Tecmo Super Bowl
This was for a long time the gold standard for triumphant music, and still stands near the top of that field. Ending music is supposed to be among the best on the soundtrack, of course; it's part of your reward for completing the game, so it SHOULD be awesome. So epic ending tracks will make frequent appearances on this list (though not as many as final battle tracks do.)
There's not much NES music on this list; after I'm done, with some help, I'm going to do a best of the NES list. Tecmo was a quirky little company, but it sure delivered the goods when it came to music. (And awesome sports games.) (But definitely NOT SNES RPGs.)
1) I agree with you on NES music. When I play most NES games, I just leave it on mute.
ReplyDelete2) ... But Tecmo Super Bowl is one of the rare exceptions! The sound actually adds to the gameplay. You could go off the "hut hut hut hut HIKE!" noises to know when to play defense, and the first down and touchdown themes were also awesome.
3) Secret of the Stars did blow. It would have been fine if it was a NES RPG, but it came out in the SNES era. It's as if Tecmo designed a game without paying any attention to what Square, Enix and Nintendo were up to.