Music has played an important part in video gaming history. It started out as just little background blips of sound that set the mood for a game. But today, we have orchestrated and CD-quality works of art incorporated into our paks, now to convey a much more powerful gaming experience than ever thought possible. Some games get away with this award for having excellent lyrics, whereas 10 or 15 years ago, games might get this award for having neat use of 2-layered sound sampling! It's interesting to also note that while many very high quality video games are released, not many have really good music. We're here now to note out three games that use a soundtrack in an exceptionally beautiful way...
1 - Final Fantasy III (Final Fantasy VI)
Two words: KICK ASS. Nobody has even come CLOSE to the musical genius that is FF3! Not even the Playstation "Oh Look, I Gots an FMV" games. Many many many would argue this and perhaps FF2 as their fav. FFs, but simply because of the... THRILLING music, I must give this one (or should I say, "three") the upper hand. Artistry is what gives this mutha' power; these works could have easily been in da' movies! I just can't believe my ears, that these amazing sounds are coming from my Super NES. Aaaaahh....
2 - EarthBound (Mother 2) + EarthBound Zero (Mother)
It all just sticks with you for years, and if you bother to download the cool .RAs from the Japanese CDs, you'd experience an incredibly magnified, fully-lyriced music trip. Katherine Warwick does an amazing job of interperating three of EarthBound 0's greatest songs, and the Flying Man goes right alongside I Am the Walrus (the Beatles) and No Surprises (Radiohead) as one of the greatest bits of music ever! But we're talking about music in the games, and even then, you've got a humongous stash of pure beauty on you! It's just a really fun and easy-to-listen-to collection of rockin' music.
3 - Mystical Ninja: Starring Goemon (Goemon 5)
Just about the only Nintendo game ever with live-recorded human singers! And these songs are funny. I mean, they were ment to be sort of stupid... I hope. And the rest of the soundtrack is great, too; the part without lyrics. :-) I mean, it's all VERY cartoony and Japanese, just like the graphics and storyline. Alex and I are big fans of the Goemon Impact Theme, also entitled "Dash Dash Dash"... haha ahhaah ahah!
Honorable Mentions - Tetris Attack for the Game Boy and Super NES had some pretty rippin' music, especially for a puzzle game! I just... wanted to acknowledge that... ok, I'll crawl back into my lair...
ONCE AGAIN, the GameCube Rebirth demos were the COOLEST. Wow, I'm just so surprised that a demo could possibly be so great and be just that; a demo. Sigh... too bad...
