Enter the Game Music Thunderdome

Oh wow, this just happened with my girlfriend, although she doesn’t know anything about the medieval age :-) In the first few seconds of the track she was like ‘Oh, this sounds nice’. She even asked if it was from Final Fantasy. A very sweet (and catchy!) song. I have not played Chrono Trigger either.

@CraigM I nearly got lost down a Corneria metal hole this morning thanks to that video. I’m partial to Family Jules’ version:

I’ve got to say, I prefer my Metroid electronic rather than metal, although some of the covers have been great. There’s a delicate balance between the organic and electronic/mechanical in the Metroid games that I think is reflected beautifully in the music.

Yeah, I loved that version too and wouldn’t have objected to it being longer! They’re going for different things but I missed that dreamy and contemplative quality a lot. Both lovely tracks though.

Treasure of the Rudras reminded me of Turrican and… Mega Man maybe? It’s got a rocking sound but it didn’t grab me like the other three tracks here. Alba Cavanish strikes again with more epic and triumphant adventure music! Loved this one too.

I think it’s got to be… Xenoblade Chrono Trigger for me.

To be clear, although I’d wish she was an historical nerd, my wife was referring to the Chrono Trigger medieval age: she is a desperate Chrono Trigger fan, something which I don’t understand.

Also you guys should get out of those guitar riffs’ passé (so 1980!), and jump onboard the progressive 1985 wagon and witness its PSG and FM futurescapes!

Ahh, my girlfriend hasn’t played Chrono Trigger so that’s why her reaction surprised me!

Treasure of the Rudras & Life is Strange: Glass

I gotta go with Alba Cavanish (Night) from Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and Glass by Daughter for Before the Storm. Loved both a lot. Like some discussion upthread, I find a lot of the MIDI area very difficult to get into. Orchestral remakes tend to let me enjoy the melodies, harmonies, and intricacies much better, which I know makes my distaste at least a little unfair, but it is what it is.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and Glass

I’ll go with Chrono Trigger and Before the Storm

This is a tough category. I’d say that musically, I was at a toss-up between the two Mitsuda tracks, but gave it to Chrono Trigger because of nostalgia, and because of the added difficulty of composing on the SNES.

Not having any history with it, Treasure of the Rudras sounded like many a SNES Square battle theme, and so didn’t really stand out.

I was surprised by Glass, after a kind of weak opening, I liked where it went. In a very strong bracket, I also voted for it just sort of as a palate cleanser, as I imagine it will be very different from most of what gets advanced against it.

For me, there’s a break between NES and SNES era, where I feel like NES era music is kind of quintessentially built on the bit tune sound palette. I often don’t really care for remixes or reinventions of music from that era, because I feel they kind of miss the point a little bit. By the time we hit the SNES though, I feel that the compositions are similar enough to real instruments, that I think they’re better served by orchestral or remix versions.

Genesis, falling between those two, varies a bit, but I think the soundscape was a little more electronic-y, and so it generally falls into the NES category.

Group H: Xenoblade Chronicles and Life is Strange: Before the Storm

This might be a photo finish!

I haven’t voted yet. Still planning to… what’s the deadline?

Probably in like an hour? I wasn’t sure if the Friday games got 24 hours or the whole weekend, but if it’s the whole weekend, I think the rounds have been ending/starting at about 3:00 EST.

Go by the timestamp on the post with the videos – in this case 12:46 p.m. Pacific. You always have at least 24 hours (not counting weekends) from that. If you put in a vote after that, it may or may not be counted.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 was kind of a shoe-in because that may be one of the best soundtracks of the last five years or so, and surprisingly for me Life is Strange: Before the Storm because I think it’s a really well composed song rather than good background music like the other two, but honestly, all four are great.

Group I

Featuring nominations from @Soren_Hoglund, @Otagan, @Left_Empty, and @SamS.

Solo Nobre as I don’t mind a bit of synthwave

Rimworld is a nice chilled track with an Ibiza vibe to it.

Surprised I dont vote for the shmup soundtrack, but it just didnt click. No idea how i missed playing it first time round either.

Solo Nobre - Hot damn that was some straight out of Blade Runner kind of stuff. Excellent track!
Rimworld - It’s almost unfair that some of these older games get pitted against tracks like this. This was like a wonderful modern take on a western wandering theme.

Despite not having any connection to any of these games, I liked them all quite well!

Musha Aleste needed a bit more “four on the floor,” in my estimation, so I think it’s the first to fall. Command & Conquer was most appealing to me because it sounded like it could have been a track from Star Control 2. But I did eventually find that bassline grating.

Brigador is powerful and builds nicely! And RimWorld is just really atmospheric, but could win on its whistling alone. (Makes me wish I’d thought to nominate West of Loathing…)

Crap, that’s another fantastic nomination. How did we forget so many recent ones?

My votes are for Brigador and Command & Conquer.

Tough bracket. I liked them all.

However, I pick C&C and Musha Aleste (or Noh Specter, whichever is the game name…). The latter has some of the most sustained intensity I’ve heard since Rob Hubbard’s Monty on the Run music.