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Music to set the scene best video game soundtracks

 

  

SEPTEMBER 4, in the year of our Lord 2014 – As with movies, the best video games invariably come with an excellent soundtrack. It is a critical element that is not always immediately noticed, but that still provides the perfect atmosphere for the gamer and helps them enjoy the game to its fullest extent as a result.

The best soundtracks

Some soundtracks are synonymous with the games they accompany, others even transcend this and become iconic in their own right. These are a few games which have soundtracks regarded by experts as being some of the best, and are certainly among the most well-known.

Zelda. The iconic music for this iconic series of games was composed by virtuoso Koji Kondo, who was hired by Nintendo for both Zelda and Super Mario Brothers. The music for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is considered to be a particularly special example of the craft, with every area of Hyrule immediately identifiable by its unique musical theme. An especially rare feature was gamers being given the chance to make music themselves and thereby influence gameplay through Link and the Ocarina. This download page has musical notes for Ocarina songs, an example of the impact this soundtrack has had beyond the video gaming world.

Final Fantasy. Nobuo Uematsu was the composer responsible for the soundtracks of the first few games in the Final Fantasy series, as well as many others. The music for this series of games is particularly notable for the way it transcended video game music and even today stands alone as a series of beautiful compositions in their own right. Uematsu’s work is frequently played on radio stations that specialize in classical music and is performed in concert by some of the most globally respected orchestras. The soundtrack for Final Fantasy VI is considered by many, to this day, to be the greatest video game soundtrack ever made.

Jet Set Radio. Perhaps the best example of how the quality of a soundtrack can actually exceed the success of a game, Jet Set radio was released in North America as Jet Grind Radio and attempted to do for rollerblading what various other games had done for street sports such as skateboarding. It did not quite achieve this, and the game is undoubtedly less well-known as a result, but the music is still remembered with a great deal of affection by numerous fans who enjoyed its unique and innovative, perhaps even experimental, approach to combining a range of musical styles and motifs that perfectly reflected the excitement of rollerblading.

An essential ingredient

Creating the soundtrack for a video game is perhaps the most underappreciated art in the industry. Get it wrong and the game suffers hugely as a result; get it right and people usually will not even notice. Instead, it will simply be considered as another ingredient in an overall excellent game. That said, the most ardent video game fans understand what an essential ingredient a good soundtrack is and how their favorite games simply would not be the same without one.

 

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