The Greatest Game Music - Page 13 of 16 - Reviews of truly outstanding game music

Nanostray 2 Soundtrack – Review

Nanostray 2 Soundtrack, Manfred Linzner, 2008

Manfred Linzner remains one of Western game music’s better kept secrets – although his scores deserve to be much better known. His work particularly turned heads with the Game Boy Advance scores for Iridion 3D and Iridion II – and not just because of their catchy melodies. These scores were technical marvels, proving one could create high-quality sound on a console infamous for its lacking audio capabilities. Fortunately, the Iridion scores have seen an excellent release through a widely available arrange album. However, many of Linzner’s best soundtracks (Polaris SnoCross, Spider-Man, Fix & Foxi: Episode 1 Lupo) remain commercially unavailable.

Enter the Nano collection – a digital soundtrack bundle that includes the full scores for the four titles in the Nano shoot’em up franchise, as well as another very strong arrange album. Among the original scores included in this release, Linzner’s Nanostray 2 soundtrack is the strongest work. Significantly more fully-fledged and varied than its predecessor, Nanostray 2 closely mirrors the game in its general character. It doesn’t greatly innovate on tried-and-true shmup genre formulas, but polishes its components to an impressive degree.

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The Path Soundtrack – Review

The Path Soundtrack, Jarboe / Kris Force, 2009

One effect of the resurgence of the indie game scene from the second half of the 2000s onwards was the proliferation of titles that questioned the received knowledge of what actually constitutes a game. An early example of this emerging type of work was The Path, a reframing of the Little Red Riding Hood tale. The Path turns the classic fairy tale into an exploration of female sexuality and the painful process of growing up.

Particularly the former story aspect makes The Path a fascinating addition to the world of games, given how depressingly rare nuanced depictions of sexuality are in video games. In the game, the player takes charge of six girls of various ages and leads them to their grandmother’s cottage. If you stay on the path though, the game will tell you at the end that you’ve failed. Players can only unlock The Path’s mysteries by walking off into the woods, where the wolves lurk.

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Pocket Mine Soundtrack – Review

Pocket Mine Soundtrack, Big Giant Circles, 2013

As much fun as it can be to analyse a piece of music, drill down into what things make it work or not, explore its sources of inspiration and so forth, there’s also the simple joy of getting caught up in a song that is just so irresistibly fun that all critical thinking takes a backseat for a moment. Big Giant Circle’s Pocket Mine soundtrack delivers precisely that sort of feeling with the aptly titled “That Diamond Smile”. The track also perfectly demonstrates how this soundtrack manages to draw upon the strengths derived from its 8-bit influences and enhances them by mixing in contemporary elements.

All that “That Diamond Smile” requires for success is the catchy little chiptunes ditty that opens the track. In what feels like the blink of an eye, things escalate, harmonies start building up, the tempo increases and what we then hear is a much broader, full-bodied rendition of the initial tune on soaring chiptunes synths. Suddenly, it’s one of the most memorable, joyful melodies ever written for a retro video game. Throughout the cue, the melody pushes higher and higher, until it returns for one final, fantastically joyful appearance. The insidiously catchy tune is a testament to Big Giant Circles’ (aka Jimmy Hinson) stature as a master tune smith.

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Secret of Evermore Soundtrack – Review

Secret of Evermore Soundtrack, Jeremy Soule, 1995

It’s fair to say that a game like Secret of Evermore would meet with less hostility these days. The thought of a Western console RPG is no longer an affront to gamers raised on Japanese genre products. Back in 1995 though, what many Square fans in the Western hemisphere wanted was a localised Secret of Mana 2 / Seiken Densetsu 3. What they didn’t look for was a down-to-earth alternative to JRPGs’ heroic melodramatics. Especially if it was littered with fictional pop culture references and had a metaphysical, light-hearted tongue-in-cheek approach.

And so, Secret of Evermore began its uphill battle. Sadly, its music got caught up in the struggle – entirely undeservedly so. Even decades after its release, perceptions of future star composer Jeremy Soule‘s debut seem highly ambivalent. Grievances raised against the Secret of Evermore soundtrack usually include that there is hardly any music in the first place (the game uses ambient sounds more extensively than any previous console RPG, but there is still close to an hour of melodic material to enjoy); that the score album leaves out too much music from the game and focuses too strongly on one of Evermore‘s time periods (on the contrary, the album does a great job at gathering the majority of worthwhile compositions from the game, which simply happen to mostly feature in the world of Gothica); and that the music itself is unremarkable.

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Secret Weapons Over Normandy Soundtrack – Review

Secret Weapons Over Normandy Soundtrack, Michael Giacchino, 2003

Among Michael Giacchino‘s WWII scores, the Secret Weapons Over Normandy soundtrack is conceptually and emotionally the most straightforward one. There’s none of the anguish and tragedy of Medal of Honor: Frontline here, none of the subtle character beats of Medal of Honor: Underground, or even the few injections of solemn patriotism of Medal of Honor – and the viciousness of Call of Duty, released almost at the same time as Secret Weapons, seems worlds away. Instead, the Secret Weapons Over Normandy soundtrack takes Medal of Honor‘s ‘war-as-adventure’ aesthetic to its extremely entertaining, bombastic extreme.

How to locate Secret Weapons Over Normandy within the context of Giacchino’s body of work? You might accurately describe it as a return to the original Medal of Honor‘s ballsy gung-ho attitude. That spirit is channelled through Medal of Honor: Frontline‘s superior grasp of orchestral colours, but without its sense of tragedy. This is partially due to Secret Weapon‘s arcade-like nature, which didn’t require a score of operatic emotional range.

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