Gaming

Outer Wilds

I’ve been listening to the FTL soundtrack since high school!

Honestly love the Doom soundtrack.

There are games with amazing music that sets the perfect atmosphere — Celeste, Hades, Zelda (especially BotW/TotK).

And then there are games soundtracks I would also happily just put on to listen to — FFXIV, Persona 5, one particular song from Hades (Eurydice).

• Bastion
• Castlevania (series, special mention for Symphony of the Night)
• Chrono Trigger/Cross
• Dead Cells
• Destiny 1/2
• Dragon's Dogma (mainly Into Free, but still...)
• Final Fantasy (series, but special mention for XI and XIV)
• Persona 4/5
• Portal 1/2
• River City Girls (probably 2 as well, but still waiting on my LRG copy)
• Scott Pilgrim vs the World (the game (the soundtrack))
• Tony Hawk (series); a bit of a cop out, as they're all licensed songs
• Zelda (series, special mention for the Cadence of Hyrule soundtrack)

And then just a lot of old nostalgia for NES games (Duck Tales, River City Ransom, TMNT, etc) and SNES/PS1 RPGs (Lufia, Super Mario RPG, Suikoden, Thousand Arms, etc)

But that main list contains the ones I either bought or downloaded because I loved the music so much.

My favorites, in no particular order:

• Paradise Killer
• Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
• Yakuza Kiwami
• Scott Pilgrim vs the World
• Undertale

Fallout got me, a Metal Head, listening to 50s rock and lounge music.

Just like the other commenter, the Outer Wilds main motif (travelers) makes me emotional because of how good the game was. Disco Elysium also has had an amazing soundtrack, with the main BGM faintly using sounds from the final song, which made it really cathartic for me.

Ultrakill deserves a lot of praise, especially for the P-2 music (https://youtu.be/MG5L-1pI8bI). It works perfectly for how intense the level is, and it's absolutely nuts that the game still manages to up the ante after you've perfected every single other level. I've listened to this type of music quite often before, but I've never felt it in my blood and muscles before playing that level.

When judged on the music alone though, Hotline Miami (1) and Furi have to take the cake. Both soundtracks are just iconic, and easily stand out on their own.

Fez

Disasterpeace is amazing. Also did the soundtrack for It Follows.

Witcher 3 soundtrack. The exploration and combat wouldn't be the same without it.

Hollo knight. Especially the piano album

• Celeste
• Dead Cells
• Hollow Knight

I'm definitely going to have to say that Persona 5 Royal has one of the best Soundtracks of Gaming in general.

Nier Automata and Nier Replicant, also Metal Gear Rising: Revengence. Id mention more but my other picks are probably already mentioned here.

Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines Deus Ex Hotline Miami Unreal Tournament Journey Cyberpunk 2077 The Witcher Jet Set Radio All the Silent Hill (even Downpour) Colony Wars

There is so many good ones....

not to be a hater but GTAV Radio station songs are 'licensed music' not soundtracks, also you can just fire up spotify or youtube if you just wanna listen to them instead of running GTAV each time

Risk of Rain 2 with Celeste being a close second!

Hollow Knight

Child of Light https://musique.coeurdepirate.com/album/child-of-light

Monkey Island 2 https://mdvhimself.bandcamp.com/album/monkey-island-2-lechuck-s-revenge

Colonization (reminded of this by the above page!) https://mdvhimself.bandcamp.com/album/colonization

Wing Commander https://thefatmanandteamfat.bandcamp.com/album/wing-commander-i-complete-original-soundtrack-mt-32-archival-edition

Lemmings https://coldstorage.bandcamp.com/album/lemmings

In no particular order:

Final Fantasy XIV and XVI (Soken is a genius)

Transistor

Nier Automata

Genshin Impact

Destiny 2

The World Ends With You

Persona 5

Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1/2

Honestly though the FF series as a whole kinda deserves its own special mention. The games have always had stellar soundtracks.

RimWorld has enough music to not feel repetitive over so many hours!

(and the youtube comments are full of stories about the colonies that people are reminded of by hearing the music again)

Honestly I'm shocked and surprised the Risk of Rain soundtrack hasn't come up. Both 1 and 2 are bangers. Chris Christodoulou (the lead composer) has a yt breaking down the soundtrack.

Stellaris' ost is also up there for memorable leitmotifs and just plain understanding the assignment.

I also quite like redout 1 and 2's soundtrack.

Final Fantasy VII and Chrono Cross are my absolute all time favorites. Ori and the Blind Forest is a more recent soundtrack that blew me away. The soundtrack for the Motorhead racing game is also a classic for me.

Having finally finished Horizon Forbidden West last night, I've got to choose that. Instant favourite for me. Nostalgic moments when the theme kicked in in one of its altered versions, and the credits just completely floored me. Stuck around for the whole 30+ mins. Wonderful.

Away from that, Mass Effect always needs a mention!

• Stellaris.
• Rimworld.
• Dwarf Fortress (Steam version).
• Steamworld Dig 2.
• The Talos Principle.
• The Elder Scrolls 2: Daggerfall.
• The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind.

• Hotline Miami
• Katamari Damacy
• Vice City
• Bastion

Hyper Light Drifter really deserves a mention too!

Journey, and more recently Tunic, both had soundtracks that complemented their gameplay really well.

Monkey island and grim fandango

Hollow Knight and Spiritfarer.

Final Fantasy 7 has been the long-standing winner here, but Persona 5 has recently started to gain an edge.

I also recently started listening to some of the Trails soundtracks and they are all fire.

I'm very quickly about to stop having "a favorite" and start having a collection of faves. Which is a pretty great place to be.

Myth II: Soulblighter had some beautiful mournful music (also one of the few games available for Mac OS 9)

The 7th Guest and The 11th Hour remain top-tier for me. The music was half the experience, turn it up and just enjoy that creepy vibe while solving puzzles. And they're all on The Fat Man's Bandcamp now!

Also, there's an industrial rock cover album on vinyl currently looking for funding on Kickstarter. I'm super excited!

Quite a few folks have mentioned Outer Wilds, so I'll add the DLC soundtrack. The titular song (Echoes of the Eye) that plays at the end of the DLC makes me burst into tears every time I hear it. But in a good way, haha.

I'm surprised not to see any of the Monster Hunter games yet! Maybe that's because most MH soundtracks are more a collection of individual themes than a unified soundtrack for a world, but a lot of those tracks are pretty great.

I don't know whether it is considered polite to link to youtube recordings of tracks here. My particular favorites from World are all zone themes: "Rulers of the Wildspire", "Dancer in the Coral Highlands", "Roars across the Hinterlands". You hear these tunes a lot - whenever you're fighting something in that zone that doesn't have its own theme - so they'd better be good. Fortunately almost all of them live up to that standard!

For my second place Flubber Mountain from Mario RPG is a banger! https://youtu.be/FaAc87l3o3o

Silent Hill 1,2 & 3 (and not just the OST's, in-game background music as well);

Castlevania: Symphony of the night,

Alundra,

Faxanadu,

practically any Zelda,

Castlevania 1, 2 & 3

Classic arcade games:

• Gyruss
• Pengo
• Mappy
• Frogger

And just for good measure: Lemmings

Beyond Good & Evil

Interstate '76

Transistor

The sea shanties from Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire

Amon Tobins Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory soundtrack is a solid ambient/electronic album that I keep returning to.

Ace Combat, mainly Ace Combat 5 but all of them are well known for their soundtracks.

More recently WARNO has excellent music so far, even though most of it was licensed by Eugen from third parties so it doesn't really count as a soundtrack specific to the game.