My Favorite Video Game Music, #1: Smiles And Tears

#1: Smiles And Tears

EarthBound

So this is it. It's been a long journey, it's been tough, it's even been painful at times; but we've bonded together and worked through it all together, and yes, we've even had fun. I'm talking, of course, about this Top 50 list. And there's no better way to end it than with this.

I called Aria de Mezzo Carattere the most beautiful video game music ever, and that it is; but this is a close second. And while the Aria was 100% pure beauty, there's something uniquely stirring about this track that you hardly ever find anywhere else. If you just clear your mind and sit back and listen to this music, it will take your mind to unusual places.

Throughout EarthBound your play will be repeatedly interrupted by a random cameraman dropping out of the sky and taking photographs of you. (There are 30-some places in the game this can happen.) He has no apparent connection to the story and his presence in the game is never explained until the very end of the ending. EarthBound's credits come in two parts: first the in-game credits set to a funky beat (see #11), and then EarthBound's magnum opus, this music playing while the game shows you all the photographs that were taken and the credits roll. It is actually quite powerful.

I've had 15 years to think about what exactly makes EarthBound so different from every other game--and no doubt EarthBound is a unique game--and so prone to being either loved with devotion or detested with scorn by almost everyone that plays it. And I think one of the important reasons for this is, there is a very strong undercurrent of sentimentality all through EarthBound. You don't really get that with other RPG's; you get epic stories and, sometimes, deep character development, but almost every time the character in question is angsty and broken to some extent. That's absent from EarthBound; the four heroes are early-teenage kids whose regularly scheduled childhood was interrupted by the urgent need to save the world from the horror of Giygas' eternal darkness. EarthBound mixes jokes and lightheartedness with "this is serious business and these kids are really struggling" unusually well, and the further you go in the game the more it slowly tilts toward serious business. By the time you finish the Lost Underworld, the jokes are gone. Right after that is Magicant (i.e., Ness's subconscious) and it's a silly and whimsical place... but not really. And it turns dark fast and culminates with Ness confronting the evil in his own soul. Before Earth's 13-year-old chosen champion can defend it from the encroaching darkness, he must first conquer himself.

There's something a little tragic about so much being dumped on a 13-year-old's shoulders. EarthBound is full of whimsy, but the game also very subtly points you back to that point. For Ness and his friends, this was a tough road.

Leaving off the game, let's talk about this music on its own merits. Of all the video game music I've heard, this track stands up better than almost all others separated from its source. And like the game, this is because it is very powerfully sentimental. It combines EarthBound's whimsy with its nagging sense of loss. And the music is perfectly titled. Smiles and tears.

This would be perfect music to set to a five minute slide show or video show in loving memory at a funeral. Go ahead: quiet everything else in the room, put this music on, close your eyes and focus your thoughts on some departed friend or family member of yours. Or even a beloved pet, or a TV character you were especially attached to, for that matter. See if the room doesn't get dusty at some point. If it doesn't, you are a 15-to-30 year old male. Try again in a few years. It'll pass.

And so this list ends. Thanks for reading, everyone.

My Favorite Video Game Music, #2: For The Savior

#2: For The Savior

Lufia II

It was an endless, brutal journey through danger after danger, all the way to the end of the earth, but you endured, you fought through the pain and despair, and you've done it. You have defeated the Sinistrals and saved the world--but at a devastating price. Your wife, mortally injured in the battle, has just died in your arms. The Fortress of Doom is collapsing around you. You refuse to leave her side; your friends have teleported to safety and you, savior of the world, are left alone to die in the wreckage.

But Daos, Master of Terror, is an evil bastard, and with his last gasp he sent the airborne fortress careening on a course that will cause it to crash on, and destroy, your hometown--where you and your beloved wife's infant son sleeps.

You have one chance to stop it, to alter the crumbling island's course. You have three minutes to live. You'll never hear the accolades or the thanksgiving for saving the world from the Sinistrals, but that doesn't matter anymore. One thing matters.

You rise from your knees, your hands and armor stained with her blood. If you can't get there in time, the last of her blood will be gone forever. Three minutes.

This music encapsulates the flavor of that scene, one of the most heart-wrenching in any storytelling medium, so perfectly it gives a man chills. Triumph. Determination. Desperation.

My Favorite Video Game Music, #3: Staff Roll

#3: Staff Roll

Mario Kart 64

The tracks I listed #4 through #8 on this list are all very highly regarded music that is almost always cited in the top 10 or 15 of anybody's list. (Except One Winged Angel, which is too popular to be popular.)

The tracks I list #3 through #1 I suspect a lot of people have never heard before. This one is probably the best known of them, as Mario Kart 64 was the most widely played game of the three represented.

Anyway, you'll notice how 4 through 6 were the three most awesome Final Battle themes of all time. At heart I am attracted to the drama and tension of that final struggle, but even more I love the thrill and triumph of final victory. And no video game music has ever been composed that says thrill and triumph of final victory better than this one. It is triumphant music, exuberant music, music that makes you instinctively want to raise your fists to the sky and exult in the sound of 30,000 people chanting your name. Funny that you'd find it in a fun little package of a game like Mario Kart 64--notable for being far, far easier to beat than Super Mario Kart, but also for being a beautiful game in graphics, design and especially music.

There is a category called "best music to set to a three-minute montage celebrating your favorite sports team winning the championship", and this track runs away with that category like Secretariat at the Belmont Stakes. (Which wouldn't be a bad thing to set to this music, come to think of it.) If you don't believe me, try it: find such a montage (they're all over Youtube), mute whatever piss-lame music it's set to and put this music on instead. Behold how awesome it is.

My Favorite Video Game Music, #4: Dancing Mad

#4: Dancing Mad

Final Fantasy VI

Ladies and gentlemen, I present the granddaddy of all Final Battle themes. One Winged Angel was a phenomenon, but Dancing Mad will probably never be topped.

Of all the great RPG's I've played, Final Fantasy VI feels the most epic. 'Epic' is a word you see thrown willy-nilly around the internet these days, but when I invoke it here I am using its classic meaning: grand and deep both in scope and impact; a long, involved and life-altering journey. By that definition, no game's story carries the weight Final Fantasy VI's does. And it all culminates with--and I mean this both in the classic sense and the internet sense--an epic final battle accompanied by epic music.

I think the second-longest piece on this list, not counting loops, is yet to come; it's about five and a half minutes long. Dancing Mad is three times that length, or about twice that length if you discount the fact each of the first three movements is played through twice.

Which brings me to my next item: This music comes in four distinct movements, which you will see called 'tiers' since they correspond to the four tiers of your fight against Kefka. Each has its own distinct flavor: the Face/Arms tier is menacing, the Four Parts tier is relentless and oppressive, the Hit/Girl tier is dark and spiritual, and the Kefka tier is powerful, out of control and insane. All the music falls into place. This is the closest thing to a bona fide symphony video game composers have ever assembled. Listened to in whole, the effect is tremendously impressive. Like Final Fantasy VI.

Consider the general story flow of Final Fantasy VI. You start out as the loosely-defined leaders of an underground resistance against the Evil Empire (yes, they're just called the Empire) led by Emperor Gestahl, who is swiftly and bloodily conquering the world with Magitek, machines infused with magic power drained from Espers, mythical creatures made of magic. Against Magitek no army has a prayer of standing. Gestahl is supported by three powerful generals who are kind of aligned against each other on the Magitek spectrum: Leo, Honorable Warrior Extraordinaire who refused to be infused with magic; Kefka, who happily accepted the magic transfusion but went semi-crazy and started dressing like a clown and generally became a very loose cannon; and Celes, who wasn't given the option but instead was infused with magic as a very small child, and who eventually goes rogue and joins/arguably takes leadership of the resistance.

I mean, right there, even if you'd never heard it before, you'd have to agree that's a hell of a basis for an epic story, right?

And so it is. Your Returners spend the first half of the game struggling against the Empire--and making use of Espers and magic themselves in doing so--and generally finding mixed success. But Gestahl proves a very wily opponent indeed, and successfully tricks the Returners into walking into an ambush right in his own capital city, resulting in the slaughter of pretty much all of them except your party of PCs. After which Gestahl reaches his ultimate goal: meddling with the statues of the three goddesses that created the world, the source of the very power of creation.

At which point a monkey wrench gets thrown into Gestahl's grandiose plan: Turns out Kefka had world domination plans of his own and Gestahl doesn't fit into them. And it also turns out Kefka has been studying. He knows a lot more about the Statues than Gestahl does. As soon as they find said Statues, and just as your party arrives to try to save the day, Kefka whacks Gestahl, tosses his dying body off the Floating Continent a couple miles up in the sky, and starts moving the Statues around. Which results in ripping the world apart and rearranging it pretty much at random.

You can guess why the rest of the game is called the World of Ruin.

So you flash forward a year, and then spend the rest of the game, starting with Celes, reassembling your party that was scattered to the winds to form one desperate assault on Kefka, who now is both certifiably insane and a god. Literally. Most Big Bads think they're gods or aspire to be gods, but this is the only game other than the Lufia games I know of where you are actually expected to fight and defeat a god.

So anything less than truly epic music to accompany your battle against a god would be disappointing. Final Fantasy VI does not disappoint.

My Favorite Video Game Music, #5: One Winged Angel

#5: One Winged Angel

Final Fantasy VII

Had I published this list ten years ago--and every track on this list was extant ten years ago--I would likely have been criticized for rating this track as low as #5. I might have gotten away with rating it #2. But mostly people would have expected it to be #1. That was the height of FF7-mania and Sephiroth-mania, and one of the big reasons Sephiroth got to be as popular as he did was this music.

There has never been a more popular piece of video game music in its own time. One Winged Angel was probably the first video game music to be so popular it got noticed outside the video game world. Remember how I speculated Bloody Tears (#13) may have been remixed more times than any video game track in history? If anything beats it out in remix count, it's this track. One Winged Angel launched (or, perhaps, re-lauched) a vogue in Ominous Latin Chanting that lasted a while and was seen in numerous big-budget films. (For a superb example of Ominous Sanskrit Chanting, check out the climactic fight in Matrix Revolutions.)

This music was something brand new to the video game world; that was a lot of its charm. It rolled hard rock, opera and brass into an ass-kicking package; virtually everyone that played it (on the Playstation; the music in the PC version of FF7 sucked) was blown away. It's not even that the final battle in Final Fantasy VII was tremendously great in itself; really it was pretty anticlimactic even by Final Fantasy standards, you beating the tar out of hapless ol' Safer Sephiroth and the battle mostly being slowed down by his various long-execution attacks so you can enjoy the music. But oh man, the leadup to that final confrontation: the opening horns and drums of this music blaring as the Kefka ripoff One Winged Angel himself descends to do battle with you. There has never been anything better for instant heart-pumping... with possibly one exception (still to come on this list).

But now it's 2011, and I am likely to be criticized for ranking this music far too high. Because no music was ever more popular, and that means no music ever suffered more from It's Popular Now It Sucks backlash. Especially in Internetland--and you probably noticed that there is a lot of overlap between Gamerland and Internetland--nobody wants to be seen liking what everyone else likes. It's a rule in Internetland that you have to be at least as unique as everyone else. That means you have to like stuff that isn't popular, preferably stuff most people have never heard of. (Find a movies forum and witness how 75% of the posters turn up their nose at all Hollywood films and seek out European or Asian movies that are obscure even in Europe or Asia to heap praise upon. And also how 90% of them are pissed off I just used 'film' and 'movie' interchangeably in the previous sentence.)

So now One Winged Angel is overrated. One Winged Angel being overrated has become so universal that it is now comfortably underrated. It is epic music, it was groundbreaking music in its time, and above all, it stands up extremely well today. It is by far the trophy winner in the category of "best video game music for a baseball closer to have blaring on the sound system as he walks to the mound to finish a close game". (For your reference, the most iconic rock songs that closers have actually used are Hell's Bells and Enter Sandman.) The message this song would send to opposing hitters can't be mistaken: I am a complete badass and you are doomed. Plus the lyrics would be good for your ass-kicking closing image. Burning with vehement anger and all that.

My Favorite Video Game Music, #6: Battle With Magus

#6: Battle With Magus

Chrono Trigger

Now, you would have to have gotten hold of Chrono Trigger the instant it was released and be somehow cut off from all information about the game (since information on important plot events was already known to many gamers before it was released) to play the game truly organically. But if you did, the game elaborately leads you to believe that Magus, Jackass Dark Wizard and Evil Overlord Extraordinaire of A.D. 600, is the Big Bad, that your mission to save the world will successfully conclude if you can get to Magus and kill him dead before he can create Lavos, the Planet Eater that will destroy life 1,400 years later. Because Magus is a dick. He really is. He slaughtered countless Guardia soldiers and civilians, and he turned Frog into a frog just for the lolz (no, really; he stated himself he did it just for fun).

So you spend a good half of the game running all over time collecting the various MacGuffins you need to gain access to Magus's Evil Castle of Supreme Darkness--no, it really is dark and evil and makes you want to run home to Mommy--and then when you finally get there, it proves to be as wicked and grueling as any Very Definitely Final Dungeon you'd care to name. Probably never has a dungeon's theme been so well executed; by the time you finally whack First Lieutenant Ozzie and gain access to Magus's shrine, the tension is so palpable you're a zombie if your heart isn't racing.

After you heal up and save up, you walk down a very long, dark stairway while ominous chanting grows slowly louder and you get slowly stalked by bats that, unless you sprint down the stairs, you have to kill. Then you walk into Magus's chamber in total silence and total darkness, and with each step forward you take eerie blue-purple flames erupt on both sides of you while Magus chants.

Neuga, ziena, zieber, zom...
Now the chosen time has come...
Exchange this world for--!

That, friends, is a summoning ritual. Which we sure as hell are here to interrupt.

And when it shortly comes down to throw down for the fate of the world and Frog's amphibian honor, the Black Wind will embrace you with this music while you battle the Jackass Wizard. Which isn't easy. But listen to this music; did you think it would be easy?

Magus's theme music, like all good character theme music, fits him. Dark, threatening, dangerous, evil... even a little taunting. Like Magus, the music calls to you: "Give me your best shot... if you're prepared for the void!"

Then you finally whip the bastard and it turns out the game's only half over and Magus didn't create Lavos. He just summoned Lavos. Because he wanted to kick Lavos's ass. Which incidentally aligns with your goals. You can only imagine the awesome insanity that ensues.

So Magus wasn't the final battle of Chrono Trigger, but if you were completely uninitiate, the storyline would very much convince you he was. And he has the heart-pumping battle music to back it up.

My Favorite Video Game Music, #7: Aria di Mezzo Carattere

#7: Aria di Mezzo Carattere

Final Fantasy VI

This is, beyond all question, the most beautiful video game music ever composed.

Really I would be best off just leaving the above sentence stand for itself and moving to the next track; there isn't much else to say about it. This is beauty. Of course I'm wordy and scatterbrained so I'm going to add to it, but I don't blame you if you don't read it. Much better to just close your eyes and let the music lift you to a place more delectable than your computer chair.

This might be the first, and for that matter perhaps the only, piece of SNES music that was and is undeniably iconic. That this was music like no one had ever heard before in a video game was instantly and permanently understood.

Here is where I commit brazen heresy: I cannot stand Locke. His attitude annoys me, his sense of humor annoys me, his appearance annoys me, and most of all his relentless emotionalism annoys the hell out of me. I am convinced that this character has no redeeming qualities and deserves nowhere near the love he gets from fans.

So why is he so popular? Because he nailed Celes, that's why. Now, Celes, that's a different story. Celes is a very deep and very sympathetic character; in fact she is, from the time she's introduced into the story through the endgame, probably the protagonist of the game. (Never has an RPG defined its protagonist so unclearly as Final Fantasy VI, but I would argue Celes's case and would hear no other case but Terra's.) The only real problem with Celes as a character is the way she falls instantly lovesick for a tool like Locke and follows him around like a lost puppy dog the rest of the game, which has always seemed very out of character for me even setting aside what a tool Locke is. But hell, I think the official game material pegs her at like 19 years old, and emos gonna emo, I guess.

Locke is the primary male character for at least the first half of the game, and it is obvious the game designers intended the player (the player is always male) to name Locke after himself; he is after all the first male character introduced, and his first mission is to rescue a pretty girl that's in trouble. That the player will name this character after himself is a layup. (I did. So did you. Don't lie.) So the events that lead up to the Opera Scene get the player very well prepared for their own vicarious love affair with the beautiful ex-Imperial general with a spirit as pure as snow.

And the Opera Scene--you never need to identify it any further than just 'the Opera Scene'-- is possibly the single most memorable scene in all RPG history; it's that or Aeris's death. Why? Because of this music. The Opera Scene was so amazing, and it was amazing because the music was so phenomenal, that it overshadowed all character development. The implication set up by the story is very clear: As Celes sings her poetic love lines like

Must I forget you?
Our solemn promise?
Must autumn take the place of spring?
Oh, what shall I do? I'm lost without you
Please, speak to me once more!

she is singing to Locke. Or, cutting to the point: She is singing to me. Locke and Celes were an inseparable couple for all eternity after that tour de force, whether I like it or not.

This is in the Top 10 and I still expect to be mostly criticized for not rating it higher. It's because it's this music's fault Locke got the girl, dammit.

My Favorite Video Game Music, #8: Corridors Of Time

#8: Corridors Of Time

Chrono Trigger

Now we reach what's most frequently cited--and deservedly so--as Chrono Trigger's best track.

This is the theme music of the magical, beautiful, and quietly sinister kingdom of Zeal, Chrono Trigger's iconic setting. And if I dare say so, the music itself is so comfortable that on some level you can't help but suspect something's not right. Just like Zeal kingdom.

Every track on this list is tremendous music. I have them all on a playlist on my mp3 player. There are only a handful that I would not hesitate to just lie in bed and listen to for an entire day. This is probably the number one item on that short list. A track is doing the Right Thing when it elicits such a response. It's tremendous background music for almost anything you would want to do short of a building demolition--try putting it on for a couple hours next time you're working on your term papers. Instant stress relief. Just beware you don't get so soothed you don't care enough to finish the term paper.

Something so delightful couldn't possibly last, and Zeal kingdom doesn't. Let's bear in mind that Zeal produced the Ocean Palace (#18) and Black Dream (#36) and those show its evil, deadly side. It was a wonderfully serene place to live for most of its inhabitants--but they were supporting a psychopathic queen bent on destroying the world just so she could dominate the ashes. May we never find ourselves quite that comfortable with life.

My Favorite Video Game Music, #9: The Land Nobody Knew

#9: The Land Nobody Knew

Lufia II

Every RPG includes a Mysterious Ancient Long-Lost Town. The specifics can widely vary: EarthBound offers the goofy Saturn Valley, Final Fantasy VI offers the awkward Thamasa, and Super Mario RPG offers the whimsical Star Hill. Then there's Final Fantasy IV, which offers the damned moon, and Chrono Trigger, which offers all of 12,000 B.C.

But the really memorable ones are the really mysterious ones. The ones that were so mysterious they felt dangerous--and they're set to music that thrills you and makes you nervous. This is a special place. A spiritual place, even.

There are three games that offer really spectacular Mysterious Ancient Long-Lost Towns. Final Fantasy V includes the Town of Mirage, which has been trapped in the Void, lost beyond time, for 1,000 years; its theme music is very haunting and just barely missed the Top 50 cut.

Final Fantasy VII offers the Forgotten City, which we already covered. Epic.

And Lufia II has Narvick, the city that sits on top of the world, the city cut off from the world for thousands of years, where Maxim and the gang are the first mere mortals to set foot for centuries. And unlike the Forgotten City, Narvick is the very last town you reach in the game; from there it's straight to the Fortress of Doom to throw down with Daos and his Sinistrals. And from the moment you set foot in Narvick, this music makes very, very clear that you're a hell of a long way from Kansas. You're messing around with gods now.

Few pieces of music exist that can get your heart pumping just from the overwhelming sensation of importance.

My Favorite Video Game Music, #10: The Red Wings

#10: The Red Wings

Final Fantasy IV

And so we enter the very best of the very best, the Top 10. And it leads off with the holder of the coveted award for "best video game track that shares its name with a major sports team".

Put it this way: This is the first track in Final Fantasy IV after the iconic Final Fantasy title screen music--and that means that as soon as you start up your first game, within 5 seconds you know beyond any doubt: this game is going to be awesome. And lo, it comes to pass.

There is an unstoppability to this song that I love. Even if you've never played the game before, as soon as you hear it you cannot help but vizualize the boots of an army beyond number, marching in unison toward irresistible victory. That's what makes this one of the heavyweight contenders for the "best music for a football team to run onto the field for a championship game to". We will not be stopped, this music says, emphatically.

It's also Cecil's theme music, of course, and that's appropriate, as the things I said above fit his character. He's a determinator; he marches forward no matter what stands against him or what people tell him he can or can't do. His king, who raised him from childhood, turns into a despicable bastard? Fine. I'm outta here, and I don't give a damn what you think, Kain. Only way to do anything about that asshole Golbez is to haul my Dark Knight ass up Mt. Ordeals and become a Paladin? Fine. Let's do it. Suicide mission to the moon is humanity's last hope? I'm all over it. That's Cecil, and this is his music.

And so really, and this is very impressive, this music reasonably can fall into three categories: atmosphere music, character theme, and Very Definitely Final Dungeon (yes, it is the music the first half of the Very Definitely Final Dungeon is set to).

My Favorite Video Game Music, #11: Good Friends/Bad Friends

#11: Good Friends/Bad Friends

EarthBound

Back at #17 I said that EarthBound offers the best endgame of any game in existence. It really does. And by "endgame" I mean from the events that set up the Very Definitely Final Dungeon, through the end of the ending. I described back at #17 EarthBound's uniquely haunting confrontation with its alien monstrosity of a Big Bad.

And man, do you get one heck of a reward when you fell him.

EarthBound features the most downright enjoyable ending I've ever seen. The ending comes down in three prongs: First, where you reassume control of Ness and can freely wander, as leisurely as you like, anywhere in the entire world, and talk to whoever you want, and most of the people you talk to have new things to say, while terrifically soothing, peaceful music plays. That by itself is ten pounds of awesome in a five pound bag.

Prong two, which you instigate by going back to your house, is the in-game cast of characters, which is set to this life-threateningly awesome music. (Prong three is your reward for enduring that bastard cameraman all through the game. We'll get to that in a bit.)

If you've played through the game you'll recognize this music as a remix of some of the Runaway Five's rock/blues music, or more aptly, the Runaway Five after taking a level in awesome. When people try to describe EarthBound and come up with the adjective EarthBoundy... this music is EarthBoundy. It's upbeat and cool and fun.

And you'll notice the odd name, but that's exactly how the in-game credits present everybody: not as friends and enemies, just good friends and bad friends. Everybody's a friend. That's an example of the strong undercurrent of sentimentality that, as much as anything, divides players into the "I LOVE EarthBound" camp and the "this is the stupidest game I ever wasted my time on" camp.

I could sum it up this way: if you've never played EarthBound, and you like this music, play it. You will probably love it.

My Favorite Video Game Music, #12: Chrono Trigger

#12: Chrono Trigger

Chrono Trigger

Ladies and gentlemen, the only track on this list that bears the same name as its game.

If you put a gun to my head and made me name one, I would tell you Chrono Trigger features the best soundtrack of any video game ever. And this is the Chrono Trigger theme song. It stands to reason that it is so awesome it just might blow your ears off.

Technically, this particular track is what you hear if you refuse to press start at the main menu and watch the intro movie. Crono's character theme is identical except it doesn't end with the spectacular flourish that the intro movie music does; it just loops.

This is the music that captures the spirit of Chrono Trigger. Chrono Trigger is epic, grandiose, noble, and a little frantic. So is this music. Nobuo Uematsu and his crew really hit the ball out of the park right from the first pitch in this game; I believe this is the only track on this list that is the very first piece of music you can listen to in its game.

It doesn't matter what the occasion is. It could be the Battle of Helm's Deep, the state championship game, or your final exam. If you listen to this music beforehand, you will get inspired. You will get pumped. And I can only hope my life turns out so well that someone might suggest setting this music to it.

My Favorite Video Game Music, #13: Bloody Tears

#13: Bloody Tears

Castlevania II: Simon's Quest

I could easily write 5,000 words here about Simon's Quest, which is one of the most interesting of all video games. It was a fascinating game because it was a different game; there has never really been another game quite like it. Zelda 2 was sort of similar, except Simon's Quest had no overworld map or anything of the sort, and also the NPC's in Zelda 2 would, once in a while, tell you something useful. Whereas almost every single NPC in Simon's Quest--and there are quite a few of them, for a mid-era NES game--is a godless communist liar.

Anyway. I think it's interesting that the most iconic piece of music from the ghastly long Castlevania series originated in its most obscure game. Everyone that's ever played a Castlevania game, or heard of Castlevania games for that matter, knows Bloody Tears and has probably heard several different versions of it. Surprisingly few of the casual Castlevania fans know that Bloody Tears traces its lineage all the way back to Simon's Quest.

Bloody Tears might be the most oft-remixed piece of music in gaming history; there's a different version of it in almost every Castlevania game, to say nothing of the myriad fan remixes. And it deserves its lofty status in the gaming world: it is, hands down, the finest piece of 8-bit music ever composed. One of the many interesting things about Simon's Quest was that the music was genuinely blow-me-away for its time.

And if you're wondering if I finangled the list a little bit to put this piece in slot #13, to line it up with the 13 clues to Dracula's riddle*: Yes. Yes, I did.

* Half the NPC's in the game tell you about Dracula's riddle, and you can even find "clues" to it here and there, but the joke is on you: there is no riddle.

My Favorite Video Game Music, #14: Overworld Theme

#14: Overworld Theme
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past



There were lots of Hyrule Themes, Hyrule Field Themes, and so forth to pick from, and several of them are plenty good enough to make this list. But I picked one, and it was the Link to the Past version. This may be because of my personal belief that Link to the Past was the best Zelda game and it's not close. (I loved the original, and I loved Ocarina of Time, and I had no use for anything else in the series.) But I think you'd be hard pressed to argue for any Hyrule music better than this piece, and reprised in Super Smash Bros. (Shame that Link sucks balls in every Super Smash Bros. game to date.)

This is another strong contender in the competitive field for the "best opening riff ever" trophy. There's nothing quite like this piece's opening notes to get you pumped up to go light up some Moblin ass. And there's nothing quite like the rest of the piece to accompany you doing so.

My Favorite Video Game Music, #15: Kingdom Baron

#15: Kingdom Baron

Final Fantasy IV

Vaguely Medieval Castle is probably the most common of all fantasy settings. This is the greatest Vaguely Medieval Castle music ever composed, in any genre. Even if you've never played a Final Fantasy game in your life, it is not possible to listen to this music and not immediately think of stone walls and knights and throne rooms spear-wielding infantrymen preparing to march off to battle. So for that, this track is right at the top of the list for setting the mood just so.

It's interesting that really with no further input, when you start playing Final Fantasy IV you could figure out that Baron is the most powerful nation in the world just by listening to its theme music. It might not quite rise to the level of "I'm about to cram this spear up your ass", but it's definitely at "we both know you could never get anywhere near me with that spear" level. Somehow the music works both when Baron is under dark control and when it's freed and turned back to the good.

Musically, Final Fantasy IV did the entire RPG genre a favor by showing how it's done, and setting the bar very high. There's one more FF4 track left to go on this list. It'll come up soon.

My Favorite Video Game Music, #16: Cid's Theme

#16: Cid's Theme

Final Fantasy VII

This track rates very highly on this list because it is awesome in every conceivable way. It's grand, it's deep, it's endearing, it's catchy, all of that.

What it isn't is appropriate for the character it's supposed to be the theme for. At all. I don't know about you, but if you describe to me a character who, yes, may be a Jerk With a Heart of Gold deep inside, is nonetheless an over-aggressive loudmouthed, chain-smoking misogynist... this is certainly not the kind of music I would expect to have attached to him. (Actually, I would expect such a character to be a villain, at least to start off. FF7 blurs the lines a little bit.)

Don't get me wrong: Cid is awesome. And his theme music is very awesome. I just don't necessarily see the connection between the two.

My Favorite Video Game Music, #17: Pokey Means Business!

#17: Pokey Means Business!

EarthBound

Ladies and gentlemen, I present the greatest track in video game history whose title includes an exclamation point.

EarthBound does an exceptional job of priming you for the ultimate confrontation with Giygas. Most RPG's I can think of don't make clear who the Big Bad is until you're at least a little ways in; EarthBound throws him at you in Chapter One. Whereas Lavos is a distant disaster you're trying to prevent, Kefka is an evil god you're trying to reach high up in his tower to dethrone, and it's been almost 15 years and we still don't really know what the hell Sephiroth's deal was... Giygas is an ever-present malevolent force throughout EarthBound. The game reminds you of this in several unusual ways, notable among them in straight text after you drink some drugged coffee or tea (no, really). "Your enemy is also struggling." "You are drawing near to Giygas."

And when you finally reach Giygas and are confronted by his twisted henchman Pokey (or perhaps more properly, Porky)... well, there are several video games in which you fight an alien. Your encounter with Giygas is by far the most alien of them all. There's no contest. It's eerie, it's upsetting, it is frankly terrifying.

And enter this music.

At first you think, especially if you played Mother, "huh. 8-bit music in the final battle." And indeed it's very good 8-bit music with a certain haunting quality to it. Then you get about 50 seconds in, and it kicks your ass. Alien thrash metal, ladies and gentlemen, and if you listen carefully you'll notice it's set to a similar beat to many other tracks in the game. Good soundtracks are like that.

This is only the first of four stages of your fight with Giygas, the all-mighty idiot, whose own mind was destroyed by his incredible power. The background noise gets creepier in every phase, but it can't really be counted here since it's not really music.

The endgame of EarthBound was magnificently done and remains unsurpassed.

My Favorite Video Game Music, #18: Undersea Palace

#18: Undersea Palace

Chrono Trigger

This is the greatest dungeon music ever composed.

The Undersea/Ocean Palace actually isn't Chrono Trigger's Very Definitely Final Dungeon; that's the Black Omen/Black Dream (#36 on this list). But it sure as hell feels like the final dungeon. So did Magus's Castle; Chrono Trigger really threw some epic dungeons at you. And this is, apologies to Magus's Castle, the most epic of them all.

Actually, the setup is almost the same as Magus's Castle: Race to the arch-villain and hope you get there in time before the power-crazed idiot unleashes Lavos a few thousand years too early. But while the build-up to Magus may have been more elaborate, the build-up to the Ocean Palace and Queen Zeal is much more intense. The pace of the game picks up dramatically when you reach Zeal Kingdom in 12,000 B.C., and doesn't really stop until after your meeting with Lavos at the Ocean Palace.

And when you arrive at the Ocean Palace, you get punched right in the nuts by this music. Get your ass in gear, son, this music yells at you, drill sergeant style. You either haul ass to the end of this eerie nightmarish temple NOW or the world dies. Go go GO! And so you do. There's a save point at the beginning of the dungeon, which is itself unusual and another clue that this is a manly dungeon you're about to venture into. And just in case you haven't gotten the message yet, when you save the file is titled Lavos Beckons.

And the programmers knew exactly what awesome music they had on their hands here. It is so badass that it does not stop for battles (unique in the game), not here and not in the other place in the game it appears. You see, near the game's end, a scenario arises where the circumstances are desperate, you are the only hope and you have only minutes to get what has to be gotten, with numerous monsters opposing you. So the game designers thought about how to set that atmosphere just so, for about ten seconds, and then said, "set the whole thing to Undersea Palace and don't stop it for battles. Done." And they were right. This music is badass.

My Favorite Video Game Music, #19: Bowser Battle

#19: Bowser Battle

Super Mario RPG

I fudged things a little bit, and rated this track a little more highly than I might on its own for history's sake. Bowser is the end boss. He originated the concept and has carried the mantle more than probably any other villain in video game annals. And in nearly every appearance, Bowser's battle music kicks ass. (It's too bad Bowser never does, but still!)

I chose this music to represent Bowser, edging out the Super Mario 64 iteration, because (a) this is the best music of the group, and (b) Bowser peaked in Super Mario RPG. Most Valuable Character in that game, if you want my opinion. And if you disagree, please, allow me to retort.

Like the moon over
the day, my genius and brawn
are lost on these fools.

My Favorite Video Game Music, #20: Main Theme

#20: Main Theme

Final Fantasy IV

Well, it certainly gets no points for imaginative naming. "Main Theme" is even worse than "Clash on the Big Bridge." But it is, I suppose, considered the theme music of Final Fantasy IV; I remember it as the overworld map music. And there has never been better overworld map music. Every Final Fantasy game after IV had progressively weaker overworld music, in fact, with the sole and regrettably brief exception of the genuinely creepy pre-Falcon World of Ruin music in Final Fantasy VI. (Which just missed this list.)

I think this track was one of the very first to open my eyes to the idea of "holy crap, video game music is awesome!" And the more you play Final Fantasy IV the more you realize what good theme music for the story this is.