I realized last year when I was writing the award article for the year's best original soundtracks that I had completely missed a lot of them and had to do a lot of catching up at the time. I also noticed that quite a few great soundtracks went unrecognized in the voting, perhaps because the game itself went largely overlooked or it released so early in the year that most just forgot about it.  

As such, I thought it might be a good idea to start keeping track of the video game soundtracks that people really like, so when the award season comes along again we all have some place to come to and maybe remind ourselves of the best video game music of the year. I definitely need something like that to keep all the great soundtracks in mind come the end of the year.

So, if you play a game from this year with a soundtrack that you believe deserves some recognition, leave a recommendation and maybe even a link to a song from the game in this thread. I'll collect everyone's recommendations with the links into a table in this post as the year progresses. That way everyone who wants to can easily look up any of the recommended soundtracks.

The first game soundtrack should've won the VGA awards but hey, now Octopath Traveler II comes with a total banger follow-up so might as well get it in there.

As for the theme, I'm throwing left curve because this is the battle theme you get when you fight a certain rare enemy.

Sounds joly, funny cartoony but it has all the high quality Yasunori Nishiki produced in the first game and then some 👍

https://youtu.be/xDkRKueCM3k

I agree, the first game's soundtrack was excellent. Haven't yet had the chance to check the sequels music, but it's good to hear it's great as well.

The first score that stood out to me this year was the one from Forspoken. Though the game is apparently quite mediocre otherwise, the music is really quite good. I doubt it'll end up getting much attention at the end of the year, but I like the soundtrack.

Since I brought up Forspoken in the last post, I thought I should also check out the game that took away much of the attention from it on the day it was released, Hi-Fi Rush. I haven't actually played the game, but the music is definitely deserving of the high accolades it's received so far. Though it features quite a few licensed songs as well, the original music is the best part of the soundtrack in my opinio. I'm really enjoying what I've heard so far.

Hogwarts has some brilliant music thus far. I need to play more before giving it any kind of high accolades buy so far so good.

Got around to checking some of Horizon Call of the Mountain's music, and It sounds great. Can't find more than one of the songs on Youtube, so that'll have to do for now. 

Oh great, now I need to play games actually releasing on the current year.

...Well, I guess Zelda and Silksong can bail me out this time, so it's not too bad. But won't have any contributions just yet. In other words, tagging.

Sea of Stars is certainly lining up to be a contender. Eric W. Brown (rainbowdragoneyes) certainly delivered on The Messengers and the tracks I've heard so far have been excellent. Add to that, Yasunori Mitsuda's contribution and you've got an awesome soundtrack incoming.

Samples :
Encounter!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHVxD_2Vf70
Fierce Opposition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJw0iUpg7EM
Coral Cascades : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPkdDsOjsNw

I hadn't even heard of Sea of Stars before, but it looks genuinely amazing. Thanks for pointing it out. Need to keep it in mind when it releases. Also, the music sounds great too. I'll add it to the list in the OP.