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, #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, #21: You Can Hear The Cry Of The Planet

#21: You Can Hear The Cry Of The Planet

Final Fantasy VII

Mysterious. Otherworldly. Exotic. Creepy. Forlorn.

This track hit the bulls-eye. By which I mean, if you try to think of what the soundtrack to a semi-alien and long-deserted capital of a long-extinct culture called the Forgotten City should sound like, it sounds exactly like this. Bulls-eye.

In general I did not find Final Fantasy VII's soundtrack overwhelming; it's right about on par with Final Fantasy VI's, which is to say good but not Chrono Trigger good. But one thing Final Fantasy VII does do, several times, is really nail the perfect music for the moment. This would be one of the most notable of those times.