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[dracula_x]

1. The Tomorrow Children
Joel Corelitz
Sample Tracks: March of the Izverg, Girl at Play


2. Furi
3. Severed

 

[Dark Schala]

From what I gather, it's okay for me to vote for Cold Steel 1, since it only came out in Europe this year. I didn't vote for it last year. If it's not okay, I'll change it.

Yep, you're good!

 

[JOEVIAL]

1. Battlefield 1 wins for me, hands down.

I can't believe hardly anyone has mentioned it. It was a stone cold surprise how superb the soundtrack is! It is definitely my favorite of the year and one of my favorites that I have listened to.

It is an emotionally driven and powerful soundtrack. Lots of somber tunes and spine tingling themes I hope the vinyl release is well mastered! I will hopefully add my favorite tracks soon

Full Soundtrack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sya1CzmsvLc

 

[Earthpainting]

You'd think I'd be used to the mere top threes now, but every year again I start sweating. Soundtrack lists shouldn't feel like Sophie's Choice, but it just does. Will be looking forward to seeing everyone's lists.

 

[Bishop89]

1. Uncharted 4
Cut to the chase

2. Street Fighter 5
Nash's Theme
Ryu's Theme
Ken's Theme
Cammy's Theme

3. Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth
Hope Ster
Message
Spiritual Boy


Honourable Mentions
Call of Duty infinite warfare - Anthropic Universe
Deus eX Mankind Divided Full OST


Did i do it right?

 

[TriAceJP]

1. Picross 3D Round 2

Example


2. Exist Archive

Example


3. World of Final Fantasy


Example


I'm sure that Kirby game had rad music, but unfortunately I did not play much of it.

 

[thenexus6]

1. Hyper Light Drifter
2. Oxenfree
3. Deus Ex Mankind Divided

Mentions
Firewatch
Abzu

 

[Eolz]

Posting to not forget, will make a new post for the list itself.
Nice to see already some votes even if there's no text for most of them yet.

 

[Nestunt]

1. Dark Souls III
Abyss Watchers
Soul of Cinder

2. The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine
The Night of Long Fangs
Fanfares and Flowers

3. The Banner Saga 2
Children of the Fallen
Walls like Mountains

4. Abzû
Delphinus Delphis

5. DOOM
BFG Division

 

[spiritfox]

Oh man, this year is tough for 2 reasons: many good soundtracks, but no one of them standing above the others. In the end, I have 5 picks, each with their own merits, so I'm going to list them all.

1. Fire Emblem Fates

Fire Emblem narrowly takes the top, surprisingly due to Lost in Thoughts, All Alone. You would think I would get bored with it after 60+ hours of it, but it all pays off when End of All starts over the final battle and Rena Strober's voice fills your headphones (which you should be using cause the music is amazing). The Hoshido tracks also add a new feel to Fire Emblem, with Okami's Rei Kondoh bringing in his amazing compositions. Finally, you get to hear Matthew Mercer sing, which is great by itself.
Alight
Petals in the Wind
Thorn in You (Roar)
End of All

2. Pokemon Sun/Moon

Guzma's theme is the freshest thing this side of Splatoon, and ya'll know it. Team Skull basically knocked it out of the park here, but the rest of the tracks are no slouch either.
Hau'oli City (Day)
Infiltration
Vast Poni Canyon
The Battle at the Summit!

3. Sid Meier's Civilization VI

It's no Baba Yetu, but Christopher Tin's Sogno di Volare is certainly up there. Pun intended. Geoff Knorr also did a great job with the individual civ themes, remixing classic folk songs in an epic orchestral form. I love that the music grows with you throughout the game, from a single solo instrument in the ancient era, to a massive orchestra in the space age. Never had the Seikilos Epitaph sounded so glorious.
Sogno di Volare
America - The Atomic Era
Brazil - The Medieval Era
Greece - The Industrial Era

4. 7th Dragon III: Code VFD

You know it's a good year when Yuzo Koshiro does not hit my top 3. It's a tough choice, but the limited number of songs go against it, as it gets a little stale when the same songs get repeated ad nauseum. However, it does not mean that it's a bad soundtrack.
A Tale of Men and Dragons (code:VFD Ver.)
Battlefield - Invasion of the 7
Battlefield - Hunters
Shuugeki no Ignito

5. Planet Coaster

A theme park simulation game is not a game I would have expected a great soundtrack. But when the composer is Jim Guthrie, you get the best soundtrack in the genre. It's a carefree, whimiscal soundtrack that maybe fits more in an award-winning indie movie than a game, but it blends perfectly with the visuals and feel of Planet Coaster. Also, some of the best track names I've seen this year.
The Light in Us All
Breakfast Of Champignons
With Friendship & Peace
You, Me & Gravity


Honorable Mention: Etrian Odyssey V

What's this, another Yuzo Koshiro soundtrack? The only reason why this is not number 1 is because the game is not out in English yet. It's, in my not so humble opinion, the best Etrian Odyssey soundtrack to date. I can't wait for it to come out here.
Dungeon 3
Battle 2
Final Boss
End of the Raging Waves

 

[ColdHoboKiller]

1: Doom

2: Dark Souls 3

3: Abzu

 

[akileese]

1. Doom

2. No Man's Sky

3. Firewatch

HM:
Rez Infinite
Thumper

 

[sechsterangriff]

1. Final Fantasy XV
2. VA-11 HALL-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action (Seriously, you guys need to listen to this)
3. World of Final Fantasy
4. Fire Emblem: Fates

 

[Eblo]

1. Final Fantasy XV
   Yoko Shimomura is godly. You know that moment where the main theme plays in that one place? I like that part.
2. Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice
   That rival prosecutor theme
3. DOOM
   It's metal, it's Doom.

Honorable mention - Pokemon Sun and Moon: While it has some nice tracks, it didn't make my top 3 because it still has some of the grating sameness that plagues Pokemon soundtracks. I can't the games' main battle themes apart.

LTTP: METAL GEAR RISING
RULES OF NATURE
AND THEY RUN WHEN THE SUN COMES UP
WITH THEIR LIVES ON THE LINE

 

[Algebrah]

1. Stardew Valley
2. Doom
3 Final Fantasy XV

 

[DemWalls]

1. Furi
2. Abzû
3. Dark Souls III

Honourable Mentions

The Witcher III: Blood and Wine

 

[Deleted member 59090]

1. Brigador
Makeup and Vanity Set
A New Age
Solo Nobre
2. DOOM
3. Stardew Valley

Honorable Mentions:
Thumper
Obduction

LTTP:
Westerado
Westerado Theme
Last Round

 

[McNum]

1. Doom
Doom steals the first place in part because it's pretty god metal, but also because of how well it fits its game. Having the last two notes of the original Doom theme be played by the shotgun was brilliant.

While these have been posted, let me just repeat what others have said...
Rip and Tear
BFG Division
And the entire thing uploaded by Bethesda. I recommend skipping to At Doom's Gate for how to remaster a classic done right..

2. Fire Emblem Fates
Any game where I catch myself trying to sing the lyrics of its main theme needs to be on this list. So here's Fire Emblem Fates.

Now sing with me a song of Birthrights and Love. Or Conquest and Fate if that's how you prefer it. Or Silence and Blood.
Lost in Thoughts All Alone
Lost in Thoughts All Alone (Live)

3. Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice
Like Doom, Spirit of Justice does some interesting things with its music. So while I am going for one of the obvious choices, I want to highlight this first.

Meet Pees'lubn Andistan'dhin, He's a witness in the game. His gimmick, other than looking like Jesus, is that he speaks... like this: Pees'lubn Andistan'dhin ~ Ethnic Music
Those bleeps are how his text appears. Unlike everyone else who goes "bleedli-bleep", his bleeps are delivered in song.That is... until you pressure him enough and his song changes to: Pees'lubn Andistan'dhin ~ Head-Banging

Of course, can't leave out this: Pursuit ~ Cornering Together

 

[delSai]

1. Let It Die
With 100+ Japanese Bands and music composed by Silent Hill composer Akira Yamaoka, Let it Die features all kind of amazing and atmospheric music. Some songs make you feel uncomfortable, others get you all pumped up. Theres something for everyone. The Radio in the game mostly has loud Punk/Metal (i dont know all the right genres, but its in that direction) by bands like Rookiez is Punk'd but you will also find Jazz and much more. The Soundtrack is just full of quality music. Here is a List with all the Bands that have a song in the game.
Surive Said the Prophet - Let it Die
Tancobuchin - Midnight Worry Game
Erika Ito - Let it Die
Royal Elevator

2. Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth
3. Battleborn

 

[Psycho_Mantis]

1. Final Fantasy XV
2. The Last Guardian
3. Uncharted 4

 

[ohlawd]

3. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Spirit of Justice ; yep
2. Fire Emblem Fates ; same tracks everyone else is posting lol
1. Monster Hunter Generations ; So good this year. I had to flip a coin between this and my #2.

Mizutsune
Gammoth
Astalos
Glavenus
Nakarkos 2nd phase

No Atelier from me this year. I could listen to the OST anytime, but I don't wanna listen to something I haven't played yet. Next year, Sophie ;_;

 

[Fancy Clown]

1. The Last Guardian
2. Dark Souls 3; favorite tracks--Lorian and Lothric, Soul of Cinder
3. Uncharted 4; favorite tracks--The Twelve Towers, For Better or Worse

Honorable mentions:
4. DOOM
5. Final Fantasy XV

 

[E_A_R_T_H]

1. Hyper Light Drifter
2. Doom
3. Firewatch

 

[MikeDown]

1) DOOM
-BFG Division
-Rip & Tear
-Professor Doctor Samuel Hayden, CEO Extraordinaire

2)Firewatch
-Camp Approach
-Thoroughfare Hike
-Ol' Shoshone

3)Banner Saga 2
-Minds like Streams & Streams like Minds
-More Stars Tonight then Last Night
-Training

Honorable Mentions:
Battlefield 1
Final Fantasy XV
No Man's Sky
Let It Die
Technomancer (Really good soundtrack to a pretty terrible game, composed by Olivier Deriviere)

 

[Violence Jack]

This might change as I've still got some games to go through.

1. DOOM
-Title Theme
-Gore Nest

2. Furi
3. Final Fantasy XV

Honorable Mention
Killer Instinct Season 3

LTTP: Persona 4 Golden

 

[JudgmentJay]

1. Odin Sphere Leifthrasir
Opening Title -Leifthrasir ver.
Forest of Elrit
Volkenon Lava Pit ~ Final Chapter
2. Hyper Light Drifter
Vignette: Visions
Vignette: Corruption
The Midnight Wood
3. DOOM
Hellwalker

 

[Buttersworth]

1. Final Fantasy XV
2. Uncharted 4
3. Dark Souls III

 

[Ala1995ginobiko]

1. Final Fantasy XV

2. Pokemon sun & moon

3. Uncharted 4

4. World of Final Fantasy

 

[Deleted member 102362]

1. DOOM
-Uac Report File; Shto36u3
-Mastermind
-Vega Core

 

[NEO0MJ]

I should probably play Furi before the end of the year.

 

[Confused Cheeseburger]

1. Owlboy
2. Hyper Light Drifter
3. Abzu
4. The Last Guardian
5. Dragon Quest Builders

 

[Obliterator]

1. DOOM
2. Final Fantasy XV
3. Dark Souls 3

 

[aGuyInaBearSuit]

1. Doom
2. Firewatch
3. Uncharted 4

 

[Auctopus]

1. Uncharted 4
2. The Last Guardian
3. Hyper Light Drifter

Honourable Mentions:

- DOOM
- Abzu
- Bound

 

[TheMagicMax]

1. Fire Emblem Fates
Lost in Thoughts all alone
End of All
No Justice
No Justice (Fire)
Alight (Storm)
Dark Wastes

2. Paper Mario: Color Splash
Bloo Bloo Beach
The Crimson Tower
Dark Bloo Inn
Marmalade Valley

3. Steins;Gate 0
~Messenger~ (Piano)
~Messenger~
Believe me ~zero~

Honorable Mentions go to:
-Owlboy
-Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse
-Uncharted 4: A Thief's End
-Dark Souls III

 

[Rutger]

Oh no, I'm not ready for this. D:

It would be very easy to give Persona 5 first place, but I'll save that vote for next year when more of GAF has had a chance to play it.

I'm going to wait a bit to make my votes so I can have more time to play some games.

 

[GusZamboni]

1 - Doom

2 - Street Fighter V

3 - Final Fantasy XV

 

[Aaron D.]

I was absolutely blown away with the quality of game soundtracks this year. I've purchased more in the last 12 months than in the last 5 years combined.

Personal standouts:

1. Doom
1. RimWorld
3. Stellaris
4. Stardew Valley

 

[djtiesto]

I've played the first 3 levels of DOOM but don't really remember too much about the music, surprised to see it getting so many mentions. (then again I'm not too big into metal).

My picks:
1. Rez Infinite
2. Furi
3. I Am Setsuna

 

[Dark Schala]

It would be very easy to give Persona 5 first place, but I'll save that vote for next year when more of GAF has had a chance to play it.

Thoraxes was just telling me yesterday that he might put P5 as a contender for next year, and I totally understand people holding off until next year when it gets localized.

I didn't do much (any) importing this year so I'm actually in the same boat as some of you for once unless I import Scarlet Grace. It's nice because I get less confused about what got localized and what didn't. Like Cold Steel 2: I played it in 2014 and I had to think twice before I jotted it down in my spreadsheet since it got localized this year.

Posting to not forget, will make a new post for the list itself.
Nice to see already some votes even if there's no text for most of them yet.

I'm a little surprised, just because the last few threads this year made me a little nervous but I learned my lesson: put the thread up early, probably before the GotY thread. I know it's taken me a few tries to learn that but I am stubborn. :V

Thank you so much to people who have voted already. I appreciate it; and thanks for not reserving posts, too.

Did i do it right?

You did great.

I don't personally use a parser so I end up reading everyone's posts in-full anyway. So members don't have to bother with formatting as long as they number their soundtracks somewhere. I'm not really a stickler.

 

[J 0 E]

1- DOOM
2- The Last Guardian
3- Final Fantasy XV

Honorable mentions

Uncharted 4
The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine
Street Fighter V

 

[Y2Kev]

1. The Last Guardian

Hi, I'm here to give all my points to The Last Guardian.

In a year filled with wonderful soundtracks, none sticks closer to the design ethos of the accompanying game than Takeshi Furukawa's beautiful The Last Guardian score. Just as Ueda designs "by subtraction," Furukawa has composed a restrained, measured soundtrack that gives the game the emotional space it needs to touch the player while clearly enhancing every scene. In fact, if you expect the orchestra to be super active--and Furukawa masterfully conducts a 92 piece orchestra-- you'll probably not like this soundtrack. Often Furukawa showcases on a single player or group of players and he does so with an elegance and a grace that befits Ueda's latest creation.

Furukawa's restraint occasionally gives way to bombast, and those moments are cathartic. Though it must have been difficult to compose in the shadow of the legendary Shadow of the Colossus OST, Furukawa impresses with an intimate set of tracks befitting of the relationship between Trico and the boy. Like the game, the soundtrack can be playful and serious, curious and determined, and melancholy and uplifting. The six or so note main hook that props up throughout the OST is an ear worm.

Falling Bridge
Epilogue

Please watch this interview with the composer.

 

[SmoothRunningGun]

1. Dark Souls 3
Abyss Watchers
https://youtu.be/f0LdIZ8TWYo

Yhorm the Giant
https://youtu.be/PrbZc-J0-Z4

 

[The Xtortionist]

1. Final Fantasy XV
Wanderlust - Final Fantasy's GOAT exploration theme?
Up for the Challenge - One of my favorite FF battle themes ever.
Cartanica - The piano in this track is Esto Gaza as fuck and I love it.

2. DOOM
When the DOOM music kicks in

Spoiler

BFG Division is my track of the year, easy

3. Furi
Pulse-pounding tracks like You're Mine and Danger 6:24 drive the action, and each track has distinct sections that sync to boss phase changes.

 

[SquirrelWide]

1. Guilty Gear Xrd Revelator - Never much cared for the vocals. But those instrumentals get me so hyped!

Sky Should Be High (Instrumental)
The Tuner (Kum Haehyun Theme)
Bao Babel Noise (Jam Kuradoberi Theme)

2. SMT IV: Apocalypse - Perfect meld of <can listen to it by itself> and <matches the theme of the game>. In the first half of the year I really though Furi was a lock. Then I played this game. I know a lot of it is a rehash of SMT IV, but when it works this well it doesn't matter to me.

Kinshi-cho Underground Shppping District
Outcast Hunters Base
F2 Boss Battle

3. Furi - Brilliant game. Brilliant music. It was a tough choice between this and SMT IV.

Wisdom of Rage
6:24
What We Fight For

Honorable Mention (in no particular order):

A. Final Fantasy XV - Might be #1 if I had gotten to more of it before the end of the year. FF music is consistently brilliant. I did notice that with the excellent edition of old FF music in the car I was having some trouble separating mentally what was FFXV specific. I'm curious how my opinion will change up or down as I play more. FF music is in large part judged by me through its ability to help define a place.

Valse di Fantastica
Careening Into Danger
Hammerhead

B. Blue Revolver - Bullet Heaven. You know it's good when the guys from Cave like it.

Mothertrucker (If the rest of the OST was as good as this song, my top 3 would change)
Aerolith Aurorablast
Blue Revolution

C. No Man's Sky - I love 65DaysOfStatic. But I also judge OSTs on whether I can listen to them as a standalone thing. This normally disqualifies most horror games, and in this case, procedural music. I love the music's impact in game, but their arranged effort didn't match - in it's entirety - my favorite album of theirs We Were Exploding Anyway. Otherwise, I think might have been my #1.

Debutante
Red Parallax
Asimov

D. Owlboy - Most charming game I've played in a long time.

Tropos (Day)
Main Theme
Final Ascent

LTTP

A. Fast Racing NEO - Only kept out of the top 3 considerations by coming out a month too soon for this year. Music and visuals get you into that racing zen state so well.

Zvil Raceway
Sendai Output
Cevo Canyon

Really, Reaaaaaally LTTP

A. Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together - Easily my favorite game of the year that didn't come out this year. Some of it's mechanics really didn't age well, but it does so much right (and a lot of it ahead of its time) that this game is threatening my GOAT list (.... that I need to write down at some point)

Fog Of Phantom
Three Kings
Theme of the Priest

 

[PaulKersey]

1. Bound

Green

I will post more later and more links to the GOAT OST, but I felt I needed to put Bound in there.

 

[Nocturnowl]

This year is an odd one, I don't have any frontrunners but I've got a ton of evenly matched soundtracks in mind.
And then I'm listening to some of the titles I haven't played in this thread like Civ VI, FF XV and even unexpected stuff like Battlefield 1 and Planet Coaster hitting some high marks and I'm even more stuck narrowing this down.

The you've got titles like Doom and Hyper Light Drifter where the OST isn't exactly something I'd listen to on its own but I can defiebtly say from playing through them that they fit their respective games like a glove.

No Atelier from me this year. I could listen to the OST anytime, but I don't wanna listen to something I haven't played yet. Next year, Sophie ;_;

Feels unusual to have a SotY thread where I don't get my annual links to a random Atelier title.

 

[Jucksalbe]

Feels unusual to have a SotY thread where I don't get my annual links to a random Atelier title.

There's still time for that.

 

[BY2K]

1. DOOM
2. Pokémon Sun/Moon
3. Dark Souls III

 

[dramaticslowmo]

1. Final Fantasy XV
2. No Man's Sky
3. World of Final Fantasy

LTTP: Final Fantasy VII