General RPG Music Lists 5: All That and a Bag of Chiptunes

Last year I finally committed to doing a series of rants that I'd thought about making for quite some time, in which I shared all the music I love best from the myriad RPGs I've played, and commented on some of my favorites.  It was a sizable venture for myself (I came close to not making my other rants' deadlines several times because of how much time these music lists took, in fact), but it wound up being a lot of fun as I shared Battle, Setting, and Mood music, as well as all the tunes in between.  From Opening themes right on to the Ending songs, we hit every part of an RPG's soundtrack, start to finish.

Which begs the question, then, of what the hell we're doing here today.  Because there's no RPG music I haven't touched on, right?  No corner of the soundtrack, no moment in the game's course has been neglected.  We're finished, right?

Ah, but that's the fun thing: the totality of a beloved work extends so very much farther than the work's own life does.  The legacy that a piece of media leaves is not self-contained, but lives on in its fans and admirers, and finds new life within their own creativity.  Fascinating settings and narrative threads are explored within fanfiction, characters are recreated with fanart, themes and concepts are debated by fan essays and videos, signature elements are humorously exploited through fan animations...and, of course, character relationships are lewdly experimented with in all of those mediums and more.  And among the numerous characteristics of an RPG that a fanbase will labor upon is most certainly the game's music.

And that's what we're here to celebrate today: the RPG music that has found, in 1 form or another, a life outside of its own origins.  These are my favorite songs that have come as a result of love for an RPG, rather than from the RPG itself, the works of love that have opened musical horizons past what a game's soundtrack itself has managed.

Note: While I will generally refer to the songs on this list by their names (since, being entities outside of their associated RPGs and often transformed works, they no longer accomplish a set 'function' of a soundtrack), the naming system here is not always going to be exactly the same as the original designation's.  I ignore album names, for example, focusing only on the piece itself, and text/emoji that isn't naturally translated to titles is generally ignored.  90% of the time a piece is going to have the same name, but every now and then it won't be the exact same, and I just try to get a basic, commonsense name for it for my collection.



OVERCLOCKED REMIXES

The most common musical fan work, the remix is a broad-term entity that represents any time a fan (or occasionally even an official license-holder) has reworked an existing RPG song into something else.  Sometimes it's a simple affair of enhancing some small elements of a track to more strongly or appealingly accomplish its goal...sometimes a song is sampled and/or reworked so creatively that it becomes an entirely new entity whose origins you can't even really recognize anymore.  Adding vocals to a work, changing instruments and tempo to make a calming town music into a furious battle theme (or an adrenaline-pumping battle theme into a chill vacation groove), expanding a small part of an existing song to become the entirety of a new one...remixes do all kinds of interesting things, and can result in some amazing works.

OverClocked Remix is a foundation of the relationship between RPGs and fans, 1 of the oldest still-standing internet institutions.  For over 20 years, OCR has been a website which displays and applauds fan creativity in masterfully reshaping the music of video games, and some of my all-time favorite music has come from the site.  OCR persists still, and the persons populating the place periodically provide pleasing pieces of musical prowess even in the present.

B+
- Breath of Fire 1 Epitaph of Alan and Cerl Remix
- Chrono Cross Timewarp Remix
- Chrono Trigger Elements of Time Remix
- Deus Ex 1 Only in Novels Remix
- Final Fantasy 6 Land of the Eidolons Remix
- Final Fantasy 6 The Rose General Remix
- Final Fantasy 9 You Are Not Confined Remix
- Final Fantasy 10 Twilight of Ivory Remix
- The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past The 7 Wise Men Shot First Remix
- The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past Transient Shadows Remix
- The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword Hylia's Fear Remix
- The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Echoes of Dusk Remix
- Secret of Mana Pure Heart Remix
- Wild Arms 1 Round the Cape of Good Hope Remix
- Xenogears Live from the Yggdrasil Remix

A-
- The 7th Saga Water Remix
- Castlevania Series CastleMania Remix
- Chrono Cross Cosmic Kleptomaniac Remix
- Chrono Cross Time's New Scar Remix
- Chrono Trigger Enter the Frog Remix
- Chrono Trigger Flow of Time Remix
- Chrono Trigger In the Green Gloom Remix
- Crystalis Calming the Angry Sea Remix
- Deus Ex 2 Tears in Rain Remix
- Final Fantasy 9 Filtering Through Memories Remix
- Final Fantasy 10 Journey's End Remix
- Grandia 2 A Deus ex Harpa Remix
- The Legend of Zelda Series A Rose for Zelda Remix
- The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Requiem for a Damaged Spirit Remix
- The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Forest of Purple Mist Remix
- The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Wistful Remix
- Nier: Automata Beautiful Rise Remix
- Pokemon Generation 5 Thy Everlasting Winter Wind Blows Remix
- Secret of Evermore K-Pax for Evermore Remix
- Secret of Mana Desert Snowstorm Remix
- Secret of Mana Footsteps to Destiny Remix
- Secret of Mana Tidal Sequence Remix
- Shadowrun SNES Reborn Remix
- Star Ocean 2 Rena Lanford of Arlia Village Remix
- Suikoden 1 Days Long Passed, Seldom Remembered Remix
- Super Mario RPG Remachination Remix
- Trials of Mana Memories of the Sea Remix
- Xenogears Echoes Remix

A
- Bahamut Lagoon Stockholm Remix
- Chrono Cross Time Circuits High Voltage Remix
- Final Fantasy 5 A Dream of Home Remix
- Final Fantasy 7 Ascension to Cosmo Canyon Remix
- Final Fantasy 7 Mark of the Beatsmith Remix
- Final Fantasy 9 Fixations Remix
- Final Fantasy Series Forest Medley Remix
- Lufia 2 Turbid Guidance Remix
- Pokemon Generation 1 Farewell, Beloved Ones Remix
- Secret of Evermore A Whisper and a Shadow Remix
- Soul Blazer Tears for a Moonlit Knight Remix
- Xenogears Aveh Mountain Breakdown Remix
- Xenogears Ominous Waltz Remix

A+
- Final Fantasy 6 Terra in Black Remix
As little as I know how to describe the merits of RPG music under normal circumstances, I have even less of an idea as to how to laud a remix.  All I know is that this is a truly awesome piece, a perfect meeting of soft significance with penetrating rock, and my second favorite OCR piece of all time (Super Metroid's Zebesian Midnight is the top, if you're curious).  It's stayed at the top tier for over 20 years, and I doubt it's gonna be edged out of that position any time soon.



SEMI-OVERCLOCKED REMIXES

Oddly, sometimes an OverClocked Remix doesn't actually make it onto OverClocked Remix.  See, 1 of the things that OCR will do, beyond just archiving and displaying individual video game remixes, is to organize and sponsor a group of musical artists in putting together an album dedicated to a game, series, or theme.  But while there'll usually be anywhere between 6 to 60 songs on the album, not all of them (usually barely any!) will make it onto OverClocked Remix proper.  I'm unclear as to why this is exactly, but my guess is that it's either a case of not wanting to overload their main page's uploads for a month with nothing but remixes from the same game, or their infamous gatekeeping at work (more on that in a moment).

Even if they don't get onto the website proper, quite a few of these album remixes are pretty great, though, easily as good or better than the majority of songs that DO make the transition from album to the main OCR site.  I do think, though, that for the sake of lessening the glut of remixes in the OCR section here even just a little, I'm going to likewise separate them from the herd.  Make no mistake, though, it sure as hell ain't from any lack of quality, as you'll hear below.

B+
- Terranigma The Path to Lhasa Remix
- Trials of Mana Little Winged Lady Remix

A-
- Chrono Trigger Darkest Omen Remix
- Final Fantasy 6 Remember Remix
- Golden Sun 2 Another Point of View Remix
I like the energy of this piece, taking a lot of the best qualities of fast-paced 80s and 90s music styles to create a catchy, upbeat jam.  I also like its ability to change directions when you don't expect it--living up to its title of finding "another point of view", in a way.  Very cool piece.

- Trials of Mana Facing the Storm Remix

A

A+



GENERAL REMIXES

I have a lot of respect for OCR, and I don't want to downplay that or be negative.  But I do have to say: those standards of entry which I mentioned a moment ago?  The taste and musical expertise of the OCR judges, based on what I've seen get accepted to the site, what I've seen get rejected, and the stated reasons for some remixes' rejections, is highly dubious, to put it extraordinarily generously.  And that was, for some years, a real damn problem, because OCR was kinda the ONLY centralized spot for finding fans' remixes--so the fact that there were a lot of significantly, demonstrably great pieces getting arbitrarily rejected by the same people that opened the door and invited this trainwreck in, was pretty frustrating for those of us who wanted a simple, straightforward option to find all available remixes for a game and decide for ourselves whether we liked them or not.  There was a great site called VGMix back in the day that tried to solve this problem, and I was grateful for it, but unfortunately each of its iterations was short-lived, leaving OCR the internet's video game remix solo act for far too long.

The advent of Youtube, however, has slowly but surely been solving this problem, albeit in an unavoidably disorganized way.  With Youtube, there's no question of any panel of judges with bizarre standards barring the way--anyone can upload anything they like, and while you still have to sift through a mountain of average or subpar pieces to find a gem, those masterpieces are out there, and at least now you know you're accessing all the works available, not just what some outside entity has arbitrarily decided to allow you.  That, combined with a few remix albums and singles hosted/sold on platforms outside OCR or Youtube, and a rare couple arrangement albums sold by the official license-holding companies themselves, accounts for the works below.  And as lucky as we may be to have OverClocked Remix, the great quality of the following music proves that we're equally, perhaps even more, lucky to have alternatives, too.

B+
- Chrono Trigger Battle with Magus Remix
- Chrono Trigger Cafe of Time Remix
- Chrono Trigger Corridors of Time Remix
- Chrono Trigger Rising Beast Remix
- Chrono Trigger Wait for Slurp Remix
- CrossCode Temple of Thunder Remix
- Final Fantasy 10 Auron Oboe Winds Remix
- Final Fantasy 10 Wandering Flame Remix
- Fire Emblem 4 Chapter 3 Remix
- Sailor Moon: Another Story Ark Remix  (The Ark theme was reused in the Sailor Moon R game, and this track from the OST is a remix of that)
- Startropics 1 Argonia Remix

A-
- Castlevania Series Castle of Shadows Remix
- Chrono Trigger Daughter of Zeal Remix
- Chrono Trigger Schala's Theme Frozenith Remix
- Etrian Odyssey 4 On an Adventure Gliding Through the Skies Remix
- Fallout 4 Some Things Never Change Remix
- Final Fantasy 6 Cast a Lonely Shadow Remix
- Golden Sun 1 The Elemental Stars Orchestral Remix
- Hololive CouncilRys RPG Battle Against Cursed Fauna Remix
- I Am Setsuna Unstoppable Force Remix
- The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening Legend of an Ocarina - Movement 1 Remix
- The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword Skipper's Retreat Shack (Low Whistle/Oboe) Remix
- Lufia 2 Final Battle Remix
- Lufia 2 Wielder of the Dual Blade Remix
- Mario and Luigi 1 Airflare Valley Remix
- Omori By Your Side Orchestral Remix
- Pokemon Generation 7 The Blade Runner Remix
- Secret of Evermore Hall of Collosia Remix
- Shadowrun SNES Ghouls Revamp Remix
- Startropics 1 Cave Remake Remix
- Startropics 1 The Melancholy 7 Remix
- Undertale Battle Against a True Hero Tieff Remix
- Undertale Neon Depths Remix
- Valkyrie Profile 2 Under the All-Powerful Divine Protection Remix
- Xenogears On a Short Fuse Lately Remix

A
- Chrono Cross She Was Dreaming in the Rain Remix
- Chrono Trigger Schala's Theme Z Remix
- Final Fantasy 9 Veiled World Remix
- The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Midna's Lament Orchestral Remix
- Shin Megami Tensei 1 Ruins Woodwind Remix
- Shin Megami Tensei 2 Neutral Theme Remix
- Undertale Battle Against a True Hero Dual Remix  (Link avoids unnecessary intro)
- Undertale The Last Soul Remix

A+
- Bahamut Lagoon Yoyo's Theme Arranged Remix
Just simply, utterly beautiful.  The original theme is already a hauntingly lovely piece that epitomizes some of the greatest qualities that Bahamut Lagoon possesses, and yet this remix manages to so easily surpass the original that it truly feels as though this is the true form of this song, the greatest realization of its heart and potential.  Gorgeous stuff.

- Shadow Hearts 1 Heart to Heart Remix
This might be 1 of the greatest examples of the virtue of remixes as transformative pieces that you can find.  This remix is almost completely unidentifiable as a form of the theme for Alice, but it's a great, genuinely engaging and enjoyable tune, far surpassing the original (which was good and serviceable, of course, but nothing special).  Not only that, but somehow, even while clearly being unabashedly its own musical entity, this remix manages to still invoke a sense of the (perhaps tragic) goodness and purity of Alice, yet does so in a way that actually feels more true to the Shadow Hearts duology as a whole in the mood and emotion of its new tempo and instruments.  This is just a masterpiece, it really is.



FAN ORIGINALS

While remixes are obviously the most common and known method in which an RPG lives a second life musically, there is another form that fan music occasionally takes: the fan original.  Sometimes, you see, a fan is so enthusiastic about a game, that they don't just alter an existing piece of music as an outlet for their creative fervor...they outright invent a new track altogether!  Whether it be a theme symbolic of a character that the composer especially identified with, a tribute to a particularly moving setting, a song that evokes the feeling of a particularly powerful moment in the story, a celebration of the RPG as a whole, an attempt to mimic and extend the style of the game's composer, or even a piece that describes a potentiality unexplored by the source material or that shall come to pass in the creator's headcanon, there have been hundreds of original songs created from the ground up out of nothing more than the love of a fan!

80% of them are for My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

The startlingly prolific creativity and frequently great talent of the bronies aside, however, there's plenty of other great fan originals to be found out there, including many made for RPGs.  And of the all RPG-related fan music, this may be the stuff I respect the most.  I am a fumbling, graceless, ignorant, rhythm-less moron when it comes to understanding music on any level beyond that of the plebian listener, so I can't speak from any point of actual understanding or experience on the matter, but it seems to me that as impressive a feat (which I cannot manage myself) as it is to envision, compose, and work a remix of an existing song, it's even more impressive a feat (which I cannot manage myself) to envision, compose, and work a song out of nothingness--and the most impressive is to do so out of nothing more than a love of the work and a need to create, with no assurance of payment for your efforts.  And as the songs below prove, there's some damned impressive talent at work here.  I can't wait to see this list expand as this trend continues to expand!

B+
- Fallout 3 Beauty Bleak
- Undertale Hard Drive

A-
- Horizon 0 Dawn Force of Nature
- Kingdom Hearts A Ballad from a Dream
- Pokemon Generation 8 Battle! Golems of Galar

A
- Pokemon Generation 1 Battle! Gym Leader Sabrina
- Pokemon Generation 8 Battle! Galarian Zapdos
- Pokemon Generation 9 Champion Nemona Battle

A+
- Mass Effect 3 Crucible
When it comes to fan originals (ones not based around colorful cartoon equines, that is), the most recognizable and respected name in the business might be Miracle of Sound, and it's because of songs like this.  This is exactly what a song embodying Mass Effect should be: epic, grand, inspiring, galactic in the proportions of both its conflict and its heroism, and yet with an utterly vital component of the personal, human connection.  Awesome, plain and simple.

- Pokemon Generation 7 Battle! Champion Lillie
This is such an amazing battle theme just for its own sake--any RPG could count itself exceedingly lucky to have such an elegant, exciting, significant piece in its soundtrack.  And it only multiplies its greatness with how perfect a fit it is to its concept, that of the presence of Lillie as Champion and the determination and growth that led her to that rightful role.  Honestly, if you can listen to this song and come out of it without a headcanon for Lillie's journey as a trainer which ends with her becoming the greatest Champion ever known, then I just don't even know what to do with you.



SO-CALLED REAL MUSIC

So here's an interesting thing: there are a (very) few songs in my personal collection that are what we typically think of as music--real, official stuff released by bands for the music's own sake, rather than having been made for the specific purpose of being a part of a soundtrack for a game (or cartoon, or anime, or movie, or whatever).  But that doesn't quite mean that the music is inherently detached, to me, from an RPG...because there are times in which I only find and enjoy a song specifically because it was artificially connected to an RPG in some regard.

See, as you may have noticed, I watch...a lot of AMVs.  A whole lot.  Like, every time I finish playing an RPG, or watching an anime, or even sometimes watching a cartoon, I go on Youtube and watch more or less every single AMV ever made for it.  And then a couple times a year I go through Youtube to see what RPG AMVs have been made since my last watching spree.  As a result, even if 99% of it does almost nothing for me, I do wind up listening to a lot of "real" music...although as you might imagine, there's also a lot of repetition; Jesus Christ have I ever heard enough Linkin Park and 30 Seconds to Mars to last several lifetimes (which is to say, in the latter's case, I've listened to 30 Seconds to Mars more than once).  But on rare, rare, rare occasions, I'll come across an AMV that introduces me to a piece of music that I actually do really like, for its own sake, and I go buy it to enjoy on its own.

Some of these pieces of music, however, were so skillfully employed in the AMV I saw them in (or a later one), that they become embellished upon my mind as indelibly associated with the RPG with which they were paired in the video.  So, for our final category, you will find below a listing of all of these songs, as well as the game and AMV (or other fan work) which has tied them in my mind to RPGs forever.  Just for fun.

B+

A-
- 2 Steps from Hell United We Stand, Divided We Fall
Forever associated in my mind with The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, thanks to this great AMV.

- Genesis Land of Confusion
Forever associated in my mind with Fallout 3, thanks to this excellent AMV (Disturbed version here, since we can't have nice things thanks to copyright crap).

- I Am Waiting for You Last Summer Event Horizon
Forever associated in my mind with Mass Effect 3, thanks to this great AMV.

- Invocation Array Siren's Call
Forever associated in my mind with Shadowrun, thanks to the incomparably sublime Calfree in Chains mod for Shadowrun: Hong Kong.

- The Rasmus Ghost of Love
Forever associated in my mind with Mass Effect 3, thanks to a great AMV which sadly can no longer be found online.

A

A+



TALLYING

Before we finish up, let's look back on this little series of rants and tally things up, give a few of the really great soundtracks a bit of personal applause for their good work.  Why?  Because I like making lists for no reason, that's why.  I assume you've picked up on that by this point.

First of all, as you may have noticed, I don't hand out an A+ to a whole lot of songs.  Any RPG that manages to produce such a song has a real feather in its cap, in my highly subjective opinion, and deserves recognition for it.  These are all the RPGs who possess at least 1 tune that I love so greatly that I had to give it the very highest marks!

Note: If you want to know which song(s) in particular scored the A+, you'll just have to go back and check out my Music List rants again!  And if you're not sure whether I'm saying that out of the vanity of wanting you to read my writings multiple times, or out of the sloth of not wanting to bother copy-pasting links into this new rant from the old ones, then please feel free to assume whichever scenario makes me more hateful.  Either way you will totally be right.

1 A+
A Dragon's ReQuest; Breath of Fire 5; Celestian Tales 1; Children of Zodiarcs; Dark Cloud 2; Eternal Senia; Etrian Odyssey 1; Final Fantasy Mystic Quest; Justice Chronicles; Knights of the Old Republic 2; Legend of Dragoon; Live-A-Live; Mario and Luigi 4; Mass Effect 1; Mass Effect 3; Nier: Automata; Pathfinder: Kingmaker; Planescape: Torment; The Princess' Heart + Sweet Lily Dreams (1 shared song); Rakuen; Secret of Mana; Shadow Hearts 2; Shin Megami Tensei 1; Shin Megami Tensei 4 Series; Shin Megami Tensei Persona 3; Skies of Arcadia; Star Ocean 3; Suikoden 2; Undertale; Wild Arms 3

2 A+'s
Chrono Trigger; Clair Obscur: Expedition 33; Pier Solar and the Great Architects; Romancing Saga 1; Xenosaga 1; Xenosaga 3

It'll be fun when I finally find the game that can knock it out of the park thrice.

Alright, so that's all well and good, to have had these rants to determine which are my favorite individual songs...but what about the soundtracks as a whole?  Which ones are the "best" in my eyes?  Or rather ears, I suppose.  Well, that's not something I can really definitively determine, since I don't keep score on the scores' songs that would earn a B or lower.  But judging by what music I have scored with these lists, we can at least take a stab at recognizing some of the more impressive soundtracks.

These are the 20 highest-scoring RPGs based on the music I've liked well enough to collect, judged upon a system in which B+ tracks are worth 1 point, A- songs are good for 2, A tunes garner 2.5, and A+ melodies earn 3.

Note: Multi-game and/or series-based songs count for each and every game they show up in.  So, for example, in the case of the Big Boss Battle theme of Tales of Phantasia, ToP and Tales of Symphonia both points for the track, since it appears in ToS as well.  And yes, this gives the slightly lazy Final Fantasy series an advantage with its Main Theme giving bonus points to almost every installment in the franchise.  Look, it's not a perfect system.

Top 20 Soundtracks
19 + 20. TIE: Ara Fell: 10.5; Final Fantasy 5: 10.5; Mass Effect 3: 10.5
18. Dragon Fantasy 2: 11
17. Final Fantasy 10: 11.5
16. Suikoden 1: 12
15. Wild Arms 3: 12
14. Final Fantasy Mystic Quest: 12.5
13. Romancing Saga 1: 13
12. Wild Arms 1: 13.5
11. Skies of Arcadia: 13.5
10. Legend of Dragoon: 14
9. A Dragon's ReQuest: 14
8. Ys 1: 15
7. Rakuen: 15
6. Final Fantasy 9: 15
5. Suikoden 2: 15
4. Whisper of a Rose: 16
3. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33: 18
2. Undertale: 21
1. Chrono Trigger: 26.5

While titles like Chrono Trigger, Undertale, Rakuen, Suikoden 2, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, and Final Fantasy Mystic Quest are no-brainers, I have to admit there are a couple of surprises on that list.  I really never noticed just how many tracks from Whisper of a Rose I've got (nor how highly I regard most of them); it wouldn't have even occurred to me that WoaR would have made the top 20 soundtracks, let alone been the fourth best!  And while I knew on some level that I liked Skies of Arcadia's and Wild Arms 1's soundtracks well enough, I'd never have expected to see them placing higher than Terranigma, or Suikoden 1, or Chrono Cross, which didn't even make the list.  So it's interesting to see it all broken down like this.

Encouraging, too, for that matter--Ys 1 and Rakuen are both RPGs I've played in the last 3 years, so it's nice to realize that there's still plenty of soundtracks out there for me to discover that I love.



And...that's it for the music.  For real, this time.

While it was always something I enjoyed well enough, for most of my life, I viewed the soundtrack of an RPG as being unimportant window-dressing, in the same sense that graphics and gameplay are--something for which good quality is always preferable, of course, but a feature that shouldn't be able to influence the actual quality of an RPG, as it's a non-storytelling trait.  In the last decade, though, I've slowly but surely come around on this matter, and I now recognize that music does play a role in how good an RPG is.  Because, well, although it may be difficult to find an example where less-than-stellar music had any substantial impact on the narrative power of an RPG scene, there have been countless moments in this genre's span in which the weight and emotion of background music has noticeably enhanced the scene and/or setting for which it was created.

I guess I now recognize the music of an RPG as the ice cream on a pie--what's truly important, of course, is the pie itself (the storytelling elements), and a great pie absolutely stands perfectly well on its own.  But there's no denying that the right ice cream on that pie can result in an already great treat becoming even better.

Unfortunately, I really don't have any proper understanding of the mechanics of music, nor its history, culture, or really anything else about it, beyond just knowing what I do and don't like to hear.  So my ability to rant on this part of the RPG scene is almost nonexistent, beyond vague attempts to grasp a broad point.  That fact inspired me, as much as any other factor, to do this series of rants this past year, because even if it's just more of my subjective, generalized fumbling, these music lists have given me a chance to actually make some statements about this part of the RPG experience, and express my appreciation for the music of my favorite genre in terms I have comfortable understanding of.

And I guess that's all I have to say.  Thanks for bearing with me on this largely self-indulgent matter, heh.  It's been fun!

General RPG Music Lists 4: See You Bass Cowboy

Well, all, it's been a lot of fun, but just as all good things must come to an end, so, too, do all mildly diverting things conclude.  Except for The Simpsons, it seems.  But as Fox isn't using money to perpetually animate this blog into a sullen corpse of entertainment past, today we end our exploration into my favorite music of the Role Playing Game genre.

So, to date, these rants have covered Battle themes, Setting backgrounds, and Mood music, which covers most of the major bases.  There's really only 1 significant area we haven't explored so far: the melodies related to the nuts and bolts of the medium.  Basically, today we're going to be covering all the music in RPGs that's a part of the process, the engine, the structure of RPGs.  This'll be tunes that relate specifically to the medium of video games, the signature elements and features of RPGs in particular, and the process of storytelling.  If an RPG were a stage play, then Battle music would be the actions, Setting music would be the props, Mood music would be the actors and dialogue, and the stuff we look at today would be the lighting, stage devices, special effects, and overall management of the play's course.  It might not be the most glamorous and thanked role, but the stage manager is an indispensable part of the process, and the musical equivalent for RPGs is just as vital.

So here we go: the Tools of the Trade music that I love most in RPGs!

Note: I do not in any way care about what the actual name of any of these tracks is. I organize the songs I listen to by their function, essentially what I'll remember them for. So if you really love the Skin Legume-y Tonsils song, "Crossroads of the Heart (Help I'm Trapped in a Soundtrack Factory Remix)", which played during the ending, then just assume that I call it Skin Legume-y Tonsils Ending, as that's the game of origin and its actual function.

Also Note: As with the last couple times, if a category doesn't have an A+ song within it, I'll just do a little opinion piece on my favorite of the ones it does have.



MAIN THEME

How better to start today than with the Main Theme?  This is the song you most often will first hear in an RPG, as it usually (although not always) plays on the game's title screen, or perhaps during a pre-game opening.  This is a pretty standard asset for just about any form of media possessing an audible component, and I probably don't need to really go into detail on it--Main Themes are there to be the melody equivalent of a product's logo, something you hear and instantly associate with its game, movie, show, or whatever.  You might not be able to say which 60s era cartoon a certain background jingle happens to belong to, for example, but you sure as hell know the opening song for The Flintstones when you hear it.  An intense, industrial pulsing background sound could come from any number of movies, but the signature theme of The Terminator franchise is immediately recognizable.  And of course, there's no way you could mistake the Main Theme of Indiana Jones for that of any other movie--you hear that tune start, and you just immediately know that you're watching Jurassic Park, I mean Star Wars, I mean Superman, I mean E.T., have I mentioned how thoroughly unimpressive a 1-trick pony I find John Williams to be?

Theoretically, this song should essentially summarize the ideas, atmosphere, purpose, and/ore heart of the work it's attached to.  And it does!  Sometimes.  Occasionally.  Honestly, though, most RPG Main Themes sort of just seem like they're there in their own right, no more or less personally attached to their product than they would be to any other given title in the genre.  Similarly inconsistent is just how significantly involved the Main Theme is in the game itself.  There are RPGs where you may never hear the Main Theme outside of the title screen, calling further into question just how signature it can really be said to be to the game.  On the other hand, there are other RPGs that use their main theme as an appropriate backdrop to pivotal moments in their story, and still others that sprinkle it in more frequently.  Hell, Fire Emblem 16 is so inexplicably enamored with this 1 sequence of exactly 13 notes that I'm pretty sure, no lie, that at least 60% of its entire soundtrack bases itself off of it.  Nethys help you if you don't happen to like that little ditty while you play FE16; it's gonna pursue you everywhere.

There's a lot in this category here, but it's actually kind of surprising that there isn't more, really, given that probably about 90% of RPGs have a Main Theme, and this is sort of THE first and foremost piece of music associated with the game.  I mean, as of the time of writing this, I've played just a couple RPGs over 400, and less than 20 of them are represented below--that seems surprising when this music is theoretically the most important one in the whole lot.

B+
- Fallout 4 Main Theme
- Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon Main Theme
- Grandia 2 Main Theme
- Sakura Wars 5 Main Theme

A-
- Chrono Cross Main Theme
- Chrono Trigger Main Theme
- Dark Cloud 1 Main Theme
- Final Fantasy 10 Main Theme
- Final Fantasy Series Main Theme (FF6 is my favorite iteration, but they all work pretty well)
- Live-A-Live Main Theme
- Mr. Saitou Main Theme
- Whisper of a Rose Main Theme
- Secret of Mana Main Theme (Link avoids unnecessary intro)
- Ys 1 Main Theme

A
- AeternoBlade Series Main Theme
- Breath of Fire 4 Main Theme
- Neverwinter Nights 1 Witch's Wake Main Theme

A+
- Celestian Tales 1 Main Theme
Calming, bittersweet, mournful, laden with the promise of a story that may take as much as it gives...the slow, comfortable finesse of this thoughtful tune never fails to deepen my mental state and give me a pleasant sense of longing.  Love it!



BEGINNING

While the Main Theme pretty commonly doubles as music for an RPG's opening cinematics, that's not always the case--plenty of times, a game's intro will have its own tune independent of the title's signature song, and that's what this category's for.  Additionally, there are sometimes sections and events within the story of an RPG that qualify as beginnings of sorts, such as the music that transitions from a prologue to the main story of a game (heck, just a music representing the prologue as a whole), or a tune that introduces a new chapter in the work, that sort of thing.  It's a lesser category when Main Themes so often pull double-duty, but Beginning music's still a worthy and important component to the soundtrack--first impressions matter, and can buy extra hours of an audience's engagement to give a story the time it needs to properly unfold, so a great opener can significantly contribute to the product as a whole.

When not trying to coordinate with a specific prologue scene, Beginning music generally trends 1 of 2 ways: either it's a heavy, melodious, and slightly mystical piece that's out to intrigue and imply the gravity of the game to come, or it's energetically promising (but not cheery), out to energize and imply the grandness of the adventure that has begun.  They both work, really.

B+
- Live-A-Live Demon King Prelude
- Wild Arms 1 Intro

A-
- Chrono Cross Intro
- Crimson Shroud Prologue
- Legend of Dragoon Intro
- Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor 1 Intro

A
- Secret of Evermore Intro
I really like how moody and mysterious the soundtrack of Secret of Evermore is overall (even if the game itself really, really isn't), and this is a representation of it at its best.

A+



CHARACTER CREATION

What?  Don't be ridiculous.  Of course the idea of creating an entire song just for the screen in which you select and/or customize your protagonist is excessive and silly.  Ridiculous, I say!  I mean, why would you need a whole other tune devoted to such a small part of the playtime of a game, right?  Certainly no one spends too long at the beginning of any given game fine-tuning every tiny detail of their avatar's history, class, abilities, heritage, affinity, and appearance.  Certainly I never spent over 2 goddamn hours in the Character Creation screen of Pathfinder: Kingmaker which might have damaged my psyche had the background music not been really, really good.

Certainly not.

B+

A-

A

A+
- Pathfinder: Kingmaker Character Creation
Some of my love for this song is probably akin to a self-inflicted Stockholm Syndrome (look, fuck you, I really wanted to get my damn Aasimar monk queen-to-be right, alright?), but you gotta admit, the patient, quiet beauty of this song, promising spectacular adventures and stories to come in its gentle, classic tabletop manner, is pretty damn nice, right?  It's like Inon Zur's condensed every heartfelt, purposeful fantasy track he's ever composed into 1 song.  I so hope that Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous uses this again for their character creator, too...because let's face it, I'm probably gonna wind up incarcerating myself in the character creator again.



CHARACTER

Once the preliminary stages are over and done with, and an RPG has properly begun, 1 of the earliest tunes you'll likely come across, besides the Setting music, is the Character theme.  This is a song that's specifically devoted to a single character, which is meant to embody and put forth the essence of that individual's personality, story, and significance.  Character music tends to play whenever the associated actor is saying or doing something of signature significance to them, or during the major moments of the story devoted to the character's arc and development.  Frog's heroic theme in Chrono Trigger, for example, tends to play when the amphibious swordsman is in the midst of being an honorable badass, thus playing up to his core character traits, while Aeris's affectionate but sad melody is famous for its presence at the conclusion of her story.  Occasionally, a Character theme also doubles as a higher-priority type of music, which is why we've seen a few of them scattered around in the previous lists (CT's Magus's theme was better categorized as Battle music, for example, while Arc the Lad 3's Alec's theme was too clearly a Determination song not to list it as such), but in all other cases, songs devoted to the expression of a single character go here.

Obviously, there's no generalized statement to make on this category.  Character music is as varied and creative as the casts that it accompanies, and that's as it should be.  This genre might be the most creative and unrestricted I've seen in terms of the casts of its games, and while maybe sometimes it goes a little far, it's generally an endearing trait of RPGs that you're as likely to have a break-dancing ladies' man robot and a cowardly winged iguana on your team as you are to recruit an average human being, so it's good that the music attached to them all is equally nonrestrictive and malleable.

B+
- Arc the Lad 2 Gruga
- CrossCode Jet
- Final Fantasy 10 Auron
- Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days Riku
- Kingdom Hearts Series Kairi
- Omori Mari
- Shin Megami Tensei 5 Tao

A-
- A Dragon's ReQuest Argon
- Chrono Trigger Schala
- Knights of the Old Republic 1 Bastila
- Lunar 2 Leo
- Planescape: Torment Fall-From-Grace
- Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor 2 Al Saiduq
- Tales of Berseria Eizen
- Wild Arms 5 Avril

A
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Monoco
- Lufia 2 Iris
- Mana Khemia 1 Isolde
- Threads of Fate Claire
- Rakuen The Boy

A+
- Planescape: Torment Annah
I may not actually personally like Annah too terribly much, but holy crap is her theme music lovely.



CONVERSATION

What are characters, though, if they aren't talking to each other?  Although sadly not nearly as common as it should be, there are many RPGs which set a special little between-time aside during an adventure, during which party members and other significant members of the cast have a chance to rest, relax, and converse.  Sometimes it's a simple periodic bit of dialogue between battles, as in Children of Zodiarcs, sometimes it's those wonderful, charming dinners in the Grandia series, and sometimes it's a case of the team gathered about a campsite after a long day of adventuring, as seen in Dragon Age 1.  This can be a scenario which only plays out once (such as the iconic late-night discussion that the party has in Chrono Trigger during which Robo speaks about the theoretical Entity), but most often these talks are a periodic part of the game.  They're great vehicles for character development (heck, it's practically the ONLY tool for that in some Fire Emblems), as well as a formation of a general team dynamic within the cast, and I tend to love these scenarios.

Not every game gives these scenes their own music, but when an RPG does create a devoted Conversation tune, it tends to be either cheerful and relaxed, or empathetic, quiet, and meaningful, depending on whether the interactions of the cast during these times are of the "everyone grab a beer and some chicken and just shoot the shit" variety, or more of a "let's open our hearts and souls in the quiet of the night as we watch the flicker of a campfire, my friend" deal.  Unsurprisingly, my favorites tend more to the latter style.

B+

A-

A
- Legaia 2 Camp

A+
- Children of the Zodiarcs Conversation
Reflective and poignant, laced with regret and past tragedy, this moving tune is the perfect companion to conversations between the major actors of Children of Zodiarc's drama of suffering and the ways in which revenge perpetuates the kind of tragedy it was born from.  A poetically painful song to match the interactions over which it plays, this.



WORLD MAP

At first, I had expected to list World Map music as part of the Settings group, but when I stopped to think about it, its relevance to the soundtrack and to the RPG itself isn't so much as a place, as it is a function.  World Maps are really more like a limbo between actual settings than locations themselves, and a device of the gaming format that doesn't generally exist in other mediums, the way a regular Setting would.  Likewise, their place in the score for an RPG is less about the World Map as its own entity, and more about characterizing the adventure as a whole, and doing so to propel the heroes and player onward--they seem to be given to pretty, wistful fantasy tunes, and/or encouraging on-our-way-to-adventure ditties.

Also, let's face it, that Settings music rant was way too big already, so any excuse to trim a category from it is a good thing.

Not that it always has to be a WORLD Map, incidentally.  Any equivalent works--underworld, galaxy, point-and-click like in Final Fantasy 10, regional variants of world map themes, it all gets chucked in here.

I frequently really like World Map music.  It tends to have a lot of the heart and soul of the game contained within it, and have a nice mix of calming and emboldening themes that somehow connect very well to each other.  Some of the more beautiful music in a game tends to be its World Map theme(s), and it's probably my favorite type of this Tools of the Trade music.

B+
- Beautiful Desolation World
- Chrono Cross Home World
- Final Fantasy 6 World
- Final Fantasy 7 World
- Tales of Phantasia World

A-
- Dragon Quest 4 World
- Final Fantasy 3 Ocean
- Final Fantasy 4 World
- Terranigma World

A
- Chrono Cross Another World
- Chrono Trigger 1000 AD
- Legend of Dragoon Tiberoa
- Terranigma Underworld

A+
- Justice Chronicles World
If there is anything in this world that can prove my theory that RPG music is frequently at a whole other, far higher tier of overall quality than the genre it's attached to, it's probably the fact that I have just awarded an A+ to a song from a Kemco title.  But goddammit, I'm not taking it back, this bit is entrancing and really cool!

- Legend of Dragoon Mille Seseau
This is the kind of world map music that makes you hope that the game will never progress to another continent, because the idea of no longer getting to hear this every time you exit an area is tragic.  Just love the quiet, relaxing vibes here.

- Mass Effect 1 Galaxy Map
There has never and probably will never be a better, more lovely representation of the scope, beauty, and grandeur inherent to the concept of space travel.

- Shin Megami Tensei 1 World
I don't know exactly what it is that makes this tune so superlative to me, but I do know that I absolutely love it.



VEHICLE

Airships, boats, submarines, tamed dragons (both biological and robotic), horses, sandships, tanks, giant mechas, rafts, airplanes (including crashed ones that somehow make good boats through shallow water?  The hell was up with the Tiny Bronco, anyway?), whales, spaceships, whales that are spaceships, helicopters, motorcycles, giant birds, regular birds, tiny birds, flightless birds, birds that used to be people, birds that still are people, just a hell of a lot of birds in general really, buses, time machines, sassy witches on brooms, giant ants, entire floating islands, and for 1 brief, embarrassing moment, this stupid fucking thing, RPG vehicles are very nearly as diverse as the casts that ride them--because trust me, I could keep going.  As ubiquitous in RPGs as they are in real life, it's only natural that the vehicles that are almost inevitably eventually required to continue a quest come with their own music.  You know, because without a musical accompaniment, you'd surely forget that you're currently riding a cybernetic war dragon that shoots goddamn missiles and lasers.

Vehicle Music generally adapts itself to the type of vehicle it's associated with--a goofy, chipper tune for those absurd Final Fantasy chocobos, a free and courageous theme for an airship, a hearty and adventurous song for a seafaring vessel,* etc.  The 1 rule that seems inviolable is that, barring extreme plot circumstances, the tune must convey, to some degree, a sense of sallying forth on a journey.  Surprisingly, considering the quantity, there's not a whole lot of these that stand out to me enough to warrant a spot here, though, a fact which I don't really have any explanation for.  Vehicle music just always seems to hit a "good, but not great" mark, for me.

...Oh, and cars!  Almost forgot about cars.  Man, it's kinda crazy that the most obscenely common vehicle in the real world by a wide margin is so rare in RPGs as to almost be forgotten entirely.

B+

A-
- Golden Sun 1 Ship
It's a little brash and in-your-face, but this music really just perfectly captures the feeling of adventure and excitement as you voyage across the sea; you can practically taste the brine on your lips and the pitch of the ship below your feet as it rushes forth against the crashing waves.

- Lunar 1 Airship
- Star Ocean 3 Space Ship

A

A+



MENU

It's uncommon, but by no means unknown, for an RPG to have a spot on its soundtrack devoted specifically for the act of navigating Menus.  Most of the time, it's a situation wherein there's a separate, substantial section of the work that exists outside the actual narrative in which the player can experience other content.  Like, say, the second disc that came with the Playstation 1 re-release of Chrono Trigger, for example.  Although, on rare occasions, there's also a separate theme for standard, in-game menus, too.  It might seem like an unnecessary or even indulgent thing, to create a piece of music all on its own for the sake of just selecting options, and I guess it sort of is, but on the other hand, navigating options on a menu is the primary method of "gameplay", if such it can truly be called, in RPGs, so really, one could instead wonder why more RPGs don't have devoted menu tunes, considering how vital menus are to them as a whole.

Menu music doesn't really have too difficult a job.  There's no feeling or storytelling act it's responsible for conveying, no confines of environment or situation it must adhere to.  My assumption can only be that the sole directive for it is, "Provide some inoffensive noise so the player doesn't sit in uncomfortable silence for the whole time they're in the menus."  Which can be important, I suppose; just imagine trying to read the entirety of the lore-dump archive Xenosaga 3 provides in lieu of an actual game to explain how you got from the end of the second game to this start of this one in complete silence without something relatively soothing in the background to counteract all the ridiculously over-complicated grandiose nonsense you're being bombarded with.  Still, it does kind of make this the hold music of the RPG soundtrack.  But hey, a bit of it's still really good, it turns out!

B+

A-
- Deltarune File Select
- Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days Mission Mode Menu

A
- Chrono Trigger Extras Menu
It's a credit to Tsuyoshi Sekito and Yasunori Mitsuda that this theme, created for the Playstation 1 rerelease of CT, so perfectly captures the aesthetic and quality of Chrono Trigger's music as a whole that it not only fits right into the soundtrack like it was always meant to be there, but also actually manages to embody a retrospective spirit and joy of the game.  It's the perfect accompaniment to an Extras Menu, whose function is primarily accessed and appreciated post-game, and lovely to listen to on its own.

A+



PIRATES

Sometimes pirates exist.  I don't know what else to say about it, really.  Aside from the fact that, in my opinion, Pirate music tends to not be very good in RPGs, even though other mediums seem to do well enough with it.

B+
- Final Fantasy 5 Pirates
It's a pirate song that sounds good, and also like pirates.  Look, what do you want from me?  You can hear this thing as well as I can.

A-

A

A+



CUTSCENE

RPGs from the Playstation 1 on have been very fond of cinematic breaks outside the player's control through which they show a scene in the story that's simply too important or cool to be restricted to normal graphics and modes of interaction.**  And when that cinematic shit goes down, it needs music to sell it, as much as any other scene in the game--arguably more than most, in fact.

Cutscene music isn't so much meant to be a background element as it is a participant in an active, ongoing, real-time scenario.  Most RPG tunes are designed with the idea that they're playing over a scene whose time varies substantially (some players may spend more time in a location than others, and of course, during story events, everyone will be reading through the text boxes at a different speed), so they're a broader, works-for-however-long-it-needs-to kind of melody.  Cutscene songs, on the other hand, have a specific, set time in which they must play, and they generally are supposed to be coordinated to what's actually happening, moment for moment, in the cinema.  I'm not sure whether that's a more or less difficult prospect for creating a song, but it does tend to make for a pretty different, more in-the-moment feeling category.

Interestingly, while this is true of all RPG music for me to some degree, Cutscene music is the category in which my level of enjoyment for it can be most influenced by the game content over which it plays.  For example, if I were strictly judging Leliana's Song below based solely on my enjoyment of the song itself and nothing more, it'd be a B+, not an A-.  But intrinsically linked to the song, for me, is the quiet, gentle scene in which it plays, as we see each member of the Grey Warden's party sit at their camp and react to the lovely song echoing through the night, some moved to reflection, others (Morrigan) stubbornly denying in silence that it moves them (she does have quite a talent at declining every attempt to give her any depth or character development).  As I said, my love for a game's moments is a factor to some degree for just about all the music I've shared in these lists, but with these songs below being so intrinsically tied to specific scenes (and usually substantial ones, at that, to be a cutscene to begin with), it's a stronger factor here.

B+
- The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks Byrne to the Rescue

A-
- Dragon Age 1 Leliana's Song
- Final Fantasy 7 Remake Roche's Defeat
- Final Fantasy 9 Silver Dragon Battle
- Final Fantasy 9 Zidane Alone
- Xenosaga 2 Chase

A
- Xenoblade Chronicles 1 Dunban's Return
- Xenosaga 1 KOS-MOS's First Battle
If there's any song that encompasses how epic, awesome, and promising both Xenosaga 1 and KOS-MOS herself are, it's this tune.  Forget what actually did happen to the series, forget what they reduced KOS-MOS to in the sequels--listen to this bracing, grand musical depiction of a larger-than-life heroine coming to the rescue and showing off why she's the most kick-ass entity in the galaxy and enjoy.

A+


 
MINIGAMES

Fuck you, RPGs.

B+

A-

A

A+



TIME

This category primarily concerns temporal displacement, whether to the past or future.  A fairly common device by this point in RPGs (and any other media, really), time travel has an interesting place in the musical landscape.  In most cases, going to the past or future of an RPG's world will result in music designed for the setting itself, and that setting just happens to be in a different time period, which means that it more falls under Setting themes.  Sometimes, however, the time period you land in really is defined by the fact that it's in the past/future, more than the actual place.  The Magic of Scheherazade, for example, has setting music which varies from place to place in the present, but when in the past, a single tune generally functions as 1 large catch-all theme, so in this case, it's more of a Time music than a standard Setting theme.

And yes, true, the past IS technically a Setting anyway, BUT, the thing is, Time music can also be about the act of traveling through time, rather than the actual destination.  Chrono Trigger, for example, has a separate tune for going through a Gate, and Tales of Phantasia similarly has a tune (which made it onto the list below) that plays while Dhaos is mucking about in the time stream after getting his pretentious, shallowly-characterized ass handed to him during the game's prologue.  That kind of music is definitely not a Setting, and I don't really see a point to separating Time into 2 categories when it's already pretty small and niche, so, here it goes.

Anyway, this category tends to do best when it's weighty, purposeful, and just a touch inscrutable, mirroring the importance and unknowns we attach to the past and future.  Sometimes it's somewhat more scenario-based, if the trip to a new time period is defined by a specific mood or goal, but overall, this category gravitates to the mystical and softly poignant.  Which I'm sure you've observed, by now, is exactly to my tastes.

B+
- The Magic of Scheherazade Past

A-
- Okami Past Kamiki Village
- Tales of Phantasia Stream of Time
It's mysterious, soothing, and yet expectant, a good companion to the idea of moving through the rivers of time itself.  Very pleasant.

A

A+



MISCELLANEOUS

The catch-all category of the catch-all rant, this spot is for all those songs that just haven't managed to fit anywhere else over the course of 4 entire list rant taxonomies.  Any song whose cataloguing perplexes me, but is too good not to share, it goes right here.

B+
- Disco Elysium Mercenary Tribunal
- Fire Emblem 9 Mission Mode

A-
- Child of Light Aurora Grows Up
- Chrono Cross Fateful Night
- Millennium 4 Waiting for Bokden
- Nippon Ichi Games Psycho Burgundy
- Okami Entering the Ark of Yamato
- Pokemon Legends: Arceus Emotion
- Sweet Lily Dreams Sea Battle

A
- Dragon Fantasy 2 Ogden's Dream

A+
- Shin Megami Tensei Persona 3 Final Days
When the end is not over and done with, but rather a long and lingering thing, regretful yet punctuated by the meetings and farewells of those whose lives you have touched forever, and the clinging, sad, yet overwhelmingly joyful knowledge that it's the spring of their lives even as you've reached the winter of yours...at that time, there is this song to take you through its course.  Beautiful stuff.



NIGHT BEFORE

It's been a long, eventful journey that has changed all who experienced it, through which its heroes have found themselves, raised armies, and campaigned tirelessly for what's right.  Now, all is staked on a final showdown the next day, through which the world will forever be changed.  And so, on the eve of the last battle, the hero(ine) of our story contemplates all that has come and all that shall be, and has final, inspiring words with allies, before retiring for this last fateful evening.

Basically, this is the Suikoden category.  Sometimes other games do this, too, and good for them, because the quiet eve before the last conflict is a very powerful opportunity for the last cementing of character development, reflection of a journey's meaning, and overall deepening of how affecting a game's story will be.  But no matter who else makes use of this narrative tool, it'll still always be Suikoden's special baby to me.

B+

A-
- Millennium 5 Night Before the Tournament

A
- Suikoden Series Night Before the Decisive Battle
This is the iconic song of this category, and it's a lovely, significant piece that perfectly captures the quiet, purpose-heavy eve before the final, climactic conclusion to a long campaign which has tested the convictions, camaraderie, and character of every actor in its play.  There's beauty, finality, and hope embodied within this, and it's the perfect theme to accompany a final round through the castle to exchange last words with each of one's companions and friends.

A+



CONCLUSION

Just as not all Beginning songs are Main Themes, not all tracks signaling the end of something are actual Ending music.  Whether it be a certain chapter wrapping up, the completion of a character's personal story arc, the end of some in-game event, the finish of a DLC, or something else of that nature, there are times when an RPG has to indicate the termination of something with a song, which isn't, in fact, the end of the game itself.  That's what this category's all about, the endings that aren't actually the Ending.

Obviously, this kind of music is all about closure.  What form that takes varies a little--the wrap-up of a character's personal journey is going to sound different, for example, from the completion of an episodic chapter of a tactical military campaign--but the gist is usually the same.  Conclusion music is usually satisfying, purposeful, and designed to indicate accomplishment, and sometimes the nature of that accomplishment.  A good Conclusion tune should make you feel like something important was experienced and achieved, and ready for the transition to the next step of the adventure.

B+
- Gurumin Level Complete

A-
- Angelic Acceptor Alouette: VXA Worst Timeline
- Disco Elysium Debriefing
- Mass Effect 3 Anti-Shepard Defeated
- The World Ends with You Game's Conclusion

A
- Pathfinder: Kingmaker Personal Journey's Completion

A+
- Mass Effect 3 Return to Duty
As the final DLC of Mass Effect 3, Citadel was our last experience with this marvelous universe, and this final moment, at which all of the teammates that we've grown to love gather by Shepard and prepare to return once more to the fight, could not be better symbolized with this quiet, beautiful melody that bids a loving farewell to the 1 of the greatest science fiction adventures ever created.



ENDING

And so we come to our final category, of our final rant.  Ending music would be the the themes that take us out of the game, the songs that play after the final boss is defeated and the last moments of the game's story play out.  Goodbyes said, communities revisited, memories of those who fell along the way recalled, credits rolled, retrospective visions of the future had, Ending music has 1 of the simplest jobs in theory and hardest jobs in practice in a soundtrack: give closure to the game and make the player feel satisfied with what has occurred.  Wrap things up the way the game's meant to be finished.  Basic in concept, but of course, in practice, it must be quite a task to come up with a tune that manages to juggle the weight of the full experience of the game behind it and the (usually) hopeful, relieved vision of what shall now come of the heroes' victory, all the while staying true to the overall feel of the work, AND often having to coincide with the events of the ending's sequence as faithfully as Cutscene music has to.  Frankly, considering how often RPG creators manage to horrendously bungle the far easier ending task of just writing a halfway decent bit of closure to their game, it's almost a wonder that Ending music isn't generally a hot mess.  But then, I once again put forth my suspicion that the composers who make the music for RPGs are by and large a hell of a lot more qualified for their job than a lot of the writers in the industry.  That no doubt seems a harsh critique, but I'll be damned if I've ever heard a musical disaster the equivalent of Mass Effect 3's disgraceful ending.

B+
- Dark Half Ending
- The Outer Worlds Ending
- Pokemon Generation 5 Ending

A-
- Baldur's Gate 2 Throne of Baal Ending
- Breath of Fire 2 Normal Ending
- Defender's Quest 1 Bad Ending
- Radiant Historia 1 Ending
- Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers Ending
- Undertale 1 Normal Ending

A
- Shin Megami Tensei 4-2 Ending
- Shin Megami Tensei: Persona Q1 Ending
- Undertale 1 Freedom

A+
- Chrono Trigger Ending
As it does so often, Chrono Trigger sets the bar.  This is that which an Ending song should aspire to be, the sublime musical embodiment of conclusion, closure, and contentment.  What more is there to say?  This is the song which captures the scope and soul of the adventure it closes, and leaves you feeling fulfilled, accomplished, and happy for the story and characters you've experienced.  It's truly great, and it's everything it should be.



NOTE: Apparently Youtube is extremely unreliable.  If you notice that any of these links are dead, I'd be much obliged if you left a comment to let me know which one(s), and I'll address it as best I can.



Phew!  Well, we've covered it all, now--battles and emotions, places and people, beginnings and endings.  From start to finish, we've covered the whole RPG soundtrack, so this is the end.  Hope you enjoyed it!

...

* Airships and regular boats, incidentally, are the major reason why the Sky and Ocean settings have so comparatively few spots in RPG soundtracks, in spite of their frequent relevance--because most of the time, your presence in/on either is defined by the vehicle through which you're traversing it.


** In theory, at least.  In practice, a heck of a lot of FMV/CG/Whatever cutscenes are anything but vital or cool, especially during the era in which they originated.  I mean, how much of various RPGs' cinematic budget was thoroughly wasted on location establishing shots?  And staring at slow-moving wall carvings or scroll paintings or whatever while someone narrates backstory?  And don't even get me started on the stupid boat song in Lunar 1.

General RPG Music Lists 3: Chime Really Feeling It!

We've covered battle themes and environmental songs thus far, which means our next step on this little journey through the best of RPG music will be emotion music.  This category is kind of an "all squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares" sort of thing--or, to keep it RPG-related, an "all of Pete Hines's statements are lies, but not all lies are Pete Hines's statements" situation.  Because when you get down to it, all battle and environmental music is trying to create and tap into a certain emotional mindset--hell, that's basically ALL the music in RPGs, and just about every other genre and form of media in which music is used as background.  It's basically the fundamental reason to have songs in your work at all: to provoke an emotional response that assists in telling the story and keeping your audience in the right frame of mind.  Battle and environmental music just happen to be subsets with easily recognizable situational qualifiers.

Today's categorization covers the broad bases that battles and settings don't: sequences, scenarios, and situations.  Basically, this is the music that plays when a mood is called for in an RPG that has nothing (or at least very little) to do with the surrounding area, and is instead defined by what's going on, what's being discussed or remembered, what's being felt.  When a protagonist finds out that his long-lost brother is a villain out to destroy the world, you don't want the same calm, cool, tranquil music of the forest setting to play, even if that happens to be where this revelation takes place.  When a hero and his best friend have a sincere heart-to-heart that energizes each with determination thanks to the reassurance that he'll always have a buddy in his corner, you want the music for the scene to be determined by the content of their conversation, not the fact that they happen to be bandying feel-good sentiments in the midst of a bizarre alternate reality where the trees are purple pigs' feet and the water is lemon marmalade that flows up waterfalls instead of down.  The narrative demands special music for such occasions, to underscore the emotion of such scenes.

So anyway, here's all the mood music of RPGs that I love most!

Note: I do not in any way care about what the actual name of any of these tracks is. I organize the songs I listen to by their function, essentially what I'll remember them for. So if you really love the Fables of Zestfullycleansia song, "Genuflect Before God's Radiance (Meatball Sub with Buttercream Frosting Instrumental)", which played during scenes of awe and mysticism, then just assume that I call it Fables of Zestfullycleansia Mystic, as that's the game of origin and its actual function.

Also Note: As with last time, if a category doesn't have an A+ song within it, I'll just do a little opinion piece on my favorite of the ones it does have.



SPIRITUAL

Spiritual music covers moods of reverence and awe, of a religious or otherwise mythological nature.  Some magical plot girl communing with deities, a protagonist's totem spirit relaying advice and direction to him, the soul of a warrior being initiated into the afterlife, the heroes being told the legend of a holy maiden, these are the sorts of scenarios in which Spiritual music sets the mood.  Creating an atmosphere of wonder, which underscores the divine, the unknowable, and/or the realms and entities beyond mortal grasp is the name of the game for Spiritual songs, and they tend as a matter of course to be heavy, but in a peaceful and epic way.

It's kinda like if Place of Worship setting music wasn't so high off the fumes of its own divine farts.

B+
- Breath of Fire 2 Legend
- Fire Emblem 15 Mila

A-
- Disco Elysium The Phasmid
- Hololive CouncilRys RPG Mystic
- La Pucelle Tactics Maiden of Light
- Stella Glow Legend
- Suikoden 2 Legend
- Tales of Symphonia Martel
- Valkyrie Profile 1 Birth of Einherjar
- Whisper of a Rose Mystic

A
- Bahamut Lagoon Dragon Hymn
This is a great mix of humbling mysticism, the grandeur of dragons, and just that barest undertone of melancholy that seems inherent to all Yoyo says and does.  Really cool and beautiful piece!

- Shadowrun SNES Spirit
- Wild Arms 3 Legend

A+



HAPPY

This rant is easier than the previous ones, because most of the categories pretty much explain themselves.  Happy music, for example, is pretty much just that--it's the music that plays during scenarios that are generally positive, cheerful, and intent on putting you in a good mood.

...Which is actually kind of rare, weirdly.  I guess stories do thrive on conflict, but I still was kind of surprised, when I looked over my collection of RPG music, to realize just how much more attention is given in RPGs to music related to conflict and unhappiness than to songs indicative of a good time.  And the quality clearly skews to the former, too--you can see below that there's not much in the way of really great Happy music.  Plenty of good Happy music out there, I suppose, but nothing that earns a B+ or higher.  Maybe it's just hard for composers to figure out a way to give earnestly blithe tunes some compelling depth?  I dunno.  It is possible, though.

B+

A-

A

A+



LOVE

Love music is a subset of the Happy category, because, I mean, presumably love should be a fairly pleasant feeling, right?  Obviously it doesn't always work out that way in RPGs, but in theory it's 1 of the greatest emotions a person can feel.  Love themes tend to be slow, tender, and sometimes sweet, and piano tends to figure heavily into this song type.  Although the general feeling is (and should be) uplifting, there can be a lot of depth and variations to this kind of music, too, to imply the hardship that the love overcomes, the longing that comes with it, the overwhelming power of the emotion, etc.

B+
Final Fantasy 7 Gondola

A-
- Mass Effect 3 Love
I like the poignantly sweet but perhaps slightly desperate tone to this.  The song skillfully imparts the beauty and deep fulfillment that comes from loving and being loved, and does so with this kind of...I dunno, mortal tone?  Like it's aware of just how short-lived the love between Shepard and Tali (or Shepard and 1 of the other love interests if you're some kind of heathen) could be during a brutal war.  It's not just trying for the beauty of love, but for the beauty of what could be preciously finite, too.  And it really works well for a love story that's continued from previous installments (Tali), too, capturing a weight that coincides well with a romance that's had history, has seen and survived much already.  Very nice stuff.

A

A+



COMEDY

Comedy is the other sub-category for Happy music.  When wacky happenings and whimsical hi-jinks are the order of the moment, Comedy music is there to confirm that, yes, it is time for you to laugh.

Which is very convenient, because sometimes the audience could use some direction on this matter.  If it weren't for these songs hitting you over the head with a toy mallet and screaming "IT'S FUNNY STUPID, WHY AREN'T YOU LAUGHING" into your face, I daresay you sure as hell wouldn't even recognize the crass, out of character sexual harassment at the hot springs, or a female character do the unthinkable and not be absolutely perfect at cooking, as something meant to be jovial.  Comedy music has a hell of a tough job, because not only is a little song-and-dance routine theme not likely to be the kind of memorable and moving tune you want to listen to again, but it's saddled with the nearly impossible task, at least 30% of the time, of convincing you that decades-stale anime gags are still funny--or ever were to begin with.

B+

A-

A

A+



SAD

When protagonists are exiled from their village, when family and friends realize that they must take opposite sides in a conflict, when Magical Plot Girls are taken captive by villains and look to be beyond rescue...when everything's bad and hopeless, Sad music is there to sell you on the mood.  I daresay that of all the genre's mood music, Sad is probably the 1 found most universally.  Sooner or later some unpleasant shit is going to go down in a story, and while you can get away with just regular setting tunes for a lot of other story scenes, you really can't avoid underscoring a sad scenario with appropriate music.

It's also probably the most consistently high-quality form of emotional music, too.  Maybe composers try harder for these pieces because they're the lynch pins in most RPGs' plots, or maybe we just naturally have a greater compulsion to value and seek out dramatically weighty feelings over most other mental sensations, but 1 way or another, Sad music has a good, strong chance of being the standout hit of the soundtrack's Mood themes.

B+
- Arc the Lad 2 Sad
- Breath of Fire 2 Sad
- Crystareino Sad
- Glory of Heracles 5 Sad
- Phantom Brave Sad
- Suikoden 5 Sad

A-
- A Dragon's ReQuest Sad
- Ara Fell Sad
- Barkley, Shut Up and Jam Gaiden Sad
- Dark Cloud 1 Regret
- Final Fantasy Tactics Sad
- Live-A-Live Sad
- Neverwinter Nights 1 Wyvern Crown of Cormyr Sad
- Octopath Traveler 1 Discord
- Radiant Historia 1 Sad
- Trials of Mana Sad
- Tales of Phantasia Sad

A
- Chrono Trigger Sad
- Disgaea 1 Sad
- I Am Setsuna Sad
- Pier Solar and the Great Architects Illness
- Rakuen Yami's Pain
- Suikoden 2 Sad
- Terranigma Sad
- Tales of Berseria Velvet's Anguish
- Tales of Zestiria Sad

A+
- Eternal Senia Finding Magaleta
I can't deny that some of this song's placement has to do with the overwhelming emotional power of the scene it plays over, rather than being strictly about its quality alone.  But A, an inescapable association with the game's greater scenes is an indication of success in a song, and B, it's still an undeniably heavy, heart-wrenching, and lovely tune, regardless.  Jeez, Eternal Senia is a hell of a sentimental punch to the gut, I tell you.



DEATH

While standard Sad music is often tasked with covering all unhappy events, many RPGs opt to have a separate mournful song in their arsenal to play when characters in their drama die (or, sometimes, when a specific character kicks the bucket).  Which seems fair to me; there's enough difference in emotional magnitude between a scene of some bounty hunters sadly admitting that their current job is beyond their capabilities and a scene where the protagonist's father figure dies after telling the hero that he's proud of him to warrant some musical distinction.  Additionally, though it doesn't happen often, a death scene doesn't always have to strictly be sad--sometimes death is a release, or a contented moving on once one's work is fully done, so it's good to give the act a category that allows for that variation more than just throwing it all under Sad would.  Sorrowful or otherwise, though, Death music is almost always designed to evoke a powerful emotional response, possibly the strongest of all these mood tunes, and composers tend to bring their A game to this category.

Oh, and by the way, since the titles of the songs give it away here, be aware that this category has Spoilers for:
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Mass Effect 3
Rakuen
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3
Xenosaga 3

B+
- Xenogears Death

A-
- Breath of Fire 2 Death
- Valkyria Chronicles 1 Death

A
- Mass Effect 3 Anderson's Death
- Rakuen Fukushima 50
- Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 Minato's Death
- Suikoden 1 Death
- Xenosaga 3 Pellegri's Death

A+
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Gustave's Funeral
Few tracks have there been that have more greatly embodied the overpowering sense of loss that comes with death, not in the moment of passing, but in the ritual of remembrance that comes after it.  As well as sadness and mourning, this song also expresses the quiet comfort of memory, and the small flicker of hope that comes of laying the fallen to rest, as the first step forward to continuing to live in their absence.  The scene that this song plays to is 1 of the greatest in RPG history, and the fact that this song can keep pace with and even enhance it is extraordinary.

- Rakuen Leaving for Rakuen
Yeah so I still cry sometimes when I listen to this.



REFLECTION/REMEMBRANCE

Reflection/Remembrance music is kind of interesting.  It's any melody which is meant to accompany or create a sense of introspection, of mulling over things.  This tends to involve a review or a recollection of events which have happened before now, whether in-game or prior to the story's opening.  At the same time, though, music associated with memories, in RPGs at least, is very frequently painful and/or regretful, which means that this category has a lot of overlap with Sad music.  There's enough specifically memory-oriented music that it feels at times like it should be separated from introspective themes, and yet every time I try to do it, there's too much content that clearly is both a song of reflection and remembrance to really distinguish them.  So, messy though it may be, it remains a single category, which stretches over scenes of meditating over one's beliefs and next action, remembering the good old days of valor with comrades, recalling mournfully the days spent with one's best friend before an evil wizard took his life, and more.

B+

A-
- Final Fantasy 5 Memories
- Final Fantasy Tactics Ovelia's Worries
- Kingdom Hearts 2 Memories
- Sakura Wars 5 Reflection
- Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Sad Memories

A
- A Dragon's ReQuest Emotional Difficulty
- Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure Kururu's Memories
- Skies of Arcadia Reflection

A+
- Suikoden 2 Memories
Suikoden 2 was already clearly going to be a great game, from the get-go, but I think it was when I heard this song, and watched Riou and Nanami waiting at the gates of Muse with hope and dread in their hearts for Jowy to return to them, that I realized that this game was going to be the kind of masterpiece that would stay with me forever.  There's no scene that involves this theme which isn't excellent, and part of that is just due to the quality of the song itself.  You listen to this, and you yourself feel the morose yearning for the happy days of family and childhood, lost forever to war and destiny, that the game's characters experience.

- Xenosaga 1 Bitter Memories
This is 1 of those songs that just blows me away.  Those strings, that mournful, leaden lilt...if I ever hear a song better and more beautifully, hauntingly representing the concept of raw, painful recollections, I'll be pretty damn surprised.



FEAR

When your mad, jilted ex-girlfriend has you strapped down on a table and intends to take out her frustrations on you with a scalpel, Fear music is there to help the terror burrow all the deeper into your heart.*  When the overrated villain needs a pulse-stopping, chilling sound to make up for what he lacks in genuine screen presence, Fear music is there to pick up Sephiroth's slack.  When an equally annoying villain's terrorizing some poor kid by ripping his own head off and waxing moronic about sinful peaches and peachy sins, Fear music is there to make Albedo seem more spooky-creepy than call-Chris-Hanson-creepy.  This category of emotional music is there to immerse the audience in how unnerving and/or outright terrifying a situation is, less about actively destructive and dangerous events (that's the next category) than it is about the threat of such things.  This tune tends to be heavy, slow, and penetrating, reverberating within you but doing so at its own pace, which just increases its ability to create tension.

Unfortunately, while Fear music does often represent quite skillful enterprises by composers, it's kinda hard to make an effective Fear piece that's also something you would want to hear on your own time.  It's not usually especially catchy, nor does it inspire a sensation that most people want to experience casually.  In fact, I think it's pretty safe to say that the better a frightening tension song is, the less likely it'll be something you'll like to listen to.  So, sadly, this category is currently empty for me, and is like as not to remain so.  Unlike most other empty groups in these rants, though, that's really through no failing of the composers; if anything, that could be a healthy sign for Fear music.

B+

A-

A

A+



EMERGENCY

Catastrophes, disasters, and so on, Emergency music covers situations of eventful, action-filled panic.  If regular Fear music describes a scenario of personal horror which you cannot overcome or escape, Emergency music is more along the lines of calamities that call for action (even if it's most typically escape), or at least, large enough cataclysms that everyone's in the same boat and it's less of an intensely fearful effect on you yourself.  This type of song tends to be fast, sometimes even frantic, and forceful, made as it is to accompany such things as races against a ticking clock, fires raging out of control, and, most often, villains wreaking havoc on structures and towns.  Interestingly, this is often fairly catchy, and/or gives the listener a pleasant shot of adrenal energy, so there's a lot more opportunities for ditties you'd actually want to listen to on your own time with this category than its Fear parent.

B+
- Breath of Fire 3 Weretiger
- Final Fantasy 9 Ambush Attack

A-
- Barkley, Shut Up and Jam Gaiden Emergency
- Chrono Cross Emergency
- Mother 3 Forest Fire
- Suikoden 5 Nether Gate Attack

A
- Wild Arms 3 Emergency
- Xenogears Emergency
The rushing intensity to this piece is great.  You can hear the frantic footfalls of heroes running for all they're worth, rubble and rocks falling all around, vehicles speeding out of control as their operators grasp desperately at the wheel, militants exchanging fire in a desperate battle of urban combat, and all manner of other adrenaline-soaked conflicts and disasters you can imagine; it all goes great with this tune.

A+



DETERMINATION

Encouragement, confidence, heroism with a can-do attitude, the Determination tune is basically the opponent of Emergency music.**  While there's once again an urgent sense of action and important events unfolding, this time they're in the favor of the forces of good.  Determination music is plans being set in motion, armies marching, and a mildly stupid teenager who has somehow found himself leading them both making speeches about the power of friendship.  This kind of song is pumped, boisterous, hopeful, and ready to take on the world with a confidence that comes from favorable fortunes--or the will to make one's own opportunities.  It can make for some pretty cool pieces that energize you and buoy your spirits...when it's not being a little too heavy-handed with the ALWAYS DO YOUR BEST TO DO YOUR BEST thing.

B+
- Final Fantasy 5 Warriors of Dawn
- Quantum Entanglement Determination (From what I can understand, this is an original composition made freely available to anyone who wants it, which was used by Quantum Entanglement, and possibly other games. Since QE is what I know it from, I just categorize it as such)
- Romancing Saga 3 Castle Assault
- Sailor Moon: Another Story Determination
- Terranigma Royd

A-
- Ara Fell Determination
- Arc the Lad 3 Alec
- Eternal Senia Determination
- Lufia 2 Last Chance
- Suikoden 1 Army
- Suikoden 5 Army
- Tales of Legendia Chasing Shirley

A
- Cosmic Star Heroine Secret Agent at Work
This is a really fun piece.  It captures a feeling of rushing activity, but also a heroic, action-y confidence.  Like, there's intrigue and danger, but also an assurance that the heroine's got this.  Very cool.

- Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor 2 Determination

A+



FAREWELL

Everything in this world has a beginning, and a point at which it ends, even intangibles like human relationships.  While most partings between people in RPGs given any narrative significance tend to involve the death of 1 or both parties, sometimes characters will luck out and have an important, emotionally significant goodbye that doesn't involve anyone croaking.  Such moments may necessitate their own unique music to fully reach their potential for moving the player, and so Farewell music comes into play.

Farewell songs most often seem to follow the old saying that parting is sweet sorrow.  By and large they'll be sad, to some degree, but at the same time, there's usually an element of hope, happiness, satisfaction, or closure, as well.  You're generally meant to be sorry to see the character or community go, but it's not an outright, pure downer the way that its sister Death music usually is.

B+
- Darkblood Chronicles Saying Goodbye

A-
- The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword Fi's Farewell
Okay, so maybe not too many of us were too terribly sad to no longer have to deal with Slow Text Robo-Navi, but it's still a really pretty, poignant song of adieu.

A

A+



NOTE FROM THE FUTURE: Apparently Youtube is extremely unreliable.  If you notice that any of these links are dead, I'd be much obliged if you left a comment to let me know which one(s), and I'll address it as best I can.














* Used in the game Quantum Entanglement, since the page itself doesn't mention.

** Although they don't really HAVE to be separate entities; you can occasionally find a really awesome tune that's sort of both Emergency AND Determination.