The Greatest Game Music

Reviews of truly outstanding game music

Most recent review

Final Fantasy III Soundtrack (NES)

Final Fantasy III Soundtrack (NES), Nobuo Uematsu, 1990

After the release of Final Fantasy II, developer Square found itself in a peculiar position. Not many studios would start experimenting with a successful formula that had just saved them from financial ruin. However, that’s precisely what Square did after Final Fantasy, handing over the reins for its sequel to newcomer Akitoshi Kawazu (future mastermind of the SaGa franchise). The result was a divisive game whose compelling gameplay experiments were ultimately poorly implemented. For Final Fantasy III, Square decided to take no risks, returning to many of the story tropes and design elements that had made Final Fantasy so popular. However – apart from a much larger game world – the developers made one crucial addition: a job system that allowed gamers to swap the protagonists’ character class on the fly, allowing for far greater customisation and gameplay depth.

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Chrono Cross Soundtrack

Chrono Cross Soundtrack, Yasunori Mitsuda, 1999

Out of the many experiments Square embarked on during the second half of the 1990s, Chrono Cross might have been the most controversial one. After all, this was not just some new IP that Square tested and played around with – this was the sequel to Chrono Trigger, one of the most beloved JRPGs of all time. Or was it? Chrono Cross producer Hiromichi Tanaka pointed out that his goal had been to “create a completely new and different world from the ground up”, rather than relying on Chrono Trigger’s universe, characters and gameplay mechanics. However, fans were not entirely prepared for this approach (which bore similarities to the mainline Final Fantasy games). While Chrono Cross was initially met with a near-ecstatic response from both reviewers and gamers, such enthusiasm soon tapered off when it became apparent just how little Chrono Cross had to do with its predecessor. [Read More…]

Xenogears Soundtrack

Xenogears Soundtrack, 1998, Yasunori Mitsuda

During its late-1990s heyday, Square – bolstered by the success of its Final Fantasy franchise – created an astonishing number of new IPs. However, none of these experiments was as madly ambitious and head-spinning as Xenogears. Designed as an early concept piece for Final Fantasy VII and then morphing into part of a planned six-part series spanning millennia, Xenogears served up one of the densest narratives ever seen in a video game. Its storyline was heavily based on philosophical concepts by Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung (and likely influenced more than a bit by Neon Genesis Evangelion). Throw in a pronounced anti-religious streak that jeopardised the game’s American release, and you have one of the 32-bit era’s most remarkable games. Sadly, Xenogears was held back by time constraints and the development team’s relative inexperience, leading to a bare-bones presentation of its second half.

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Chrono Trigger Soundtrack

Chrono Trigger Soundtrack, Noriko Matsueda / Yasunori Mitsuda / Nobuo Uematsu, 1995

Yes, they don’t make them like they used to. Consider how Chrono Trigger, one of the greatest RPGs of all time, came about more or less by chance – not something you would see in today’s world of multi-million dollar productions that need to please stakeholders. Hironobu Sakaguchi (creator of Final Fantasy), Yuji Horii (creator of Dragon Quest) and Akira Toriyama (creator of Dragon Ball and Dragon Quest character designer) attended a computer graphics convention in the US. There, they got talking about their work in console RPGs, started to trade ideas back and forth – and the result was the appropriately titled “Project Dream”, spearheaded by a true all-star team. However, equally as important was the work of a relative industry newcomer – Masato Kato, who would write the script for one of the stranger and more mind-bending SNES RPG narratives out there. [Read More…]

Featured review

Final Fantasy V Soundtrack

Final Fantasy V Soundtrack (Pixel Remaster), 2021, Nobuo Uematsu / Various

Among the trio of SNES Final Fantasy titles, the franchise’s fifth instalment has always been the underdog, which ultimately only added to its appeal. First, there’s the simple fact that the 1992 SNES version of Final Fantasy V was not released in the West, inevitably adding to the mystique surrounding the game. It took until the release of Final Fantasy Anthology in 1999 that US audiences were able to finally lay their hands on the game. Then there’s Final Fantasy V’s main claim to fame – a job system that builds upon that introduced in Final Fantasy III, offering countless options to customise your party. The game felt like a throwback to the NES Final Fantasy titles in other aspects as well. Its fairly simplistic plot and stereotypical (yet enjoyable) characters felt like a conscious step away from Final Fantasy IVs more complex narrative.

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Sabre Team Soundtrack

Since an internet search for screenshots of the Atari ST version’s cover came up empty, a screenshot of the Amiga port’s cover has been used above.

Sabre Team Soundtrack (Atari ST), Matt Furniss, 1992

During the second half of the 1980s and into the 1990s, video games starring burly soldiers defending the Western way of life were a dime a dozen (we can at least partially thank Rambo: First Blood Part II and the following wave of copycat movies for that). By 1992, the formula required a bit of tweaking to still elicit interest, and so Krisalis Software made the smart move to turn Sabre Team into a turn-based strategy simulation. Gamers put together a team of four elite soldiers, making the most of limited action points per unit to move them around the isometric maps and attack enemies. Details like the amount of noise produced by different weapons and the weight of their respective ammunition added a surprising amount of realism to the gameplay, turning Sabre Team into one of the Atari ST’s best strategy games.

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Matt Furniss - Atari ST Works

Matt Furniss – Atari ST Works, 1990-1992

Many computer game soundtracks of the 80s and early 90s consist of only one longer cue, sometimes with a few shorter pieces and jingles added. As such, these scores don’t warrant individual reviews, even when these works are of outstanding quality. What makes more sense is to combine several such soundtracks by a single composer into one review.

Part of the ecosystem of European (and particularly British) home computers was that games were usually released across a range of platforms, including the C64, Amiga, Atari ST, ZX Spectrum, PC, Amstrad CPC and Acorn 32-bit – obviously to increase presence in the marketplace and thus sales. Due to the technological differences between all of these systems, they would also feature different soundtracks – or rather one score ported and adapted to each platform. That was the situation developer Krisalis Software (previously trading as Teque Software Development) and their in-house composer Matt Furniss found themselves in during the late 80s and early 90s.

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