Best Game Music?

[aaglo]

I liked these

Fantasy General
Doom1 & Doom2 & Heretic & Hexen
Quake 1 (Nine Inch Nails)
Simcity 3000

[Vlad Antlerkov]

Lessee:

-- Final Fantasy IV. The battle music is pretty damn good (especially the Zeromus fight music).
-- Final Fantasy VI.
-- Final Fantasy VII.
-- Chrono Trigger.
-- Chrono Cross.
-- Secret of Mana.
-- Seiken Densetsu III.
-- Romancing SaGa III.
-- Megaman X.
-- Phantasy Star IV.
-- Command & Conquer Red Alert.
-- Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri.
-- Doom (entire series).

Best individual songs:

-- Hell March (IIRC), from C&C: RA.
-- The Final Battle (Zeromus theme), from FFIV.
-- Awakening (Terra's theme), from FFVI.
-- Locke's theme, from FFVI.
-- Kefka's theme, from FFVI.
-- The Fierce Battle (big boss fight), from FFVI.
-- Dancing Mad (final battle), from FFVI.
-- Fighting (normal battle), from FFVII.
-- Aeris's Theme, from FFVII.
-- Jenova Absolute, from FFVII. (I have this as both a MIDI and an MP3. Incidentally, the MIDI sounds like better fight music than the MP3. )
-- One Winged Angel (final battle), from FFVII.
-- The Extreme (final battle), from FFVIII.
-- Battle with Magus, from CT.
-- The boss battle music from CC.
-- Meridian Dance (final battle), from SoM.
-- Sacrifice, Part III (final battle), from SD3.
-- Battle theme from RS3.
-- Storm Eagle's stage music, from MMX1.
-- Laughter (battle music vs. Zio and Lashiec), PSIV
-- The King of Terrors (Dark Force battle), PSIV
-- E2M8 (Tower of Babel) theme, Doom I

[Mr. President]

I forgot Avalon Hill's Diplomacy. That soundtrack got the stamp of approval from my musician sister.

[Spaced Cowboy]

I know that there is one or two that deserve mention, but all I can remember is what I've played lately.

GTA3
DE2

[Kassiopeia]

The composers need more imagination when naming their songs. FF XI has one titled "Awakening", as does Xenogears, Xenosaga and apparently FFVI.

[Ramo]

The music during the "story" part, dammit Snow.

[Kassiopeia]

In my thread-starting post I accused the FF XI OST for not being even remotely as good as the Xenosaga OST. But then I realised - FF XI is an online game, therefore it has virtually no major battle themes or other 'peaks' that I especially like in games, but many, many area themes.
And OTOH, what I've heard, in XS the music plays only in dramatic sequences, so the OST has obviously not that much area themes (only UMN Mode is quite clearly one) and more grand, 'big' tracks like Battling KOS-MOS etc.

So comparing the two soundtracks is apples and oranges. Besides, Uematsu composed only eleven tracks out of the two discs of FF XI OST, and Uematsu's tracks were the pinnacle (Opening Theme, Airship, Recollection, to name some).

Originally posted SnowFire
As for the Xenosaga soundtrack, the Last battle piece... eh, it's still good, but it feels oddly restrained. It keeps on building up... and then it doesn't take the last step and let loose and rule. If he had just pushed it a little farther, it would have been great, but it leaves me slightly unfilled.

Quite true. Albeit I go always weak when hearing well used Gregorian chanting, in terms of final battle tracks the ones from FF IX (Final Battle), FF VII (One-winged Angel) and Xenogears (One Who Bares Fangs at God) rank higher. The latter one, though, in my opinion also lacks this climax you mention, so maybe I just don't need one for my last battle experience.

Best regular battle music can be, btw, found from FF VIII; The Man with the Machine-gun.

[DarkCloud]

Baldur's gate and Civ's were too repetitive. Civ's was far too light. There were only a few good songs... The marches and aztec songs I think IIRC... As for BG... The less said about their monotonous music, the better.

Command and Conquer and Red Alert had some of the best music soundtracks... Mostly because they matched the game (I'd never listen to the music for relaxation) the music sounded exactly like korn and other heavy metal groups... (I will admit that that 'noise' is annoying elsewhere [I listen to 60-70's rock] but for those games, it was perfect.)

-- Hell March (IIRC), from C&C: RA.

Best of the series!

Total Annihilation also had some good music, I think.

[Standup]

Tropico's was a favourite for a while but there wasn't quite enough of it.
The first monkey island opening tune (was that Secret ?) - the first time i'd heard anything decent on my shiny new Amiga.
And Wings also on the Amiga - pretty simple, mainly just piano tunes but just felt right for the game.

[SnowFire]

Well, yes, Final Battle music tends to rule, with a very few exceptions (Grandia I's sucked. SO2's wasn't quite as good as the rest of the game. CC & CT's were "only" very good, although they often had great lead-ups (like World Revolution)). I will say that One Who Bares Fangs at God was kinda boring, but it was a lead-up track (since they were yabbering with Krelian for most of it)- Awakening is the final battle music as far as I'm concerned, and that rules. It goes all the way.

As for best normal battle music, I'd have to go with FF4's.

[Kassiopeia]

Originally posted by SnowFire
I will say that One Who Bares Fangs at God was kinda boring, but it was a lead-up track (since they were yabbering with Krelian for most of it)- Awakening is the final battle music as far as I'm concerned, and that rules. It goes all the way.

Shoot. I haven't, unfortunately, ever played Xenogears, and my opinion was based on hearsay. Awakening is truly a mighty track, especially if paired up with One Who Bears Fangs at God. The latter has a cooler name though.

Edit: Final Fantasy VII spoiler in the following post

[frostycreep]

The best music has got to be when aeris dies in final fantasy 7. That music really fitted the moment, and i couldnt help but be depressed for ages afterwards just because of that music. Then i realised it was only a game and then pulled myself together!

[thinkingamer]

my vote goes to : Heroes of Might and Magic 2

worthy of mention:

-Homm3 (duh)
-Civ2 (very dumb at first, but it becomes quite enjoyable. only wished that it could be a little bit longer)
-Eruopa Univerlalis 2 (if u love renaissance, baroque, classical music u'll love it)
-MechWarrior 2 (my bro played few times, never played myself, but still remember the music)
-IceWind Dale (GOOD music, if not exellent)
-TA and Homeworld (they are okay i guess....)

[DarkCloud]

Homm3- all they had was about 5 tunes (other than the intra-cities ones)

The only good one being the inferno or dungeon, I can't quite remember.

Civ II- you frighten me Those were tedious...

[Shadowstrike]

Europa Universalis II has some pretty good music. It hasn't started to get repetative, and I'm well over the 1500 hour mark.... Of course, that may just be because I'm partial to classical music, rather then "modern" music.