I would hope for the background music to be very subtle and fit the mood. Like Morrowind, songs that you remember but don’t stand out enough to annoy you after the 500th hour of gameplay.
If the game is programmed to recognize your playstyle, it would be cool of the music matched. You build a super empire to crush all opposition, more industrial tunes would be cool.
You build a thriving economy full of farms and trade goods, more “town-ish” or festive tunes would be cool.
Start with Morrowind. Even if the combat is strange and the graphics are dated, no other Elderscrolls game has captured the richness or depth that Morrowind had. Daggerfall was too glitchy, Arena is impossible to get working smoothly, Oblivion was dull and boring, and Skyrim had a horrible UI and all the depth cut out of it.
I loved Lost Odyssey. In how many JRPGs do you get to tool around with your grandkids and your grown-up, badass pirate son? I feel like it’s what FFXII might have been if Square hadn’t swapped out Basch for Vaan (Basch and Kaim even have the same English voice actor.)
Lots of my favorites have already been mentioned, but I’m also a big fan of the Tales of Vesperia OST. Here are some tracks that convinced me to get the whole thing:
A Vow of Unity: Music from Dahngrest, the city of guilds:
Mages of the Shadow’s Depths: music from Aspio, city of mages
Judith, a Portrait of Solitude: Judith’s theme
I also listen to Ace Attorney music while coding. It’s like boss battle music… but for the courtroom!
Just a few from the OST for starters:
They also have a few good Orchestra remixes. For example:
I haven’t actually finished it … I need to just do the last part, and I can’t remember how to get into the tower thing sighs, I’ll do it one day soon!
I’d forgotten about Tales of Vesperia! It’s the only Tales game I’ve played and it was pretty awesome! I went through a phase of just playing every RPG I could get my hands on for the Xbox 360, turns out there are some pretty bad one’s out there … Enchanted Arms, and Resonance of Fate were particularly good ones!
Couple more highlights from Chrono Cross (because, these weren’t just good background music, but some darn fine composing, each individual piece is amazing), then some other games.
And then this next one is like, amazing also.
OKAY! Now that I have sung Chrono Cross’s praises, time for a few other games.
One of my favorite remix’s
And whenever this next song I get that fizzly-hair-standing-on-end feeling
Edit: And while we are talking about Pheonix Wright
I somehow got to thinking about this and figured it could be interesting to see, possibly even help with ideas for the soundtrack. The question is though what is you most and least liked music from games and why?
For me I’m not really sure of most liked, there’s been a lot of good stuff however I am fairly certain of my least liked music. It is Saria’s Song from Legend of Zelda, it is my most hated piece of music because of where it was in the game, the actual music is fine but it’s use in one of the most incredibly annoying puzzles in Twilight Princess permanently ruined it for me. The fact of having to listen to repeated over and over until you solve the puzzle and having to pay attention to it the whole time because it’s your main clue was irritating, it was one of the hardest parts of the plotline.
Personally, I enjoy all the back-ground music in Minecraft, by C418. It really adds more depth to the game than just blocks, and it also holds some of my most fond memories in my history of gaming.
If Stonehearth could achieve such a thing in it’s own soundtrack… well… Let us just say it’d make me, and possibly many others, really pleased.
If it isn’t for Minecraft’s soundtrack, then I’ll have to go with Terraria. I just like the style.
Best music for me is the Binding of Isaac music, specifically the shop music, but the whole thing’s great. I’ve heard good things about the Super Meat Boy soundtrack too, and I believe it considering I think they’re from the same composer.
Well, I am no artist when it comes to music, but perhaps I can help inspire you. Any of the Terran tracks for Starcraft 2 are pretty awesome. Protoss as well.
