[Voting closed] VgChartz Top 50 Video Game Soundtracks

[The_Liquid_Laser]

mZuzek said:

The_Liquid_Laser said:

In most lists like this, I tend to be biased more towards first entries.  On top of that some of those games end up recycling their music in later entries, which biases me even more toward the first one.  

Metroid is a series where I have missed a few entries.  I have a couple of them on my backlog, so I will probably play through them this year.  However, I have at least started Metroid Zero Mission.  The music on it is extremely good, but it is all taken from original Metroid.  So original Metroid is what makes my list.

Eh, at the same time later entries also have more than 4 songs and stuff. I mean, it doesn't mean much if Breath of the Wild reuses the original Zelda theme sparingly across two or three songs, if it also has another 50 or 60 or 70 more new songs which have a lot of variety in instrumentation and theme - whereas the NES era games usually only had 2 or 3 very basic styles, really.

Either way, it's a way of looking at things, really. When it comes to Metroid, I think the franchise is always at its best when you feel that sense of isolation and loneliness, and as such I think the best music from it is usually the more atmospheric stuff of Super and Prime. I think AM2R has an awesome soundtrack too even though it's a lot more on the catchy side, then again that's not an official game.

NES Metroid's Brinstar is too catchy and happy for my taste, and it's also incredibly basic from a songwriting point of view. Norfair I just find to be lame. Kraid is actually awesome, I'll give you that. The ending themes (Escape and Credits) are alright, and all the other songs are absolute garbage (edit: um, except the Title theme. That one's good, I forgot about it). I think Zero Mission improved on the soundtrack a good bit (especially Norfair, they did wonders with that one), but ultimately it doesn't come close to the franchise's best and one other good reason for that is the GBA's atrocious soundchip (in fact I'd say Fusion could have been another amazing OST if it wasn't so held back by its console).

For my 4 - 10 games, it mostly didn't matter to me how many songs were in the soundtrack.  I just picked games where I could remember the songs off the top of my head and I knew I really liked.  So for my 4-10 games there might have only been 1 - 3 songs that stuck out.  My top 3 games have exceptional soundtracks with many really good songs.  Also I feel that way about most Final Fantasy games, but I could only include 1 game per franchise.

Also, I have recently gotten a Gameboy Player for my Gamecube, and I really feel this is the way to play GBA games.  Some of these games have very good music.