The Top Three: The "Undertale is gonna win anyway" Award
1. Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward (Patch 3.0 and Patch 3.1 As Goes Light, So Goes Darkness) - Masayoshi Soken, Nobuo Uematsu (Dragonsong)
I've written in the past about how composing for MMORPGs is probably some of the toughest things to do in the industry due to how wild the pendulum swings are in terms of the different types of genres, moods, and settings all the different tracks have to account for. This applies double when you're composing a new soundtrack for a game whose original track list was, frankly, pretty underwhelming. When it comes times for expanding on these games, most of the time, you tend to see composers stick to a particular theme to base their music around, whether its grand, subdued, or centered around themes like fire, ice, destruction or Asiatic influences. This isn't a bad thing, since focusing on one theme often lets you center all your creativity around it.
Not Masayoshi Soken though. That guy's nuts, and we love him for it.
Frankly, the soundtrack to Heavensward covers just about everything. One one end, we have the necessary "epics", such as Ominous Prognisticks, the expansion's dungeon boss theme, and Imagination, a more upbeat and triumphant take on Heavensward's main s main theme, Dragonsong. When the composition pendulum swings the other way, it runs into wildly different tracks, such as the beautiful Piano and Bass heavy Woe That is Madness and the very funky Alexander themes like its Boss Music and Metal, the theme for the raid's final confrontation. When the pendulum swings back to its original spot, we're met not with epics, but with the calming tunes of Night in the Brume and... Russian Waltzes?? Soken's put in the work to please just about everyone with his work, and instead of falling flat for spreading too thin, every single track feels right where it belongs and perfectly suited to the subject matter, working together to make it my favorite soundtrack of 2015, despite some strong contenders.
The Singularity Reactor*
Echidna's Theme
Ink Long Dry
Unbreakable
Contention
*Contains story spoilers.
2. Corpse Party: Blood Drive - Mao Hamamoto, Johnny.k, Tomoyuki Hamada, Ren Yamashina
Blood Drive, like the earlier entries in the series, isn’t at all interested in being your by the numbers horror game. Typically relying on jump scares or high tension, most games of the genre will have music with sudden screeches for the intention of catching you off-guard and scaring the player. What Blood Drive does, together with its setting and narrative, is create an uncomfortable feeling, something a lot of developers generally shy from.
You’re in a haunted, demonic hellscape witnessing children, teens and adults being savagely murdered for reasons unknown to you. Every second you waste and every step you take inside this dreadful realm is harrowing and bone-chilling because you don't know what'll happen when you turn around that dark corner. You don’t want to be there. You need to get out. This is what the compositions are trying to convey to the player. A sense of hopelessness, a grim feeling as you're forced to go deeper into a mystery you don't want to see through to its resolution. The occasional catharsis in the form of its two openings things, one of which signals the climax for the events in the game. On their own, the tracks are great at setting in an unnerving feeling, but working in tandem with the game, they turn into something much more sinister. You're not wanted here. Get out.
Incarnation
Condemned Apartments
A Decaying World
Beyond Escape
Salvation
3. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Marcin Przybyłowicz, Mikolai Stroinski, Percival Schuttenbach, Adam Skorupa, Paweł Błaszczak
If I have to be entirely honest, i can't remember a single track from this game from the top of my head. Try as I might, I can't recall what most of the music sounds like in a vacuum. And yet, I can recognize it. When I hear the first few notes of Commanding the Fury, I immediately know what's coming next and recall the many very close encounters I had in the game, fending off against surprise opponents when I least expected it. When Merchants of Novigrad starts playing, I think of bustling tows and luscious landscapes. Another Round for Everyone makes me want to crack out a card game and play with some friends. Drink up, There's More! never fails to put a dumb smile on my face.
Sometimes, those transparent connections between tracks and memories are all it takes for a soundtrack to feel unforgettable.
The Witcher's Path
Ladies of the Wood
Geralt of Rivia
Cloak and Dagger
Silver for Monsters
Honorable Mentions: "You're Winner!" Award
Undertale - Toby Fox
This was originally going to be in my top 3, but I couldn't vote for it in good consciousness knowing it was going to sweep first place anyway. I could gush about how this soundtrack took me entirely by surprise, but you may as well listen to it through the game or read the other tons of great writeups in this very thread from people who could do a much better job elaborating on what makes it great. Bonetrousle rox ok.
Hopes and Dreams
Spear of Destiny
Another Medium
Oreshika Tainted Bloodlines - Konoske Kihara
Oreshika is a really japanese game. Traditionally that is, which is fitting given that it draws from older folklore, traditions and celebrations. Due to the main theme for the game being centered around festivals, much of the soundtrack is cheery, upbeat and in some cases, intense, with cheery flutes and beautiful string instruments. Its very reminicent of Capcom's Ōkami, making great use of its oriental motif for both its visuals and its audio. A very underrated soundtrack from a very underrated game.
Battle Theme
Red Fire of Enthusiasm
New Family
Persona 4 Dancing All Night - Shoji Meguro, Ryota Kozuka, Atsushi Kitajoh
If Dancing All Night deserves one accolade, its getting me into and re-listening to a bunch of songs from 7 years ago that I was already burnt out on as of 4 years ago. All the new remixes are great and snappy, even succeeding in getting me to like some tracks from the original game that I was completely "blah" about in the past. A weak story mode doesn't get in the way of the game's surprisingly deep song modifiers, customization options for every character and really fun tracklist.
Backside Of The TV (Lotus Juice Remix)
SNOWFLAKES (NARASAKI Remix)
Time To Make History (AKIRA YAMAOKA Remix)
Fashionably Late to the Party: The "I'm Too Cheap to buy Fallout 4" Award
Fallout: New Vegas - Inon Zur, Justin Bell, J.E. Sawyer
Due to the aforementioned reason, I re-bought New Vegas on Steam for cheap and started a replay since I could barely remember anything about the game since it came out in 2010. While its typical to simply associate the Fallout franchise with the licensed tracks from the 30's and 40's that play in its radio, its really easy to overlook the subtle ambient tracks that comprise the core of the game's music. They don't play very often and are overridden by the game's radio system, but they often help to set the mood for a location or increase that unnerving feeling of tension in an unknown location in subtle, non-overt ways. It's good enough to set the atmosphere, but not so obtrusive that you'd immediately notice it unless you're paying attention. You couldn't ask for a better soundtrack from a game that asks you to explore the vast Mojave desert by your lonesome, discovering all the secrets covered by the nuclear sand.
Main Title
Corporate Ruins
Hoover Dam NCR
Metallic Monks
City of the Dead
1. Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward (Patch 3.0 and Patch 3.1 As Goes Light, So Goes Darkness) - Masayoshi Soken, Nobuo Uematsu (Dragonsong)
I've written in the past about how composing for MMORPGs is probably some of the toughest things to do in the industry due to how wild the pendulum swings are in terms of the different types of genres, moods, and settings all the different tracks have to account for. This applies double when you're composing a new soundtrack for a game whose original track list was, frankly, pretty underwhelming. When it comes times for expanding on these games, most of the time, you tend to see composers stick to a particular theme to base their music around, whether its grand, subdued, or centered around themes like fire, ice, destruction or Asiatic influences. This isn't a bad thing, since focusing on one theme often lets you center all your creativity around it.
Not Masayoshi Soken though. That guy's nuts, and we love him for it.
Frankly, the soundtrack to Heavensward covers just about everything. One one end, we have the necessary "epics", such as Ominous Prognisticks, the expansion's dungeon boss theme, and Imagination, a more upbeat and triumphant take on Heavensward's main s main theme, Dragonsong. When the composition pendulum swings the other way, it runs into wildly different tracks, such as the beautiful Piano and Bass heavy Woe That is Madness and the very funky Alexander themes like its Boss Music and Metal, the theme for the raid's final confrontation. When the pendulum swings back to its original spot, we're met not with epics, but with the calming tunes of Night in the Brume and... Russian Waltzes?? Soken's put in the work to please just about everyone with his work, and instead of falling flat for spreading too thin, every single track feels right where it belongs and perfectly suited to the subject matter, working together to make it my favorite soundtrack of 2015, despite some strong contenders.
The Singularity Reactor*
Echidna's Theme
Ink Long Dry
Unbreakable
Contention
*Contains story spoilers.
2. Corpse Party: Blood Drive - Mao Hamamoto, Johnny.k, Tomoyuki Hamada, Ren Yamashina
Blood Drive, like the earlier entries in the series, isn’t at all interested in being your by the numbers horror game. Typically relying on jump scares or high tension, most games of the genre will have music with sudden screeches for the intention of catching you off-guard and scaring the player. What Blood Drive does, together with its setting and narrative, is create an uncomfortable feeling, something a lot of developers generally shy from.
You’re in a haunted, demonic hellscape witnessing children, teens and adults being savagely murdered for reasons unknown to you. Every second you waste and every step you take inside this dreadful realm is harrowing and bone-chilling because you don't know what'll happen when you turn around that dark corner. You don’t want to be there. You need to get out. This is what the compositions are trying to convey to the player. A sense of hopelessness, a grim feeling as you're forced to go deeper into a mystery you don't want to see through to its resolution. The occasional catharsis in the form of its two openings things, one of which signals the climax for the events in the game. On their own, the tracks are great at setting in an unnerving feeling, but working in tandem with the game, they turn into something much more sinister. You're not wanted here. Get out.
Incarnation
Condemned Apartments
A Decaying World
Beyond Escape
Salvation
3. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - Marcin Przybyłowicz, Mikolai Stroinski, Percival Schuttenbach, Adam Skorupa, Paweł Błaszczak
If I have to be entirely honest, i can't remember a single track from this game from the top of my head. Try as I might, I can't recall what most of the music sounds like in a vacuum. And yet, I can recognize it. When I hear the first few notes of Commanding the Fury, I immediately know what's coming next and recall the many very close encounters I had in the game, fending off against surprise opponents when I least expected it. When Merchants of Novigrad starts playing, I think of bustling tows and luscious landscapes. Another Round for Everyone makes me want to crack out a card game and play with some friends. Drink up, There's More! never fails to put a dumb smile on my face.
Sometimes, those transparent connections between tracks and memories are all it takes for a soundtrack to feel unforgettable.
The Witcher's Path
Ladies of the Wood
Geralt of Rivia
Cloak and Dagger
Silver for Monsters
Honorable Mentions: "You're Winner!" Award
Undertale - Toby Fox
This was originally going to be in my top 3, but I couldn't vote for it in good consciousness knowing it was going to sweep first place anyway. I could gush about how this soundtrack took me entirely by surprise, but you may as well listen to it through the game or read the other tons of great writeups in this very thread from people who could do a much better job elaborating on what makes it great. Bonetrousle rox ok.
Hopes and Dreams
Spear of Destiny
Another Medium
Oreshika Tainted Bloodlines - Konoske Kihara
Oreshika is a really japanese game. Traditionally that is, which is fitting given that it draws from older folklore, traditions and celebrations. Due to the main theme for the game being centered around festivals, much of the soundtrack is cheery, upbeat and in some cases, intense, with cheery flutes and beautiful string instruments. Its very reminicent of Capcom's Ōkami, making great use of its oriental motif for both its visuals and its audio. A very underrated soundtrack from a very underrated game.
Battle Theme
Red Fire of Enthusiasm
New Family
Persona 4 Dancing All Night - Shoji Meguro, Ryota Kozuka, Atsushi Kitajoh
If Dancing All Night deserves one accolade, its getting me into and re-listening to a bunch of songs from 7 years ago that I was already burnt out on as of 4 years ago. All the new remixes are great and snappy, even succeeding in getting me to like some tracks from the original game that I was completely "blah" about in the past. A weak story mode doesn't get in the way of the game's surprisingly deep song modifiers, customization options for every character and really fun tracklist.
Backside Of The TV (Lotus Juice Remix)
SNOWFLAKES (NARASAKI Remix)
Time To Make History (AKIRA YAMAOKA Remix)
Fashionably Late to the Party: The "I'm Too Cheap to buy Fallout 4" Award
Fallout: New Vegas - Inon Zur, Justin Bell, J.E. Sawyer
Due to the aforementioned reason, I re-bought New Vegas on Steam for cheap and started a replay since I could barely remember anything about the game since it came out in 2010. While its typical to simply associate the Fallout franchise with the licensed tracks from the 30's and 40's that play in its radio, its really easy to overlook the subtle ambient tracks that comprise the core of the game's music. They don't play very often and are overridden by the game's radio system, but they often help to set the mood for a location or increase that unnerving feeling of tension in an unknown location in subtle, non-overt ways. It's good enough to set the atmosphere, but not so obtrusive that you'd immediately notice it unless you're paying attention. You couldn't ask for a better soundtrack from a game that asks you to explore the vast Mojave desert by your lonesome, discovering all the secrets covered by the nuclear sand.
Main Title
Corporate Ruins
Hoover Dam NCR
Metallic Monks
City of the Dead