Ask Lemmy

I thought Mass Effect had a great soundtrack that really fit the game perfectly. Moody in parts and rousing in others.

Mass Effect 1 Soundtrack

Jet Set Radio Future is up there for me. Even twenty years later it sounds like it came from the future.

Nier automata

Morrowind. It's iconic.

The WWE SmackDown VS RAW series had some great soundtracks.

Especially SvR 2007

for me, WH40k Mechanicus probably has the best. Every track is awsome and fits the setting perfectly.

Here is a playlist of the soundtrack if you want a listen.

Tyrian 2000

Katana Zero and Celeste both had great soundtracks. Persona 5’s soundtrack is amazing.

Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross, FFVI and Xenogears top out the list for me. You can't beat them. If you want something a little off the beaten path, the soundtrack to Ruiner is pretty fucking rad.

simcity 2000.

GTA 4. Dark, gloomy, realistic

I’ll limit myself to recently released games. Blasphemous and Dead Cells have really good soundtracks. I think Axiom Verge’s soundtrack is very cool too but not something I listen to often.

Octopath Traveler I and II.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=349cnjiNqqI

Golden Sun. Despite some other masterpieces, I still maintain that the trilogy of games represent Motoi Sakuraba's magnum opus. Nothing else from the life of the GBA came anywhere close to even touching it, and even now tracks will randomly get stuck in my head, more than I can say for any other game soundtrack I've ever heard.

An older one, but Fahrenheit had such a great soundtrack.

I'm going to go deep cut here with Outlaws (Lucasarts, 1997). If you don't have time to listen, imagine an Ennio Morricone Spaghetti Western score, but with John Williams-like melodic leitmotifs. It was done really well, and lived on my various MP3 players for many years.

ULTRAKILL has a phenomenal OST. Fast paced and very breakcore for a stupidly fast FPS set in hell with crunchy PSX graphics, but still with these weighty almost sad moments of calm.

On the complete other end of the spectrum, Project Moon. They've done two turn based deck builders that force you to slow the fuck down and read, and are also a fan of using "actual" songs (made a group called Mili) for boss fights that are slow, melancholic, and Really Good. they've also done the main themes for Both Games but idk if they strictly count as 'OST'.

Also I know Persona gets all the love, but the mainline SMT series has some fucking bangers too, just more in the Club and/or Hell yeah tubular bells genre

Payday 2 leads the industry with countless bangers and implements music in a way that keys you in on what phase you're currently in.

'Evil eye' 'Hot pursuit' 'Break the rules' 'Ode to greed' 'I will give you my all' 'The gauntlet'

Not to mention the Christmas track.

Genshin Impact has an incredible soundtrack.

Portal 2. It's music told me more about aperture than I could discover with my eyes.

Some of my favorites include

Minecraft (nostalgia and calming slow paced)

Subnautica 1 and below zero (super calming to listen too and also fit the vibe really well)

No man's sky (music fits the atmosphere of the game really well)

Payday 2 (very good kinda electronic songs)

Superliminal (very good calming piano)

Boneworks and bonelab (these are absolutely phenomenal like electronic tracks, Michael Wyckoff fucking nailed the sound track for both games and both are perfect)

Red dead redemption 2 (the entire game is perfect and so is the sound track) (haven't played the first one)

But I swear it's always the tiny little indie games that hire some guy off of fiverr or something like make some masterpieces.

Shout-out to Xenoblade Chronicles X. I really wish Nintendo would port it to Switch , since the only way to play it is on Wii U..

https://youtu.be/SuVRnUvdmz4

Hunt: Showdown

Spotify

Youtube

Its insane how much the soundtrack makes this game. Probably the best use of music in a game outside of musicaly focused games. It's not just a few moments where the music is used effectively, its every single moment.

Shin Megami Tensei IV - Tokyo

Katamari

Though Castlevania: Lords of Shadow was a divisive game, its art direction and soundtrack are incredible. Oscar Araujo’s score combined with some great vistas and setpieces elevates the mediocre gameplay to actually make this game one of my favorites.

I also loved the songs from Death Stranding. Low Roar’s tracks fit the atmosphere of the game perfectly, and the few tracks from other artists really stand out in a nice contrast to Low Roar’s calmer feeling.

Dustforce. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4oOAeDYLSGYkmwjAJnvY8u?si=rGCcRlkHSLus7bAvRnD-Tg

Planescape: Torment by Mark Morgan

I always liked the music written for the original Fable.

I’m very nostalgic for the Paper Mario games’ soundtracks, especially The Thousand Year Door’s.

Xenoblade Chronicles

Xenoblade Chronicles DE: Future Connected

Xenoblade Chronicles 2

Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna ~ the Golden Country

Xenoblade Chronicles 3

Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Future Redeemed

Commando for C64

Outer Wilds

Maple story!