Patient Gamers

SUPER MARIO GALAXY. IT HAS SUCH A LEGENDARY SOUNDTRACK. If you wanna just try it out, first listen to "Gusty Garden Galaxy" Literally one of the most beautiful game soundtracks.

Braid

Legend of Mana, Stardew Valley, Persona 5, Danganronpa Series, Pokemon Gold,Silver,Crystal

A lot of great ones have already been mentioned: (Old School) Runescape, Bastion, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, Braid, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Celeste, Chrono Cross, Chrono Trigger, Crypt of the NecroDancer, Cyberpunk 2077, Deus Ex (2000), Donkey Kong Country 1 and 2, Doom 2016, Earthbound, F-Zero GX, FTL, Hades, Halo, Hi Fi Rush, Hotline Miami, Jet Set Radio and JSR Future, Kirby (any of them), Legend of Mana, Mother 3, Neotokyo, Nier: Automata, Pizza Tower, Quake, Ratchet & Clank (any of them), Risk of Rain 1 and 2, Shadow of the Colossus, Shantae (any of them), Shatter, Shovel Knight, SimCity 3000, Sonic 3 & Knuckles, Sonic Adventure, Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic CD (Japan), Sonic Mania, Sonic Rush, Stardew Valley, Tower of Heaven, Transistor, Trine, and VVVVVV

Here's some that haven't been mentioned yet:

Ape Escape

• PS1 game, soundtrack by icon of the 90s era Japanese House music scene, Soichi Terada. All of his tracks are bangers. I've seen the soundtrack described as House, Jungle, and DnB. Probably my favorite game soundtrack ever, but that's probably nostalgia talking.
• Soundtrack: Game Rip, Fan Remastered or Originape Soundtrack/Official Soundtrack CD (Note: Terada has released his own remastered tracks in the 2020s since the Originape CD, but they are split over multiple albums and I'm too lazy to track them down at the moment)
• Standout tracks: Peak Point Matrix/Galaxy Monkey, Primordial Ooze, Thick Jungle- Woods, Dark Ruins, Crumbling Castle, Specter's Factory- Outside, Time Station

Final Fantasy Legends III / SaGa 3 Jikū no Hasha: Shadow or Light

• Originally on Gameboy, Japan only remake on DS (fan translation patch exists). This is really a game in the SaGa series, but was released under the Final Fantasy name internationally for marketing purposes. Characters don't have levels, their stats change based on what they do. Enemies also drop meat and parts that you can apply to a character to change their class, with some unique mechanics for different types. Features a time traveling stealth bomber, THE TALON, that may possibly be the only airship in gaming with a working toilet. DS Remake is generally better, but it kills overworld exploration by turning it into "select an adjacent POI" instead of free roam.
• Soundtrack: Gameboy, unfortunately I can't find this version with track names. DS Remake
• Standout Tracks: Setting off into the future, Holy Ruins (a criminally underused track in game), Oasis (has some odd animal sfx added in the middle in this remake version), Stronghold (imo, one of the best dungeon themes in gaming), THE MOTHERFUCKING TALON THEME (this is the GB version, as the DS remake loses the countermelody which imo weakens the track)

Ghost Trick

• Originally for DS, has been remade for just about everything now. It's effectively a VN with fancy gameplay segments, and the music really helps carry the whole thing. Beautifully done sprite animation too.
• Soundtrack: DS, 2023 Remaster
• Standouts: Ghost Trick, Lynne- Red-Headed Target, Awakening, The Mystery Surges Ahead, Cabanela - Lanky and Loose Lawman, Jowd- Fated Jailbird

Gunpoint

• Old indie sidescrolling noir stealth game. The main gameplay revolves around puzzle solving by hacking buildings' electrical systems. Hook that lightswitch up to the secure door lock. Rig that motion sensor up to short out a power plug and take out a guard instead of it just turning on the lights. Delightful jazz soundtrack.
• Soundtrack
• Standouts: Security, Circuitry and You, Subterfuge Shuffle, Cold Halls and Footfalls, The Five-Floor Goodbye

Megaman ZX

• DS sequel to the Megaman Zero series for GBA, but now with a Metroidvania twist.
• Soundtrack: ZX Tunes- Official remix/rearrange soundtrack
• Standouts: Innocence- 90s style anime opening, Green Grass Gradation, Rockin' On, Brilliant Show Window, Cinq Ville - C`est Notre Espoir, Gauntlet

And I've spent way too much time on this comment. Here's more not mentioned so far that I don't have time to do a writeup for: Skies of Arcadia, Super Meat Boy, Tomba 2: The Evil Swine Returns, Uplink, XCOM (Original), XCOM (Reboot), XCOM 2 (Reboot)

The Bastion OST by Darren Korb is amazing and introduced me to his other music, which is also great!

Before games had full epic soundtracks, you still got quality "intro tracks", occasionally with a few other songs for whilst you're playing.

Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe intro music (youtube link)

From the same Atari ST/Amiga era: Chaos Engine, Frontier Elite 2, Xenon 2 Megablast, Syndicate Wars

For newer stuff with "full soundtracks", you can't beat Stellaris OST (youtube link)

In no particular order:

• Warhammer 40k Mechanicus
• Total Annihilation
• Doom 2016
• Hotline Miami
• Rome Total War
• Witcher 3
• Halo
• StarCraft

I’ve seen a lot of good mentions here already but haven’t seen Nier: Automata yet. I thought the game was overrated, but there are a lot of great audio tracks

Streets of Rage 2

Man, Yuzo Koshiro did some unique work with the Genesis.

Kingdom Hearts

Yoko Shimomura is outrageously talented. Obviously there's a lot of Disney-esque stuff mixed in, but there are a bunch of original tracks that are epic af

The Dead Space franchise. The Payday franchise. Skyrim. Stellaris. Starcraft II. The Age of Empires franchise. Warframe. Telltale's Batman. Starboard.

Just going through what I regularly listen to.

Quake 2

Guild Wars 1

The 7th Guest and The 11th Hour!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82y9COOPaVE&list=PLT3-I-mzXNxtmtqwsmzX3EMut2IWp-ys0&index=1

https://youtu.be/truC-BxKRBU

I have this soundtrack constantly stuck in my head, especially Ghost of Bo

Jetset radio

Dustforce

Scott Pilgrim vs the Wolrd the Game

River City Girls 1 and 2

Okami

I really like SimCity 3000’s jazz soundtrack. That was the first time I remember playing a game where the soundtrack was released separately.

Honorable mention goes to DX-Ball 2, which introduced me to a lot of electronic music and the concept of module/tracker music. The game by default came with just 4 .mod songs but on the website you could download additional files from the same creator, or add other .mod files from other sources to a folder and they’d appear in the game. First shareware game I ever bought, and paid by sending a money order through the mail because I was too young to have a credit card.

The entire Guilty Gear franchise. Running joke is every album comes with a free game.

Unreal Tournament

Terminal Velocity

Paradise Killer

axiom verge 1 and 2 - good in different ways. i liked to put first on for long coding sessions, and the second expanded in interesting directions
transistor & pyre & hades - all scored by Darren Korb, but different genres. from first moment, transistor has such vibe in big part thanks to it's soundtrack, and is among my all time top games
Nier automata - won awards for it's soundtrack, clear to hear why
crypt of the necrodancer - rhythm game should have a good soundtrack, and it does
witcher 3 - the battle themes - like "silver for monsters" are unique style of action-y folk, very rare to find anything else that scratches that itch.
dusk - awesome and dynamic metal
risk of rain 1&2 - first game itself didn't click with me, but, oh man, that solo in "Monsoon" get me every time, and "Coalescence" is poignantly melancholic in a similar way to "song of the ancients" from nier - which is (a very high praise and) much more expected from nier's type of game than a "risk of rain"'s. "face of the deep" from ror2 from second is head-spinning in a good way
no man's sky - it introduced me to 65dos, for which i'm very grateful. that soundtrack is still probably my favourite album of theirs noita - low-key psychedelic, very vibes
unreal tournament 99 - and i think it's not just nostalgia, because one of my favourites - "mechanism 8" - is from the map i almost never played
"Ultrakill" - good soundtrack, and yet cyber grind tracks from guest composers are still my favourites. "The cyber grind" in particular is just exhilarating

individual tracks i overheard from games i haven't played:

old "touhou project" games - their soundtrack is full of gems, even if it's not my genre of game
system shock 2's "Med Sci 1" and "Engineering" - very nice, i want more of that and can't find
"Clair Obscur: Expedition 33"'s "Lumière" - made me wishlist the game just for having it
"Final Fantasy IX"'s "You're not alone" - very nice melody i like to whistle sometimes. considering playing it just for having it
original "Castlevania"'s "Vampire killer" rocks

Nier music is really good, especially Dark Colossus

Nier Automata

Edit: it was mentioned already but I'm keeping it

Neon White has a killer soundtrack by Machine Girl. Highly recommend it for anyone into DnB (the game also isn't bad).

I love the Celeste OST. In general I like does made by Lena raine but that one is my favorite.

In no particular order or genre:

• Rise of the Triad 2013
• Bullets per Minute
• Anything made by PixelJunk (currently enjoying Eden and Shooter soundtracks)
• Bomb Rush Cyberfunk
• Far too many games on the Dreamcast to remember them all, but I will specifically call out Rezs' Level 5 Adam Freeland - Fear is the Mindkiller
• Distance
• DJ Max

• MechWarrior 2: Ghost Bears Revenge
• BioShock Infinite
• Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous