The Best Video Games with the Best Music

Back when video game music considered of bleeps and bloops that were very rough approximations of anything remotely musical, it was hard to get mainstream music listeners interested in anything these poor video game composers were making. Now, however, game composers have the disc space and the budgets to craft synthesized or fully-orchestrated tracks that rival anything in television and movies. Concert series playing only game music have made massively successful world tours (1). Only old die-hard game fans remember the classic, energetic, or moving melodies hidden in old chiptunes.

Picking the best music from the best games is a hard task, especially since many franchises have since built a reputation for high-quality music in each of their installments. In no particular order, here's my personal picks for five of the games that no game music fan (or music fan in general) should skip.

Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening
(Game Boy/Game Boy Color, 1993; Composers: Minako Hamano and Kozue Ishikawa )

The Legend of Zelda has kept its iconic main theme since the very first game debuted in the 1980s, and as the series progressed music became an important part of gameplay, in addition to being great sonic wallpaper. Not as well-known as some other titles in the series such as Ocarina of Time or A Link to the Past, the Game Boy-exclusive and first portable Zelda, Link's Awakening, contains much of the best music the series has to offer.

While the usual Zelda themes are in full force, Link's Awakening was the first game to feature songs played on an ocarina and contains among its highlights "The Ballad of the Windfish", present in several variations. After each dungeon, players pick up an instrument that plays part of the ballad; the path to the final boss is laid bare only after a full rendition of the song. Other great songs include the driving "Tal Tal Heights" theme, the Latin-inspired "Mambo's Mambo", the serene "Mabe Village" and the hectic "Rapids Ride".

Riven
(PC, Mac and consoles, 1997; Composer: Robyn Miller)

The bestselling and atmospheric puzzle-adventure game Myst almost shipped without music, as the developers were afraid anything other than ambient audio would detract from player immersion. Instead, they found that music heightened players' enjoyment (2). Composer Robyn Miller returned to score Riven. The result is haunting ambient music with lots of ethnic sounds that hammer home the otherworldly visuals of the Riven Age.

Like Myst, Miller uses motifs for the main characters: antagonist Gehn and his son Atrus. "Gehn's Theme" is a haunting slow run of singing bowl-like sounds, while "Catherine's Freedom" kicks in just as the story takes a quick turn. In the game, technological limitations often meant audio tracks would abruptly cut off when players entered or left an area, so the score is best enjoyed uninterrupted on the soundtrack album.

Final Fantasy VII
(PlayStation, 1997; Composer: Nobuo Uematsu)

With Final Fantasy VII, the music of the long-running fantasy role-playing series finally made the jump to the PlayStation. Uematsu had been composing the music for all the games up to that point, but decided against making use of the PlayStation's capabilities for CD-quality sound by using MIDI instead. The lack of realistic instrumentation didn't stop Uematsu from crafting some of the series' best tracks, including "One-Winged Angel" and "Aeris' Theme". It's no surprise that the music became some of the series' best known as well, getting multiple soundtrack releases and being remixed and replayed to this day.

Halo 3: ODST
(Xbox 360, 2009; Composers: Martin O'Donnell & Michael Salvatori)

The Halo music has become legend, with its "duhduhduhDUN" original theme almost as iconic as its protagonist Master Chief. It's somewhat ironic, then, that the best game music from the series comes from a game without the use of the main theme, and without starring the Chief. ODST took its musical and thematic cues from film noir with a fusion of the classic Halo sound, jazz and ethnic instrumentation. It's telling that while there is never any rainfall in the game, the music coupled with the dark visuals certainly makes you feel like there was.

While there's very few chanting monks and heavy cello runs, ODST replaces it with reverb and saxophones, quiet percussion swelling to triumphant cinematic music. The tracks "Traffic Jam", "The Rookie", and "Bits and Pieces" are especially powerful and atmospheric. Combined with the different approach to the music to mirror the more character-oriented nature of the story, ODST hits the audio ball out of the park.

Super Mario Bros.
(Nintendo Entertainment System, 1985; Composer: Koji Kondo)

You could fill an entire list like this just with Nintendo music, as the company has employed some of the giants of the industry; Koji Kondo is perhaps the biggest. While he's composed music for games from Zelda to Star Fox, there's no denying that his Super Mario Bros. theme is his masterpiece.

Simple yet engaging, insanely repetitive without being tiring, the music to Super Mario Bros. is recognizable to any gamer worth their salt, and a good deal of people on the street as well; probably the only other tune to carry so much recognition is the Tetris theme. Kondo wrote all the music on a keyboard, placing the tracks in the game and scrapping them if they didn't mesh with Mario's jumping antics (3). While the iconic "Ground theme" is the most universally known, many players can still remember levels just by their distinctive music. Though it has taken years to be recognized as the brilliant, catchy and interactive music, Kondo's Super Mario Bros. can now be seen as the forerunner to all the favorite melodies from our favorite games.

References
* (1) Marc Graser (May 29, 2009). "Video Games Live's Global Success ". Variety. Retrieved October 9, 2011.
* (2) "The Making of Myst", Cyan Worlds bonus video (1993).
* (3) Chris Kohler (March 15, 2007). "Behind the Mario Maestro's Music". Wired. Retrieved October 8, 2011.

More video gaming stories by David Fuchs: "Valve's DotA 2" / "Legacy Games on Modern Macs" / "The Battle of Hardcore and Casual Gamers" / "Perils and Profits of the Video Game Trailer" / "Great Overshadowed Video Games"