If there’s still anyone out there unconvinced that video games get as serious musical treatment as movies these days, I present the theme from Civilization IV, “Baba Yetu”. Dang, I miss playing Civ-Rev.
And then there’s this song, “The Parting Glass”. I first heard this on a Loreena McKennit album, and it’s rare that someone covers a folk tune I haven’t heard before. But clearly someone has, and they decided to use it for a video game. Peter Hollens then proceeds to knock it out of the park:
To this day,I get a real thrill every time that I hear the driving strains of the low cello from the Halo theme.
Oh, just look for those Elder Scrolls medleys (Morrowind/Oblivion/Skyrim). Been a decade and I still get goosebumps from that start. Also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IL5K09mqwZc
Not to mention some original music being made based on games, for example: https://www.youtube.com/user/miracleofsound/videos
The game Chrono Cross is a musical goldmine too, since the story involved parallel worlds they had a lot of fun with variations on themes. Here’s the main title track: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J46RY4PU8a8
Cool! More awesome music to check out! I’m especially digging the Chrono Cross one, Ron. Sounds like vaguely celtic with a action-thriller vibe.
It’s a Japanese sci fi/fantasy rpg, but there’s a good variety of music in it. The story even had a rock star staging a musical about how his parents met in it at one point…
Suikoden is amazing for music (and not well known enough for how good a game it is). Pretty much anything by Nobuo Uematsu is also fantastic (TPR has done some great covers) – I have a spotify playlist of such tunes for writing to and it’s probably my favourite such list.
wasn’t really a video game, but one of my favorite themes to go with a game was the accompaniment for a pinball game called Swords of Fury.