Games with great OST

After hearing Vinny defend Crypt of the NecroDancer so fervently on the GOTY podcast episode about Best Music, I decided to investigate a bit more about it. Turns out I had marked as "Not Interested" on Steam, and after I watched some play videos and realized the funky music on the videos was actual game music I switched that to "Wishlist" and sought out the music online (thank you Bandcamp).

Besides the games mentioned on that Category(SPlatoon and MGS: V), what are some other games with great soundtracks? Especially stuff you can listen to while doing something else like working out, or working, or just chilling.

I am not very good at remembering stuff so I only remember Castlevania SOTN and Machinarium. I remember listening to that while doing homework or even playing other games (table top).

Alright, here we go. Off the top of my head, some of my favorite soundtracks include:

Dustforce, VVVVV, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, Brigador, Shovel Knight, Machinarium (you said it already but I love it so much), L.A. Noire, Elite: Dangerous, Risk of Rain, Super Meat Boy, Titan Souls, Myst, Half Life/Half Life 2, Bastion, Transistor, Dungeon of the Endless, Mass Effect...

All of those are on Steam and represent a pretty wide variety of genres. I'm sure I could come up with more, but these are what I've been listening to lately.

OST's I have on my ipod therefore they are deemed to be worthy ost's. All of these I've gotten and deleted some tracks that were too soundtracky if you get what I mean (i.e. they weren't that musical)

LoZ: A Link to the past

GTAIV

Resident Evil 1 & 2

Bioshock 1, 2 & Infinite

Final Fantasy 7 & 8

Nier

Streets of Rage 1 and 2

VVVVVV is great, and I've always enjoyed the Final Fantasy soundtracks (at least up to FF8). The Shin Megami Tensei games have some of my favorite soundtracks. The Persona 3 and 4 soundtracks have a very modern Japan feel to them, so they may not be your cup of tea, but Nocturne, the Digital Devil Saga games, and the Devil Survivor games all have really good instrumental soundtracks as well.

Undertale has the best OST of 2015. Period.

They mentioned it briefly on that podcast but I want to reiterate that the Shatter OST is phenomenal. That game came out in 2009 and I still regularly listen to the soundtrack. More recently I've really enjoyed the Shovel Knight OST, the RocketsRocketsRockets OST is short but quite good.

Jet set radio & Ico are great too.

Shatter.

Persona series for the modern day Jap Pop.

Chrono Cross is very chill.

Prepare for mostly old Nintendo games but here's a bunch of stuff I enjoy that as I type this haven't been said.

Super Mario RPG, Paper Mario 1&2 (I think 2 is better but they're both amazing), Megaman X2 (it's the only one I own), Zombies Ate My Neighbors on SNES, Super Mario World, Luigi's Mansion, The third Penny Arcade game and maybe the fourth it's been awhile since I listened to any, Mario Paint, Diddy Kong Racing, Turok: Dinosaur Hunter and while it's not video games, Keygen music is really great too.

There could probably be a more eye pleasing way to write all those down, my bad.

Ridge Racer Type 4.

A few different things that come to mind off the top of my head

Xenoblade Chronicles (so good I spent $40 on an import of the OST from Japan via Amazon marketplace)

Xenoblade Chronicles X

Transistor (if you haven't heard this one, it is on here: https://supergiantgames.bandcamp.com/album/transistor-original-soundtrack)

My favourite soundtrack of all time is probably GGXX:Reload (regular or Korean version) for some metal ass metal. Granted I played the ever loving shit out of these days back in the day, so the themes are stuck in my brain. Other games with good soundtracks that I've played lately: Binding of Isaac (not Rebirth, the original), Hotline Miami 1, Etrian Odyssey IV.

All of the zeldas, chrono trigger/cross, Legend/secret of Mana, AC black flag, Super mario galaxy, Metal Gear Solid (all), SSX tricky, DRAGONS DOGMA (really, its much better than one would expect) Skyrim has a great theme, Fez, Hotline Miami 1, Guilty Gear (all of em, bonus points for song titles), Final Fantasy 7,9,14, Shadow of the Colossus, Street Fighter 3 Third Strike, Tony Hawk, DMC, Metro 2033, and shovel knight, dungeon defenders. That's a fair list right? oh, right, PERSONA 4

Incoming Youtube video thread I guess.

Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake has the best music in the entire series.

Finished The Wolf Among Us and thought the music in it was great!

• Final Fantasy VI
• Chrono Trigger
• Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne
• Etrian Odyssey IV
• Persona 4

...actually, this seems to be a very common strength of JRPG OST's.

• Mega Man X
• Shovel Knight
• Metroid Prime
• Doom
• Halo
• Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim
• Donkey Kong Country 1, 2, and 3 (Also Tropical Freeze - I have listened to the Tropical Freeze soundtrack without actually playing the game and it's pretty damn great).

I'm sure I could think of way more if I kept at it. I have to wonder, how often do we get genuinely great OST's or just OST's that we think are great because we associate them with our favorite games?

It wasn't popular among fans of the series but I loved the music from Advance Wars: Days of Ruin. Crossing my fingers for the day Intelligent Systems releases a new one

this are my favorites

castlevania, contra and metal slug

• Persona 4
• Bastion
• Transistor
• Payday 2
• Crusader Kings 2
• Katamari Damacy
• Luftrausers
• Hotline Miami

If you throw in Crypt of the Necrodancer, that completes my list of games I'll play just because I'm craving the soundtrack. It helps that they're all good games, too. While I will continue to defend Payday 2 as one of the better Co-op shooters on the market, I would not have put 300 hours into it if it had a mediocre soundtrack.

Europa Universalis IV also has a very good soundtrack, but I've never craved it the way I have Crusader Kings 2.

I really dug the Robot Roller Derby Disco Dodgeball soundtrack (Bandcamp link). Dan talked about it a bit during the GOTY podcasts. It's definitely good background music for computer work (I always have trouble trying to work while listening to podcasts).

Probably the only soundtrack I bought last year.

Journey is legit one of my favorite albums of all time, full stop. So it's probably the best OST I can think of.

Streets of Rage 2 is one of the best of all time. The Sonic games, as well, just incredibly memorable melodies in the 16-bit era.

I listen to so much game music, it's nuts. This year Bloodborne stood out a whole lot because it fit the tone so well.

The first 3 Spyro the Dragon games had fantastic music.

The soundtrack for Lisa is incredibly good and really varied. Its a little weird out of context (or in context for that matter).

• FFVI
• FFT
• Suikoden II
• SOTC
• Castlevania SOTP
• Persona 4
• TES: IV
• Guilty Gear
• Silent Hill 2

@ibarguengoytia:Ah geez, there are so many, here are a few that I find to be pretty fucking awesome and happened to come to mind atm

These games have pretty much a stellar OST as a whole, but i'm going to put just a few examples, also I'm pretty sure the moment I hit "post reply" I'll remember about a dozen other games

- Valkyria Chronicles

- Chrono Trigger

- HoMM series

- Asura's Wrath

- Secret of mana

- Streets of Rage (I usually prefer the original version for the classics, but goddamn this remix is good)

- FTL

The SimCity soundtrack is terrific, especially for writing. And I bought the Reach digital album as soon as I finished the game. O'Donnell's symphonic writing matured tremendously over the series. Bastion's soundtrack is also great, although being able to pick out Apple loops causes 'hiccups' in the listening experience.

Journey, Fez, and the Hotline Miamis are some of my favorites.

There are a whole bunch of them of course, but there are two specifically that I've returned to over and over for the past 19 years. 7th Legion and Descent 2.

7th Legion isn't even a good RTS, but goddamn that soundtrack is so great that I've bought multiple copies of the game just so I can listen to it at any time.

Descent 2 is probably a lot less controversial, considering it's an amazing game by itself, but has music by the all-star cast of Interplay's in-house musicians (Larry Peacock, Brian Luzietti, Mark Morgan of Fallout fame among others) plus some notable other people like Nivek Ogre from Skinny Puppy and Download. I've kept a copy of the Descent 2 soundtrack on every media/MP3 player I've had since 1998 and listen to it pretty much weekly.

The RONIN soundtrack is beyond amazing. Some of the beats are down right filthy:

Life is Strange also has a really great soundtrack, both the original and licensed tracks really fit the almost melancholy tone and feel of the game perfectly:

And of course, I can't not mention Westerado: Double Barrelled's music. Even though in a lot of ways it's just stereotypical western music, it's that style of music done well and I really appreciated that:

Just started playing Risk of Rain again recently and I'm absolutely loving the soundtrack. It's a good mix of chill and intense, and also a great combination of electronic and real instrumentation. I've been listening to it while going through courses on CodeAcademy or while messing with Cheat Engine. Great music to program/hack to.

• Parasite Eve
• Splatoon
• Final Fantasy XIV
• Wordtris
• Transistor
• Kid Icarus Uprising
• Professor Layton Series
• Phoenix Wright Series
• Danganronpa Series
• Bejeweled 2
• Catherine
• Senran Kagura: Bon Appetit
• Jet Set Radio Future
• Max Payne 3
• Shovel Knight
• Payday 2
• Rise of the Triad
• Rez
• Banjo Kazooie

And the list goes on...

All 90s Square JRPGs. First-party Dreamcast games. Any Kojima game. Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike.

The most sound track I love is of Need for speed, most wanted 2, and the shovel knight, resident evil all parts their music is so much cool, i enjoy it really.

FFIX has a great soundtrack. Easily my favorite of the final fantasies (and I love most of them).

Okami also has a great soundtrack that mixes orchestral music with traditional japanese intstruments.

Incomplete listings for most of these composers (bold for my personal highlights):

• Jeremy Soule: Total Annihilation, Company of Heroes(s), Elder Scrolls(s) [inc Morrowind], Icewind Dale, & Dawn of War.
• Inon Zur: Icewind Dale 2, also Company of Heroes(s), & Dragon Age(s).
• Mark Morgan: Fallout(s), & Planescape: Torment.
• Jesper Kyd: Hitman(s) & Assassin's Creed(s).
• Jessica Curry: Dear Esther & Everybody's Gone to the Rapture.
• Richard Jacques: like all Western Sega composed music. Also Fate of the World.
• Michael Hoenig: Baldur's Gate(s).
• Syd Matters: Life is Strange.
• Normand Corbeil: David Cage games.
• Patricio Meneses: ACE Team games.
• Robert & Raleigh Holmes: Gray Matter.
• Gustavo Santaolalla: The Last of Us.
• Tangerine Dream: GTA V.
• Jack Wall: Mass Effect.
• Ben Prunty: FTL.
• Jim Guthrie: Sword & Sworcery.
• Darren Korb: Bastion.
• Mind Tree: Element4l.
• Milieu: Eufloria (née Dyson).
• Nervous_Testpilot: Frozen Synapse.
• 0edit: Neotokyo (two albums).
• Hybrid: Driveclub.

Fallout 4 is very underrated

Killer Instinct Season 1 and 2. Mick Gordon is a great composer. I can't think of another fighting game that has thought as much about and done as much for its soundtrack as this one. Its amazing and varied.

Favorite tracks:

Temperance & Vengeance (Maya's Theme) this is some awesome trance shit.

Inferno (Cinder's theme)

The Instinct (Main theme)

Shatterhail (Glacius' Theme)

Touch me and I'll break your face (Orchid's theme)

.execute (ARIA's Theme)

If you want to go in a completely different direction, The Witcher 3 also has a completely underrated soundtrack. Which to my ears is unique as well, with many Slavic folk elements. These are my two favorites I found off of scouring youtube.

Lazare

Jomsborg (Griffin fight)

Plenty of great stuff mentioned here I just wanted to add that Deus Ex: HR's soundtrack was really good.

Witcher 3 does indeed have an amazing soundtrack. It sounded so great I had to go listen to a bunch of Percival and other slavic folk music.

Rock. Et. League. I was amazed that it's all original. It's such a good listen outside of the game.

I love the Tiny and Big in grandpa's leftovers -soundtrack. Maybe not for everyone, but it's special.

This thread pops up every few months. The answer is always Mega Man 2. I'll listen to arguments for better individual tracks or atmospheric music, but nothing before or since Mega Man 2 has had a soundtrack as consistently awesome and balls-to-the-fucking-wall as Mega Man 2. Just hearing the opening notes of any track from the game makes me want to pick up a controller and mash some buttons.

It deserves all the shit it gets. The characters and story in the XIII trilogy are a fucking travesty. Easily some of the worst storytelling in any medium ever. But we've been through this many, many times before.

In the context of this thread though, I'll agree that the music is pretty ridiculously awesome sometimes.

Persona 4, the Ace Attorney series, the Professor Layton series, and Demon's Souls.

Persona 4

Bravely Default

Lost Odyssey