1. Undertale -
Toby Fox
Undertale is an auteur game, by pretty much one person who also happens to primarily be a musician, so it’s no surprise its music was going to be on point. When I played the demo a few years ago, it was the music that pushed me to back the project. The specific track that did it was
Heartache. While I still love the track, I’m not even sure if that one ended up in my top 10 favourite Undertale songs.
One thing I noticed was that Undertale seemed to have put most of its most beloved tracks in its boss battles. Not just that, but more specifically in its hardest boss battles. This is fitting, because these tracks really get you pumped, and fill you with the determination to keep at it. I don’t easily get angry at video games, but some of Undertale’s hardest boss battle was really getting under my skin, but its terrific theme
Megalovania helped me through it. It’s actually an arrangement of a song that the creator had used before in his other projects, but this was my first exposure to it, and my favourite rendition. Speaking of boss music, there is even a layer to them that I’m a little bit unsure of. During one of the bosses that I had to replay a bunch of times, I noticed that one attack always seemed to show up in the same part of the song. It made me wonder if the choice of attacks this boss used may be influenced by how far in the song is. It is drenched in spoilers, so I don’t know how in depth I should go, but it happened in the
Battle Against A True Hero. While checking out some videos on Youtube, I seem to saw the same pattern happen in it. When the music mellows down, it appears the light-spear attacks start darting around. It’s fitting, because the combination makes you feel like you’re waltzing between her barrage.
One of my not so secret favourite tracks of the OST is simply titled
‘Dog Song’. The reason I say ‘not so’ is because it’s been my ringtone for three months now, much to the chagrin of my friends, colleagues and family members. Dog Song is weird, a little bit annoying and a whole lot of stupid. Can’t help it though. I love it. It makes me happy. Don’t judge me.
My favourite non-trolly song in the game is most likely
Bonetrousle. There are two versions of this track. A more understated chiptune version, and one where traditional instruments get layered in, and turn the thing into the dopest polka-ish song you’ll hear all year. Multiple versions of the same song is not uncommon in the game, even if it isn’t always that obvious. The motifs spread throughout the soundtrack, which weave a web similarly to the flow of the story and areas. One final mention should go that the game pays homage to the Final Fantasy 6 musical, which deserved a shout-out in a musical tribute thread. Just good stuff all around, with lots of excitement and feels.
Samples: Bergentrückung -
Spider Dance -
Another Medium -
Death By Glamour -
Spear of Justice -
Temmie Village -
Hopes and Dreams & Save the World
2. Xenoblade Chronicles X -
Hiroyuki Sawano
I’ll be honest, I was not feeling this one before launch. I wasn’t familiar with the composer, but everything people had linked me did not inspire me with a lot of confidence. His style sounded very ...eclectic. Incohesive, tons of vocal tracks (which I typically don’t like in my video games) with bad English and German, and cheesy as hell. Now that I’ve finally put dozens of hours into this game, I can confirm that all those impressions still hold true, except I kind of love it. It’s camp and silly, but it’s falls comfortably in the “guilty pleasure” territory. Xenoblade Chronicles X is the perfect game to remind me why I avoid voting for games I haven’t played.
The composer made some odd choices especially with the NLA themes. NLA stands for New Los Angeles, and is basically the main city in the game. You’ll be spending a loooooooooot of time here, and that’s sadly enough where it can fall apart a bit. After 50 hours of playing, the novelty of the
NLA Daytime song has worn off, and can being distracting.
One thing Xenoblade Chronicles X is great at, is giving a huge alien world to explore, and boy does it have the music to go with it. Like the game before it, themes get a day and a night version. All these region themes are excellent, and do a great job at capturing the spirit of these areas. Strong percussions boost the more primal feel of certain areas, while the more floaty instrumentation accents the more serene areas. Quite a few tracks ended up reminding me a lot of Metroid Prime, particularly
Sylvalum's night time music. Maybe it was the combination of the music with the alien aesthetic. I don’t know, but I was into it anyway. It's quite a departure from Xenoblade Chronicles' soundtrack, but in the end it worked out just fine.
Samples: Briefing -
Noctilum day -
Uncontrollable -
Ma-non Ship -
Oblivia -
Mira
3. Crypt of the Necrodancer -
Danny Baranowsky
Music game gets mentioned on my music list. Makes sense. Crypt of the Necrodancer doesn’t have the most sophisticated music, but I really enjoyed it and it played a big part in the design of the game. Basically it’s a rogue-like where turns aren’t dictated by your own movement, but by the beat of the song. Your job is to defeat the boss and go down the next floor before the song is over. You’ll get the hang of the gimmick quickly, but don’t notice its complexity until you start getting songs where the beat gets interrupted. The style of the music is a chiptune type of dealie with proper base and synth mixed into it, dipping into various musical genres.
Another good thing the game does well, is mix in channels based on your location. If you’re near a shop, you’ll start hearing someone singing along to the music. It’s the shopkeeper, of course, so make way towards the baritone vocals if you hear it. It doesn’t happen often that games do something interesting with music, so it’s nice to see someone try something. It’s even nicer when their experimentation paid off.
Samples: Rhythmortis -
Disco Descent -
Ingeous Rock -
Momentum Mori
Honourable Mentions:
D4: Dark Dreams Don’t Die
My actual favourite soundtrack of 2015. Sadly enough
the man decided this falls under the late port category, so it doesn’t qualify. Still, what’s there is of a really high quality. Much like Deadly Premonition, the music does a fantastic job at carrying Swery’s style and writing. My favourite track of the soundtrack is without a doubt David’s theme, which gets you pumped like a good TV series opening. That’s fitting, because it basically is exactly that. The theme gets used in an actual intro that marks the start of each chapter, and is modeled after a cheesy detective show of a few decades ago. The delicate dance between the blaring saxophones and the mellow piano provide a very pleasant, yet exciting prelude for what lies ahead.
Sample: Theme of D4
Life is Strange
A mixture of licensed and original tracks, but they all work. Life is Strange has a lot of atmospheric shots, and rather than punctuating them with faint atmospheric background music, the game decided it would be more fitting to use popping tracks with vocals to help set the scenes. This is not uncommon in TV shows and movies, but Life is Strange made me realise we rarely see that in games.
Sample: Obstacles
Splatoon
I haven’t played this game myself, so I’m not going to vote for it out of principle, but I’ve had to listen to it for enough hours from others playing it that I feel comfortable sharing my opinion on it. Splatoon sounds weird. It uses unconventional sounds and garbled vocals, and it just works with their whole aesthetic. On top of that it just sounds interesting. Its theme song is one of the dopest things I’ve heard all year.
Sample: Splattack!
Tales of Zestiria
Motoi Sakuraba teams up with Go Shiina to bring us another Tales-ass sounding game. These are always competent, and this is no exception. Most of them sound like they came off an assembly line, but I suppose that’s what the Tales series is like in general. A stand-out track from this was probably the Trial of Fire’s music, mostly because it sounded different from the norm.
Sample: Flaming Bonds are Being Tested
This is the thread that convinced me to pick up Transformers Devestation. \m/
Yeah, that's indeed my take-away too. I kind of dismissed it as another low-budget Platinum effort, much like Korra. Good to see they put in the work in this one.
I'm fairly certain I'll have some kind of combination of FFXV, Persona 5, Fire Emblem Fates, The Legend of Zelda U, Trails of Cold Steel II and Nier 2 (if that's out next year) in the Top 3 & honorable mentions. Of course there's always room for surprises.
