par with N64 games and the sense of speed was very good. The severe pop-in and limited number of tracks and racers were not. Of course we were still getting used to hearing so-called "CD-quality" audio in games, so I think the sheer novelty of it in '97 elevated the soundtrack somewhat for me. Honestly these songs were sooo cheesy even then, but they grew on me over time.
In my head there's a whole category of related music from this time period that is distinctly SEGA. Earnestly cheesy, catchy, and cringy. This includes the music from Nights into Dreams, Daytona USA, Sega Rally, and Metropolis Street Racer. I wouldn't recommend these soundtracks to anybody but they capture a unique moment in gaming history that's entangled with a lot of nostalgia for me.
As for Sonic, the classic soundtracks were legitimately, unironically great, from the first game through Sonic & Knuckles. Sonic 3 famously included uncredited contributions from Michael Jackson. I have to give a shout-out to Sonic Mania here for revisiting so many of the original bangers, and even improving on them in a lot of ways. (That whole game was an utterly fantastic love letter to the original 2D games and I highly recommend it if you're a fan of those and missed it somehow.)
How Zelda isn't on everyone's list here is mind boggling. It is the quintessential video game music. Nothing comes close.
Probably the one I have listened to the absolute most is Chrono Cross. Yasunori Mitsuda really knocked the bar out of the park and the vocal ending song is hauntingly beautiful. He later collaborated with Yoshitaka Hirota on Shadow Hearts and that has a crazy interesting soundtrack that isn’t quite like anything else. I would strongly recommend looking for the experimental arranged album called Near Death Experience - it’s an experience all right.
Somewhere in my history there is a whole list of VGM recommendations complete with links to vgmrips to listen to them. I cannot for the life of me find it right now. There are hundreds of soundtracks I like and listen to frequently and I’ve talked about them a lot. I’d recommend perhaps looking up some musicians. Ryu Umemoto is a champion of FM sound design that isn’t well known outside of Japan because most of the stuff he wrote never left the company, but he makes perhaps the most clever compositions you will ever listen to. The soundtrack he is perhaps best known for is YU-NO, but I prefer his other Shu Takumi collaboration in Grounseed.
Motoi Sakuraba is so prolific that it’s almost impossible that you haven’t heard some of his music. He has some really interested arranged albums produced in the late 90s / early 00s, including some really good Valkyrie Profile arrangements.
You can’t go wrong with Sonic soundtracks. They’re full of bangers. But most people have never heard the best one. Knuckles Chaotix
It’s probably obvious that all of these are old. I like FM synth and chiptune and prog rock, all of which are more or less out of fashion, so it’s rare to find new stuff that matches my tastes, especially because I’m not a big fan of “retro aesthetic” games these days. There are certainly some still being made, but they’re just out of my radar most of the time. That’s why I spend a lot of time listening to music on Battle of the Bits.
Edit: I found that old comment. It doesn’t have as many as I remembered but it’s got some great ones on it. https://tildes.net/~music/1bmg/looking_for_chiptune_album_recommendations#comment-b0z5
To this day Xenogears Creid (an arrangement album with more celtic vibes, made by Mitsuda himself) is still one of my benchmark album I listen to whenever I get new audio equipment. I love it so much.
Holy shit! There’s another person who knows about Cried! That’s one of the best Celtic albums of all time in my opinion. Or at least the best of that particular era where there was this odd synergistic blending of Celtic with new age soft rock.
Yay another fan!
Do you know about Kirite (also by Mitsuda) ? I find that it's quite close to Creid (same new agey feelings)
There's also Genso Suikoden2 Orrizonte Music Collection by Miki Higashino that quite close to Creid.
And that Xenogears 20th anniversary concert is really nice.
Yeeeeeeeeeeesssssssssssss! Another favorite of mine.
Though if you want a really deep cut, Mitsuda had a short lived fan club called Hopeful Weeds, for which he released two singles. The first song, Hopeful Weeds, is actually my favorite Mitsuda song altogether.
Mitsuda and Higashino also have a collaboration album! Moonlit Shadow is the soundtrack to a terrible little game called 10,000 Bullets. It’s a frenetic collection of Jazz tracks, and it’s lovely.
The fact that you say this for a list of twenty six different soundtracks means you’ve got a very impressive command of game music.
When I came into the topic, I was planning to link that same comment and ping you if you hadn’t already shared it. Thank you again for a great list.
I think I saw one mention, but Ori and the Blind Forest has an amazing soundtrack and is also a fun game. Highly recommend checking it out.
I'm also a big fan of Horizon Zero Dawn's soundtrack, or even Skyrim sometimes when I want relaxing nostalgia.
I have it like this - if the sountrack is well done, I'm not hearing it in the game; it fits the scene/game so well it becomes part of it and is not there just as background music.
Having said that, there are not that much OSTs that come to my mind due to this very reason.
But if you made me listen to one soundtrack, I would pick Stardew Valley. As I write this the melody already plays in my head. And not because it is not one with the game (as I described earlier) but due to me actually listening to the OST from time to time in my car while I drive.
I also bought vinyl record of Final Fantasy X soundtrack, I believe this alone testifies something.
Morrowind has the right theme (Nerevar rising), but I wouldn't say the whole soundtrack. The same goes for Lineage 2 back in the days (Call of destiny).
And one shouldn't forget about MEGALOVANIA from Undertale. As I haven't played the game, I can't say much, but I believe soundtrack is really big part of the game (well, the game was kinda made around the soundtrack if I'm no mistaken).
IMHO you should try playing Undertale, it's not a big time investment but it was still one of my favorite games in the last few years. (And it is indeed a big part of the game. Toby Fox did essentially the entire game and soundtrack himself, with art contributions from Temmie Chang. The titular Undertale track comes with a big emotional gutpunch in the storyline that I don't want to ruin.)
I know he is composer and he made the game by himself (didn't know about the art contributions).
I boight ut like a year ago and I want to play it, but I still didn't commit. I totally should, I believe it is a great game and I want to play it. Just not now.
Also I think (based on kinda final boss battle that I've seen) that it will be kinda tough reaction based and I suck at those. I also know it is emotional game and characters can be made happy or sad (suffer?). But I know nothing else. And I don't want to know :-) I want to experience it myself.
The one I own and has probably gotten the most plays is the Outer Wilds soundtrack. Great background music for working/reading/writing and also gives me warm fuzzy memories of playing one of my favorite games.
Looking in this thread for the correct answers, but came up empty. The two best video game soundtracks are:
#1 Civilization 4 (Uses mostly existing music from "age" and it's beautiful and really makes you feel the progression of time!)
Most of the soundtrack
#2 Katamari Damacy (Obviously amazing)
Here
Chris Tin is a treasure.
Apparently it’s become a joke in choral circles that it’s impossible to find someone who hasn’t performed Baba Yetu in concert.
If you like instrumental, mostly vocal-less background metal, there is one word and one word only that satisfies a gaming OST need and that word is...
DOOM
I've been trying to keep going through backlogged games, but am finding a nagging desire to go back and play 2016's DOOM again. Will try to just wait for Dark Ages to come out though.
Bruh how you gonna leave out the Doom Eternal OST?? Honestly anything Mick Gordon touches turns to gold. Love that guy.
I wanted to choose only one instead of a list and I honestly prefer DOOM over DOOM Eternal's OST, but yeah he's done great work in the games I've played (Dooms and Wolfensteins) that he's been on.
Mass Effect (!!!)
Halo Reach
The Witcher III
Red Dead Redemption and RDR II
Some games with solid OSTs that I haven't seen mentioned:
I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned Astro Bot or Hollow Knight yet. Both games have good music.
When I need some raw energy:
Metal Gear Rising: Revengance - one of my most listened to albums in recent years, plus it has instrumental versions of all the tracks.
When I need something calmer:
Deus Ex: Human Revolution - although listening to this often makes me sad, because there will never be a conclusion to the games story
The first Life is Strange game has such a good soundtrack!
That game introduced me to Alt-J for which I am forever grateful.
For starters, here is the main menu music on a loop.
I have an OST station on Pandora but it mostly plays film OSTs... so when we get in the car and bf's game OST Spotify plays, I get some game OST exposure!
Anyway, I'm here to recommend Lineage II's soundtrack because I ask him what it is EVERY time. Bill Brown is the composer. It gives me the good vibes like the LotR soundtrack. Never played the game, just listened to the soundtrack.
Seconding Chrono Cross because I also ask him about that one all the time.
Ori and the Blind Forest is also nice, if I recall correctly from his time playing it.
I'm a big fighting game fan, and I'm willing to argue that it's the genre with the highest banger soundtrack density.
My personal favorite is the soundtrack to the indie Japanese fight game series Under Night In-Birth. In particular:
But almost every popular game in the genre has brought some heat. My favorite King of Fighters tracks are:
Street Fighter has:
Guilty Gear:
Tekken:
Cheating by including tracks from the Granblue fighting game instead of the rpg:
Various:
A shocking number of fighting games have an all-star cast of contributing musicians. Particularly for games around the late 90s and early 00s.
Check out Fighting Layer if you haven’t already. That soundtrack has some truly crazy compositions, including one that switches between crazy time signatures.
Yeah Arika punches insanely high above their weight class when it comes to music.
Disco Elysium's soundtrack is phenomenal!!! Not only that but it is an incredible game as well!!! The people who made the OST (Sea Power) also made an album in which they use some of the songs on the OST for their songs (it might be the other way around, where the Disco Elysium songs are their songs without vocals on it). But in any case Whirling in Rags 8AM is soooo good
My favorite OSTs tend to lean towards jRPGS. Here are some off the top of my head
My phone rings tones have been segments of that last one for ages, usually the metal covers by the Mini Bosses
I’ve never played any of the Xenoblade games, but the Xenoblade Chronicles soundtrack was on my rotation of study music in college.
It’s a great OST.
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 holds a special place in my heart. The music across that entire trilogy is amazing and I feel like it never got the recognition it deserved.
XBC 2 is great, though I felt like the gacha style mechanic for getting new blades kept it from being my favorite of the series.
Yea that mechanic was upsetting. 250 hours across two playthroughs and I never pulled KOSMOS. The Xenosaga trilogy also holds a special place in my heart, I was upset it got cut short.
I also never got KOSMOS! More like Xenojerk Chronicles :)
I still love the game, but man...
!!! SEGA RECOMMENDATIONS INCOMING !!!
In terms of pure earworm magic, these are my picks:
Shining Force - A classic old-school swords ‘n’ sorcery RPG. The game is fun, if a bit simplistic… but damn if that soundtrack isn’t catchy. You wouldn’t believe how often I find myself humming the overworld tune when I’m washing dishes or whatever. And it’s been YEARS since I’ve even played it.
Skies of Arcadia - This is my favorite JRPG of all time, and the music is probably 50% of the reason why. Listen to the themes from Sailor’s Island, Nasrad, and Ixa’Taka and tell me you’re not instantly transported to another place.
Jet Set Radio - No post about Dreamcast-era music would be complete without mentioning this legendary soundtrack. It’s all incredible but special shout-outs for Sneakman, Rock It On, and Let Mom Sleep.
Yeah, the Shining Force series has some of my favorite music! I find it a bit hard to recommend to others though, especially the earlier stuff.
Motoaki Takenouchi is the composer who took over for the middle of the series starting with the Gaiden series and he is a very under appreciated artist. He described his work as trying to get the best possible sound out of the hardware and it led him to some very inteeestinf places. His work on Shining Wisdom is not well appreciated because of how different it is from the rest of the series but it’s actually fantastic on its own right. There is an album version of that soundtrack that is slightly arranged using a Korg M1 and it has a vocal introduction track that you have to listen to in order to believe it.
I like the (original V1.0) Factorio Soundtrack; I spend a lot of time in-game with it, and it's wonderfully soothing and relaxing to me.
So many of my favorite games are my favorites in part for their OST.
Celeste, Minecraft, Outer Wilds, any Supergiant game, Ori, Disco Elysium, Hollow Knight, etc.
I want to give a particular shoutout to two OSTs that, in my opinion, make the game what it is.
Furi is a game with a lot of rough edges. The story is hard to parse, the visuals lack polish, and a lot of the bosses don’t feel that different.
The soundtrack competes with Celeste’s for my favorite OST of all time. I have often muted games to listen to Furi’s OST instead. I think the game knows this, too: each level begins with a long walking section, so you can hear the introduction to each song, and then wait for the crux in the boss fight.
Katana Zero has one of those OSTs that’s able to set you in the atmosphere of the game immediately. The game is a story about a supersoldier with PTSD, and the soundtrack helps put you in the protagonist’s head. Of course, it helps that every level begins with the protagonist plugging in his casette tape to start the music.
These games are definitely worth playing, but they are unique to me in that I’m not sure I would recommend them if they didn’t have their respecitve OSTs. Definitely give the tracks a listen.
Off the top of my head:
Honourable mentions:
I was scrolling to see if Europa Universalis IV was mentioned. Good suggestion!
Paradox in general is some good stuff, the music in Hearts of Iron IV are also some great that make me hum along.
I'm not a big fan of music in game. I know they often work hard on it, but I generally watch TV while playing.
That said, I write like the soundtrack to Sunless Seas. It's mostly creepy, nautical, and dark.
My vote goes to Paradox Interactive's Stellaris. Particularly the early stuff by Swedish composer Andreas Waldetoft.
I don't personally play any more, but it's always a real joy to hear the vastness of the melodies in the background of Quill18's playthroughs.
FTL: Faster Than Light and the advanced edition soundtracks are great.
I recently gushed about the soundtrack of the Ace Combat series and Project Wingman in the what are you playing topic and I will do it again here.
The final mission / boss music (Megalith, The Unsung War, Zero, The Liberation of Grace Maria, Kings) are all epics in different ways. The base is symphonic music, but some have more electro undertone and other more traditional. Shout out to Zero and it's crazy Spanish guitar. Other rec is Shodown and Redline from Project Wingman (some happy 80-90s anime vibes), Daredevil from Ace Combat 7 (famously commissioned at the very last minute because the mission lacked a good track ; and this delivers) and really the rest of the AC7 soundtrack (Magic Spear is so good).
Classic Heroes of Might and Magic (I to IV) have a consistently great ambiant soundtrack thanks Paul Romero.
The Shapez and Shapez 2 soundtracks by Peppsen are fantastic, as is the rest of their music.
Cuphead original OST is full of bangers. Not to take away from the other tunes but, when I have tasks that need to get done, Ill often throw the linked playlist of boss themes on in the background. This album is simply full of energy and charm
u/no_dog mentioned Revengance but imo the entire Metal Gear series deserves attention. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and Metal Gear Solid 5: Phantom Pain frequently make appearances in my playlist. Harry Gregson-Williams MGS sound has always been distinct and I love the common themes shared throughout the series paired with the unique motifs that are part of each game
Highly, highly recommend both the OST and the game for Tunic. Spotify link
I'm a huge fan of Starbound, Ace Combat (4, 6, and 7 are the best IMO), and Minecraft's soundtracks. Excellent background music for working.
I also enjoy a few chiptune and 'fake video game soundtracks'; good dog adventure is a personal favorite.
Starbound does have a pretty soundtrack, good recommendation.
I'm sure someone in here has mentioned the Minecraft soundtrack, so I'm going to be weird and recommend what's becoming my favorite C418 album Cookie Clicker.
I'm also a huge fan of Outer Wilds' soundtrack, but there's so much more from that game that you'd have to search a bit for. My favorite Outer Wilds song is by far Older Than the Universe or Reprise