Awesome Music / Illusion of Gaia

For all its merits and flaws, one thing that nobody would ever contest about Illusion of Gaia is that it features one of the finest soundtracks on the SNES, in turns exhilarating, bombastic, cheerful, wistful, tense, thrilling and sad.

• The game hooks the player in immediately with the heroic "Age of Exploration", which is every bit as rousing as the title screen for a globetrotting adventure should be.
• The easy-going map theme is so catchy, it's tempting to just sit on the map or "Load saved game" screens on which it plays for a few minutes just to hear it in its entirety.
• "The Guardian" (normal boss theme) and "Clash of Darkness and Light" (the final boss theme) are certainly awesome. What's particularly great about "Clash of Darkness and Light" is how long it is by the standards of SNES music; while it's definitely no "Dancing Mad", it goes for almost 3 minutes before it starts to loop, and if you don't miss a single opportunity to hit the final boss the musical transitions will synch flawlessly to the boss' stage transition and death.
• The game's town themes are as contrasting as the towns themselves, from the peaceful Itory Village to the proud City of Freejia/Euro (and its seagull sound effect-laden version heard in South Cape).
• "In the Earthen Womb", probably the only track that could truly convey the majesty of outer space.
• The game's six main dungeons are based on real life sites of archaeological significance (with one exception), and are given musical accompaniment to match their grandeur:
  • Larai Cliffs, based on the Incan complex of Machu Picchu, takes the Melody of the Wind as the starting point for a track that is by turns intense and mysterious, much like the ruins themselves, the game's first major dungeon.
  • The Sky Garden, triggered by a visit to the Nazca Lines, gets an appropriately soaring theme that gives the exploration of the double-sided garden a real feeling of adventure.
  • The Lost Continent of Mu, based on the myth of the same name, is backed by a dramatic theme that perfectly complements the higher stakes of the dungeons in the game's middle act.
  • The Great Wall of China has a mock East Asian theme in which both the melody and the accompaniment are doubled up by parallel fourths to create a suitably enigmatic track for one of the real world's most breathtaking historical sites.
  • The Memory Melody used in the game's early stages is expertly transformed into the opening hook of the pulsating theme for the Cambodian temple complex of Ankor Wat, an ideal accompaniment for exploring the vast maze of the temple itself.
  • Finally, the Great Pyramid gets an epic theme befitting one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, conveying a real sense of just how much rests on Will's quest this late in the game.
• "To the New World" showcases Will and Kara's last moments together before they return to the reborn Earth, starting off a bit melancholy and somber to showcase a Bittersweet Ending, but turning triumphant to let everyone know that they'll be fine.
• The staff roll, "Around The World", starts as a Triumphant Reprise of "The Age Of Exploration" before settling into an appropriate backdrop for a pantomime-style recap of the game's events as contextually appropriate images of each chapter iris in behind the characters. And then it wraps up with a straight reprise of "The Age Of Exploration" as Will and Kara run by extra sprites for characters who had no reason to use those sprites in-game (such as King Edward and Queen Edwina standing up when they're sitting the one time they are seen, and that's just one example) before stopping and turning to the camera. Kara even cuddles up against Will a bit as the developers thank the player for playing the game.