Reflecting on the games of my youth, I can think of no other component as impactful as the music. Just as we are brought to tears by a Friday Night Lights theme, I can remember getting misty-eyed in the World Over screen of the Final Fantasy series. Just as a John Williams score will get me invested in the latest Steven Spielberg movie, I could remember Koji Kondo by name before just about any other gaming series composer, with the Super Mario series as the lead claimant for that group’s laurels. And the composers have done great work to get a grand Bad Music Analysis theory together.
Gaming, in its infancy wasn’t known for impressive audio-narrative forms. Simple graphics and even simpler sound effects made the games for the generation of consoles that began with the Atari 2600 and died with the SEGA Genesis pioneers in what is now hailed as ‘retro gaming.’ Limited in scope and size, the unfathomable melodic loops that make up those soundtracks are reserved for classic moments coded into small-time snatches of gaming history, making them some of gaming’s greatest hits.
This era was shaped by Koji Kondo, the visionary behind the music of The Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Bros. The first time I heard the Super Mario Bros. theme, I remember thinking, What an endearing and obviously spirited and jaunty tune. How could anyone not be happy, listening to this? Of course, it’s also deceptively simple music, so that you barely notice it’s there, on this side of being so compulsively hummable, while you navigate Mario successfully from the start of the game to the finish line, bypassing all the sinisterly cute and twisty King Koopa traps set for Mario and Luigi in the eight worlds of the Mushroom Kingdom.
Equally impactful was Kondo’s effort on The Legend of Zelda. The adventurous, signature tune of the game’s overworld seems the perfect background music for exploration, daring deeds, and puzzle-solving—exactly what one does in The Legend of Zelda. It still gives me a rush, and I still hum it (badly) while totally absorbed in some new game or just noodling around on my laptop.
Yet another gem of the 8-bit era was the Final Fantasy series, with the visionary Nobuo Uematsu crafting the games’ soundtracks. He took the lead for the first Final Fantasy in 1987. The relatively short amount of time Uematsu had to create the music that would bring the original Final Fantasy game to life was not nearly proportionate to the ample range it possessed. “Gurgu Volcano”(Final Fantasy) is just about as far-reaching as Underground Dungeon (Dragon Warrior) with respect to dynamic, fantasy timbres. Still, I hold that the even-more-dramatic Death to the Four Fiends is a knockout musical moment.
Composed by Takashi Tateishi, the Mega Man 2 soundtrack ranks high on my list of favorites from gaming’s 8-bit era. It’s frantic, for sure, with a real rock feel and any number of catchy hooks that far outstrip the in-game sound of most of its contemporaries. (Go ahead – hum a few bars from Quick Man’s stage. How many late-’80s computer creations can you say that about?) Each piece is distinctive in its own right, to say nothing about how it mashes up with the stage action – maybe you know Flash Man because you spent a formative part of your life trying to figure out dance steps to the action set to the in-game music video?
The sophistication and detail of video game soundtracks progressed with technology. When game systems made the leap to 16-bit, as the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) and the Sega Genesis did, the sound got an immediate boost. Overnight, it seemed, the era of bleeps and bloops was replaced with one of multilayered, intelligently composed music, much of it in the service of giving burgeoning virtual worlds the breath of life they needed to be convincingly immersive. And the ’90s MIDI sound found a way to blow its cover and our minds to an even greater extent.
The 16-bit period produced some memorable video game soundtracks, but the music of Streets of Rage 2 stands tall even among such illustrious company. The influence of early electronic music—the kind of stuff that emerged from Europe in the late 1980s and early ’90s—permeated the game. Each level in Streets of Rage 2 served as a mini audio adventure where unforgettable beats and rhythms pumped up the intensity of an already electric game. There was a variety of styles used, from what could be called urban brawler “symphonies of sound” to house or techno power plant level design. James Clinton
The 16-bit era produced yet another iconic soundtrack in Chrono Trigger. This was a dream-team effort; the lion’s share of the music was done by up-and-coming video game composer Yasunori Mitsuda. However, the first portion of the tunes was actually done by “the maestro,” Nobuo Uematsu, who has in his repertoire the amazing Final Fantasy soundscapes from the same period. The second half of the soundtrack was produced by Mitsuda in a fevered spate of activity: He actually worked himself into such a state that, come the up-to-all-hours day of the synthesizer, he ended up in the hospital.
Music, too, is a big part of Sonic the Hedgehog. The Sonic music experience all started during the 16-bit gaming era. In Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic the Hedgehog 2, virtually all the music was written by the same composer, Masato Nakamura of DREAMS COME TRUE, a popular band in Japan that’s been signed to a Japanese label and then an American one. These two Sonic games were just that team’s first and only foray into video game music during that time period, but they left quite a big, memorable, and HAPPY footprint on the music of video games.
The 16-bit era was made all the better because of Donkey Kong Country, a game that holds some of my dearest childhood memories. Everything about it was fresh and new, but the thing that made it work so well was something that actually doesn’t change and isn’t fresh: its music. Masterfully created by David Wise, the game’s score, in my opinion, helped set it apart from just about anything else. It was clean, it was sharp, and it was… well, “atmospheric” (like when you’re walking along the ocean floor). The unusual and exciting blend of ambient sounds and comforting rhythms that Wise put together is still one of my favorite parts of that game.
Moving from 16-bit to 32-bit and then 64-bit eras brought about an entirely new set of ways to think about the construction of a video game soundtrack. Naturally, the technology improved, with the leap to CD-ROMs allowing for not just some of the best and brightest game composers to work with a wealth of colors in their musical palette, but also for the technology to be on their side when it came to creating a more immersive experience, as well as creating an experience with a breadth of emotion found in a good film score.
In this day and age, if there is any video game soundtrack that ought to be mentioned by name, it is Final Fantasy VII. As far as I (and many others) am concerned, the musical score of Final Fantasy VII laid down a step beyond pretty much anything that had been done before it. I would go so far as to say that it’s even a few steps beyond the hours-long MIDI compositions of Dragon Quest, for example. Not to mention, Uematsu is just a god. He just is. But if I had to pick a few of what are arguably his most memorable tracks ever…
The Legend of Zelda series offered nonstop delivery of indelible tunes across this addition to its beloved string of games. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time emerged for the Nintendo 64 console with a score penned by Koji Kondo, whose compositions have achieved a legendary status rivaling the game itself. Since the ocarina has a central role in the game, the player not only listens to these sweet, unforgettable melodies on the game’s soundtrack but also plays selections in the progression of the game—a key feature likely responsible for its fans’ affection for the tunes.
In the same way that Assassins did, Metal Gear Solid also had many famous things about it. And one of them was the music, composed by Tappi Iwase and Kazuki Muraoka. I think everyone remembers MGS1’s main theme. But the reason why we remember it so well is that the games in the Metal Gear series have never treated music as just an afterthought, as just something in the background. The music in the MGS soundtrack was, and still is, extremely well done, even if its mixing was very particular to the late ’90s console style. When it came to The Phantom Pain, the sound design was entrusted to a Western studio but still with Muranaka and MGS in mind, and for very good reasons, many of which can be found in the Phantom Pain experience and mentioned below.
My favorite game from the 32-bit era is Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. What do I love about it? The music! Michiru Yamane’s score is a gothic feast filled with rock, classical, and memorable tunes ranging in sadness and action. It is the perfect part of Dracula’s world. It really is the sound of the night. Dance of Pales, The Tragic Prince, Crystal Teardrops all are so haunting and hummable that they have become as iconic as anything from Super Mario Bros. or The Legend of Zelda.
Moving into the modern era of gaming, the variety and intricacy of video game soundtracks have expanded. Elaborate game scores are now created using state-of-the-art tech. Advances in tech and a growing understanding of musical art in games have let composers working on games to push the envelope. The music that games now sport has as much variety as the kind found in, say, big-budget Hollywood flicks.
Among the most impactful music in recent times is the unmistakable soundtrack of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, written by composer Jeremy Soule. This fantasy game is heralded for the radiant, humbling places it presents to a player—puttering around a village at the foot of a high-speed mountain pass, slinking into an illuminated cave, or gawking up at the top of a giant, gothic castle. Yet, the real impetus is its main theme, Dragonborn, with a full choir and orchestra slamming you right into the middle of an adventure that captures the best essence of a role-playing game.
From the modern era, the music of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt created by the team of Marcin Przybyłowicz, Mikolai Stroinski, and the band Percival stands tall and is as memorable to me as any piece of gaming music. I know I’m not alone when I say that. Considering The Witcher 3 has won just about every award under the sun, including for some categories you might not associate with a CD Projekt Red title, it’s clear that even outside of the game, The Witcher 3 has left a significant impression in this era of gaming.
The Journey soundtrack, a modern classic by most definitions, left an indelible mark on the landscape of video game scores. Much of my work, including old drafts that reach back a decade earlier, has been in an effort to understand why the music of Journey seems instantly iconic immaterial of the game, and why some chord progressions or cadences would feel unadulteratedly cheesy and corny in another context, but here, they seem just right. The text that follows covers ground as to my thinking on these points.
The music of the Dark Souls series, written by composers Yuka Kitamura and Motoi Sakuraba, stands as a paragon of the sort of work being done in the medium today. A heady mix of orchestral and choral music conjures up the dark and weighty atmosphere of the game world, which functions as a nearly seamless pre-rendered opera where the player is the beleaguered hero, and the unfriendly figures found through the kingdom of Lodrana are the ensemble cast.
One soundtrack that will stick with me for a long time is Hollow Knight’s, which was put together by Christopher Larkin. It is supremely enchanting and also very eerie, which fits the underground kingdom of Hallownest like a glove. This is an almost completely orchestral score, recorded with what I’d guess was likely a great deal of live instruments. The more propulsion a track has, the more likely it seems that a number of different people on any number of different instruments played the thing into being at different points in its development.
To sum up, the memorable soundtracks from the video games that raised us have left an indelible impact on the gaming world and in our hearts. Whether it was the pleasant tunes of the 8-bit era or the full-throated symphonies that a score like today’s games can bring to the table, the often-overlooked medium of video game music has gone from what was once an east-side nerd gallery to a selling point and emotional pull for those in the series. They have the ability to immerse players in what is happening on the screen and to give us pure feelings. And for that, we gamers should be (and are!) eternally grateful.
