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Awesome Music / Fifth Generation

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This is the Awesome Music page for the Nintendo 64, PlayStation, Sega Saturn, Game Boy Color, etc.

  • The Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series has been known for its great soundtracks, but the one everybody remembers in "Superman" by Goldfinger from the first game.
  • With an epic plot, epic characters, Nintendo Hard gameplay, it must be said that the entire soundtrack of Vagrant Story is equally epic. Again, Hitoshi Sakimoto at the helm.
    • For battle themes, try "Ifrit", or better yet that battle theme against wyverns!. For dungeon themes, try listening to "Catacombs", or "Undercity". On a rainy night. Alone.
    • And your reward for surviving those creepy levels and that NH gameplay is some of the greatest credits music ever. You can skip to 3:45 if you want but the buildup is worth it. Also, it helps to have played the game because hearing the motif at 4:25 subtly peppered throughout the rest of the game makes it that much more amazing to hear it in all its resplendent orchestral glory here.
  • Star Ocean: The Second Story:
    • Dynamite. Freaking Dynamite. Boss Battle Theme. Very fast-paced one.
    • Mission to the Deep Space is another first for Tri-Ace games. It begins with a series of rising notes that literally crowns before breaking into the real meat of the song. Later versions even top this with electric guitars and saxophones.
    • Integral Body and Imperfect Soul. There aren't many games out there with battle themes that have the kind of power and ferocity that this one does.
  • Frank Klepacki also did the soundtracks for Westwood's Dune games. Dune 2000 gave us "Harkonnen Battle" and "Rise of the Harkonnen," while Frank also did the Atreides soundtrack from Emperor: Battle for Dune, including the triumphant "Ride the Worm" and haunting "The Spice Must Flow".
    • He faced fierce competition in the form of the Harkonnen soundtrack composer, David Arkenstone. He granted everyone's favorite evil barony a heavy metal, industrial sound: listen to "Harkonnen Force", "Tribute to Evil", "The Machine", "Surrounded," "Unstoppable", and "Legacy," which feels a bit like an audio homage to the 1984 film.
    • Finally, Jarrid Mendelson, who did House Ordos, made some rather creepy techno for the wealthy plutocrats, like "Not An Option", "The Strategist", "Ghola", and "Dream of the Executrix".
    • If we mention Dune at all, one of the greatest Moments of Awesome Music has to be the intro sequence for the original Dune adventure/strategy game. Here is the PC version of the intro, which is easily one of the best Sci-Fi inspirational themes ever produced. In fact, the ENTIRE music for the game was so well-accepted, that it was one of the first games to have its soundtrack sold separately as an album. It is now extremely rare, but is still sold in some on-line stores, almost two decades after its release!
  • From the soundtrack of the GBC version of Philosopher's Stone:
  • Arc the Lad II:
  • This gem, used on the main menu of early PAL region PlayStation demo discs, will invoke nostalgia from anyone who grew up playing said demos with their psychedelic backdrops in the late '90s. Here's an example.
  • Despite being only 17 tracks long, the entire soundtrack of underrated Playstation 1 gem Soukaigi is made of awesome. Highlights include Quake and Fire Wire, the songs of the first and second stage respectively, Broken Memory, and Regret, the final boss song.
  • Although the eight tracks that play in the Monster Tower in Azure Dreams are simply variations on the first track, each new variation turns up the awesome.
    • The track for Floors 1-4 sets the stage with a bright theme based around two related melodic ideas that convey a real sense of adventure as we join Koh on his journey. This atmosphere continues in the theme for Floors 5-9, which builds to a spectacular climax just before wrapping around.
    • As Koh makes his way further into the tower, the music shifts mood to match; the theme for Floors 10-14 dials up the exoticism, at one point shifting the second half of the theme into the Arabic double harmonic scale to knock the listener off balance. The theme for Floors 15-19 is more enigmatic still, standing out as the first variation in a minor key and cleverly using a version of the second half of the theme as a countermelody to the first half.
    • Things take a turn for the grim starting with the heavy, plodding variation used in Floors 20-24, giving a sense of darkness closing in around Koh as he makes his way higher and higher. And while the variation used for Floors 25-29 may seem lighter at first, the first half of the theme repeatedly skids off into "wrong notes" to further disorient the player.
    • The game truly stops playing nice by the time you reach the final ten floors, and the music complements this brilliantly. The variation for Floors 30-34 has a real sense of energy and urgency to it, the two halves of the theme winding in and out in dizzying fashion, complete with occasional shifts to modal scales. And the final variation for Floors 35-39 possesses a suitable measure of dramatic tension as the final confrontation with Beldo draws near, with a long, scalar introduction to reel the listener in before the theme finally makes its entrance.
  • The New Tetris's soundtrack (composed by Neil D. Voss) is a wonderful mix of Jungle/Drum 'n' Bass, Big Beat, and World music. The songs are made to reflect the different countries that the stages take place in and, as such, are rather diverse. Not to mention that the songs make excellent use of sampling, especially for a cartridge-based game. Here are some highlights.
  • Lufia: The Legend Returns had so much awesome music. Examples include Battle #4 and To the Island. The latter is especially notable for being an 8-bit remix of "For the Savior", Awesome Music from Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals.
  • Dino Crisis underwhelmed both critics and audiences with its enemies, but one could not fault the creepiness of the music. One of the best examples is the track This Place Is Deserted Though. You will hear this song for most of the first half of the game, and it never fails to leave you in a state of unease.
  • Quest 64 and its GB/GBC counterpart, Quest: Brian's Journey, both have exquisite music. For example, when you step out to the open field for the first time, you hear this. It sounds exactly like how your first steps onto the open plains actually feel.
  • Chameleon Twist has awesome, cute music. How can it be both cute and awesome? Well, compare the theme of Jungle Land's first half to the theme of Kid's Land. In addition, this, while awesome, is also cutesy. That's not to say it doesn't get creepy, though...
  • Right about now, its time to rock with the biggety Buck Bumble!
  • Elemental Gearbolt has a very, very dramatic soundtrack; it is all orchestral for nonstop Orchestral Bombing. Sweeping strings and Ominous Latin Chanting abound.
  • The obscure 1997 futuristic sports game Riot (Professional Underground League of Pain in North America) has this as its title theme.
  • The PlayStation puzzle games Intelligent Qube and Intelligent Qube Final have fully orchestral soundtracks by Takayuki Hattori, so there's lots of awesome to be had. Good tracks include:
    • IQ's First Stage: The 1st Tide, with energy that gradually builds and finally releases in a brass fanfare before the music wraps around.
    • IQ's Second Stage: Ecliptic, an epic re-arrangement of "The 1st Tide" with a much greater sense of urgency for the more difficult levels it accompanies.
    • IQ Final's First Stage: The 2nd Tide, which manages to combine both a sense of grandeur and a sense of fun for the brainteasers that lie ahead.
    • IQ Final's Second Stage: Theory, which does for "The 2nd Tide" what "Ecliptic" did for "The 1st Tide" by taking the same basic melody and giving it a shot of adrenaline.
  • The Justice Ray, the Final Boss theme from the Sega Saturn Shoot 'Em Up Blast Wind. This song would inspire a series of Justice Ray songs, most notably The Justice Ray Part 2 from Thunder Force V, The Justice Ray Part 3 from Segagaga and the fanmade Thunder Force game Broken Thunder, Wirbelwind's Theme also known as The Justice Ray Part 4 from Naval Ops: Commander, and The Last Howling, also known as The Justice Ray Part 5 from Gunhound EX.
  • From the Arcade and Sega Saturn game Hyper Duel, also from the creators of the Thunder Force series,
  • Motor Toon Grand Prix, Polyphony Digital's first game series, may not have had the licensed songs that Gran Turismo contained, but it makes up for that with many great original pieces, especially in the second game:
  • The obscure Japan exclusive Playstation title Moon: Remix RPG Adventure has such a wonderful and varied soundtrack that you could have sworn that they came from a totally different game.
  • Rising Zan: The Samurai Gunman has, for its opening, "Super Ultra Sexy Hero" by Hironobu Kageyama for the Japanese version, and "Johnny No More" by Greg Nowlin and David Weber for the US version.
  • Acclaim's otherwise average late-generation racing game Vanishing Point (no relation to the movie) has an awesomely energetic trance soundtrack, especially "Peregone", "Receptor", "Kraymon", "Melting", "Q", and "Chase".
  • The forgotten PS1 game Kaze No Notam, otherwise known as Notam of Wind, has one of the most chill video game soundtracks ever made. Just take a listen to these!.
  • The Smurfs' Nightmare for the GBC has a shockingly fantastic yet woefully overlooked soundtrack, composed by Alberto Jose Gonzales. Arguably the best track in the game is "Another World"* , the background music for the space-themed levels, which is an otherworldly-sounding and ethereal theme that excellently captures the feeling of journeying through a space travel-influenced dream land.
  • The first track used for Minnesota Fats' first opponent, Tina, in the game Minnesota Fats - Pool Legend for the Sega Saturn is quite the bop that stands out from the rest of the tracks by sounding like something out of a Paula Abdul concert.

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