Orchestral Archives - The Greatest Game Music

A-Train 5 Soundtrack

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

A-Train 5 Soundtrack, Koshiro Nishida, 1996

Few game series have shown as much longevity as the A-Train franchise. From the very first A-Train game released in 1985, the series gathered a reputation for delivering the most in-depth treatment of its subject matter gamers could ask for. Due to the corporate structure of Japanese railroad companies – which own all the stations, land and trains associated with the services they deliver – the A-Train games were always about more than just laying down train tracks and figuring out timetables. Instead, they were full-blown city-building simulators with a strong focus on rail infrastructure. The series was successful enough in Japan to pique the interest of overseas publishers (including SimCity’s Maxis) in the mid-1990s – although Western gamers seemed less interested than their Japanese counterparts. Thankfully, some decades later, digital distribution made it possible for franchise entries like A-Train All Aboard! Tourism to still reach Western shores.

Afrika Soundtrack

Afrika Soundtrack, Wataru Hokoyama, 2008

You wouldn’t necessarily expect that one of the best orchestral game scores of the new millennium was written for what’s essentially a photography simulator. But that’s precisely what Afrika, an early PS3 title, achieved. The game itself garnered a fair amount of pre-release hype. The prospect of traversing the majestic landscapes of the African steppes and carefully ligning up shots of its exotic animal inhabitants had a fair amount of gamers and bloggers excited at the prospect of this relatively fresh gameplay idea. Ultimately though, Afrika’s reviews were fairly polarised. Some critics enjoyed the languorous gameplay, while others felt the game lacked substance.

Age of Pirates: Caribbean Tales Soundtrack

Age of Pirates: Caribbean Tales Soundtrack, Yury Poteyenko, 2005

It would be easy to assume that with their quartet of pirate games, Russian developer Akella simply surfed on the coat tails of a certain Hollywood franchise and its (initially) humongous success. But Sea Dogs saw the light of day in 2000, three years before Johnny Depp made pirates cool again. And again one might assume that the title of its sequel – Age of Pirates: Caribbean Tales – was an attempt to find a name that was as close as possible to Pirates of the Caribbean, without breaching copyright rules.

Aquaria Soundtrack

Aquaria Soundtrack, Alec Holowka / Ian Holowka, 2007

By 2009, the indie game resurgence had already begun to make its mark on the gaming market at large. However, indie games’ impact on game music took longer to materialise. Existing digital distribution channels like iTunes and other online music stores didn’t cater to these often tiny projects. In this environment, the release of the Aquaria soundtrack was a watershed moment for Western indie game music. At the time, a 2CD album release for a Western indie game soundtrack was unheard of. Publisher Infinite Ammo’s courage was duly rewarded. Like the game, the Aquaria soundtrack met with an enthusiastic response from critics and gamers alike.

Azkend 2: The World Beneath Soundtrack

Azkend 2: The World Beneath Soundtrack, Jonathan Geer, 2012

One of the most exciting experiences for music collectors is to come across a work that defies expectations and delivers something much more involving and satisfying than expected. Jonathan Geer’s Azkend 2: The World Beneath soundtrack is exactly that sort of album. It’s music for yet another match-3 game – a genre whose popularity soared with the advent of mobile gaming. This is not necessarily the kind of game one expects to deliver a full-bodied, lush (synth)orchestral score. However, that’s precisely what Azkend 2 achieves.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Soundtrack

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Soundtrack, Mikael Karlsson, 2010

Battlefield: Bad Company’s soundtrack had turned heads through the involvement of classical composer Mikael Karlsson. As a successful writer of modern (sometimes avant-garde) classical music and with an impressive body of well-received orchestral works, ballets and operas under his belt, Karlsson seemed like an unusual choice to score a first-person shooter. The link between Karlsson and the Battlefield franchise was Stefan Strandberg, sound director at game developer DICE. Friends during their study years in Stockholm, they reconnected when Karlsson moved to New York and a demo tape of his made it into the hands of Strandberg.

Bounty Sword First Soundtrack

Bounty Sword First Soundtrack, Kohei Tanaka, 1997

Before Final Fantasy Tactics’ success, releases of turn-based strategy games in the West were far and few between – most of these titles were only ever released in Japan. One such game was 1995’s Bounty Sword for the SNES. Set in the year 4093, the game nonetheless featured a medieval-themed fantasy look beautifully realised through detailed 16-bit visuals. Bounty Sword’s gameplay was a bit of an oddity though. Gamers’ input into battles was minimal – they would set their units’ strategy before the fight began. After that, all they could do was command soldiers to use special moves. Even amidst the general interest for hidden late-era SNES treasures, Bounty Sword has remained obscure – and even less well-known was its PS1 remake Bounty Sword First. Ambitiously envisaged as the beginning of a trilogy, only one sequel (Bounty Sword: Double Edge) was released.

Dead Space 2 Soundtrack

Dead Space 2 Soundtrack, Jason Graves, 2011

“The Same. But Different. Yet Better.” According to Jason Graves, those were the words that he stuck above his monitor when composing Dead Space 2. Considering the success of Dead Space’s aural aspects – two BAFTAs and a degree of media attention few game scores ever achieve – Grave’s goal was no doubt an ambitious one. Then again, no matter how ferocious Dead Space’s soundtrack was, there was room for improvement. Graves’ breakthrough work was the equivalent of a horror movie that tries to scare its audience with jump scare after jump scare. And at some stage, watching monsters leap at the protagonist for yet another “boo!” effect gets old.

Dear Esther Soundtrack

Dear Esther Soundtrack, Jessica Curry, 2012

It seems fair to say that it’s usually indie video games that push the boundaries of the medium and have gamers and audiences asking “But is it a game?” (“Is it art?” being a close second). One of these games, Dear Esther, was initially a research project at the University of Plymouth. Players find themselves on a barren island in the Hebrides and are left to explore the surroundings. Meanwhile, a male voice-over reads out random letter fragments to a woman named Esther. With no threat of death and no tasks to be fulfilled, Dear Esther instead aims to capture gamers’ intrigue simply by letting them figure out – or just interpret – the fragmented narrative, hinting at a tragedy that precedes the events in the game. Encouragingly, this experiment in digital storytelling received significant critical acclaim and was a commercial success as well.

Disgaea: Hour of Darkness Soundtrack

Disgaea: Heart of Darkness Soundtrack, 2003, Tenpei Sato

It’s always fun to cheer on the little game that could and see it not only succeed, but turn into a burgeoning franchise selling millions of copies – without losing its charmingly eccentric character. Before the release of Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, developer Nippon Ichi had been releasing one game a year, constantly on the precipice of closure should that game fail. All that was about to change with Hour of Darkness, a zany strategy RPG starring Laharl, son of King Krichevskoy, overlord of the Netherworld – who passed away while Laharl was sleeping for a couple of years. Setting Laharl’s quest to reclaim the throne in a setting like the Demon Netherworld gave the developers liberty to apply an “anything goes” approach, according to producer Sohei Niikawa. The result was a strategy RPG that was as deep as it was irreverent (not many RPGs can claim exploding penguins as their mascots).

Dragon Quest III Soundtrack (Nintendo 3DS)

Dragon Quest III Soundtrack (Nintendo 3DS), Koichi Sugiyama, 2017

While its predecessors had been immensely successful in their own right, it was really with 1988’s Dragon Quest III that the venerable franchise turned into a commercial juggernaut. The original NES game itself sold a staggering 3.8 million copies in Japan alone. Add in a few more million copies for the game’s various remakes, and Dragon Quest III turns out to be the franchise’s most successful entry (it also spawned an urban myth about the Japanese government blocking future releases of Dragon Quest games on school days to curb truancy). The game itself didn’t revolutionise the JRPG genre. However, developer Chunsoft still expanded upon the first two Dragon Quest titles’ gameplay to introduce a character class system. This feature would become a staple of future Dragon Quest games.

Dragon Quest IV Soundtrack (Mobile)

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

Dragon Quest IV Soundtrack (Mobile), Koichi Sugiyama, 2014

It is to the credit of developer Chunsoft and publisher Enix that coming off the jaw-dropping success of Dragon Quest III, they decided not to play things safe with the next game in the franchise. Instead, they went to shake things up, going so far as to turn the game’s story into a series of initially unrelated chapters that introduce the various party members – before they all come together in the final chapter. Other innovations included day and night cycles, an early artificial intelligence system to give non-playable party members combat instructions, and the choice of which characters to use in battle. Dragon Quest IV turned into another million-seller for Enix – not quite as successful as its predecessor, but 3.1 million copies sold just in Japan for the NES original is not exactly a bad result either.

Dragon Quest V Soundtrack (PlayStation 2)

Dragon Quest V Soundtrack (PlayStation 2), Koichi Sugiyama, 2004

Considering just how big the Dragon Quest franchise has always been in Japan, it was a bit of a surprise to see it landing on the SNES only in 1992 – maybe the last big 8-bit franchise to make the jump. Of course, once Dragon Quest V was released, it was another massive success for Chunsoft and Enix, selling 2.8 million copies on the SNES. Add in sales of its remakes (PlayStation 2 in 2004, Nintendo DS in 2008 and mobile phones in 2014), and the figure exceeds six million units.

Dragon Quest VI Soundtrack (Mobile)

Dragon Quest VI Soundtrack (Mobile), Koichi Sugiyama, 2015

Dragon Quest V was the first game in the franchise to hit a 16-bit platform. But while it sported one of the era’s more original and moving narratives, its presentation felt like a relatively minor upgrade over its NES predecessor. Thankfully, Dragon Quest VI fixed this particular issue. Released in 1995, Dragon Quest VI wholeheartedly embraced the SNES’ technical capacities, featuring far more detailed and colourful graphics. Players also enjoyed a much larger game world, thanks to Dragon Quest VI’s ‘real world/dream world’ set up. Development duties passed from Chunsoft on to Heart Beat, founded in 1992 by Manabu Yamana, director of Dragon Quest III-V. Needless to say, Dragon Quest VI became the best-selling game of 1995 in Japan. On top of those 3.2 million SNES cartridges, it later sold an additional one million copies on the Nintendo DS.

Enemy Zero Soundtrack

Enemy Zero Soundtrack, Michael Nyman, 1996

Few video game auteurs have left an oeuvre as intriguing – and divisive – as Kenji Eno. Eno fittingly came to prominence during one of experimental game design’s heydays – the mid 1990s. His company Warp became best known in the West for its D series of horror games: D, Enemy Zero and D2. Only very loosely connected with each other, these games proposed innovative gameplay and story ideas – arguably to various degrees of success. However, these titles did ultimately cement Eno’s name in game history for their unbridled audacity.

EverQuest II Soundtrack

EverQuest II Soundtrack, Laura Karpman, 2004

In some ways, EverQuest II ended up between a rock and a hard place. Its predecessor EverQuest – together with Ultima Online – had established MMORPGs as we know them today. That meant expectations for EverQuest II were high, to say the least. To the credit of developer Sony Online Entertainment, they released a polished product, accessible and among the best MMORPGs released up to that point. It just wasn’t the kind of quantum leap that EverQuest had been. And then World of Warcraft landed and changed MMORPGs forever. EverQuest II was ultimately far from a commercial flop – it did peak at 325,000 subscribers – but it didn’t stand a chance against World of Warcraft and the millions of subscribers it attracted. Still, EverQuest II retained a dedicated fan base, with the sixteenth expansion Reign of Shadows released in 2020, fourteen years after the base game’s release.

Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture Soundtrack

Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture Soundtrack, Jessica Curry, 2015

Coming off the critical and commercial success of Dear Esther, British indie developer The Chinese Room began work on two projects: Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs and Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture. Out of the two games, the latter was no doubt the bigger undertaking, co-produced by industry giant Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation 4. By and large, Rapture took the same gameplay approach as Dear Esther. Gamers are tasked with walking through a deserted village, trying to piece together what happened to those who once inhabited this piece of idyllic English country side – no battles, perils or game over screens in sight. Not surprisingly, the limited interactivity within Rapture’s world wasn’t to the liking of everybody. All in all though, reviews were positive, with critics particularly pointing out the game’s strong narrative, placing Rapture on several year-end lists.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Soundtrack

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Soundtrack, Jeremy Soule, 2002

The Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets soundtrack is easily the best of Jeremy Soule‘s five scores for the franchise. It also benefits from a better album presentation than Soule’s other Harry Potter soundtracks. Only eight minutes of notable material are missing from the album release, which thankfully excises a lot of ruminative underscore. In fact, Chamber of Secrets is Soule’s most satisfying fantasy soundtrack. Yes, that’s a big claim to make, considering his work on franchises like The Elder Scrolls and Guild Wars. But Chamber of Secrets achieves a consistency of quality that Soule’s more bloated scores don’t accomplish. He doubtlessly deserved his 2004 win of the BAFTA Games Award for Best Original Music for Chamber of Secrets.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Soundtrack

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Soundtrack, James Hannigan, 2009

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix turned to be industry veteran James Hannigan’s breakthrough work – a delectably luscious orchestral game score that topped Jeremy Soule’s previous contributions to the franchise and could proudly sit aside John Williams and Patrick Doyle’s Harry Potter soundtracks. It’s no surprise then that Hannigan’s Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince soundtrack doesn’t change the winning formula. Hannigan’s follow up work is as riveting as Order of the Phoenix, but it does introduce a few noteworthy changes.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Soundtrack

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Soundtrack, James Hannigan, 2007

There is some irony to the fact that in several interviews, James Hannigan voiced his concern about film scores by default overshadowing the music written for the game adaptation. If anything, Hannigan’s Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix soundtrack is the opposite case. Nicholas Hooper’s movie soundtrack was largely deemed underwhelming. Meanwhile, Hannigan garnered praise for his game score that in the eyes of many was the superior work. Indeed, it hits almost all the right notes for a sweeping, yet relatable fantasy epic like the Harry Potter series. Hannigan achieves a perfect balance between humour, magic and gravitas, mixing moods and orchestral colours masterfully. The only thing missing might be a more pervading sense of adventure and romanticism. Fortunately, this is something that Hannigan would address on The Half-Blood Prince.

.crp_title{display:block;}