It Has Been an Outstanding Year for Music
Say what you will about the quality of games this past year, the music that accompanies them has been great. For quite some time, game composers and their scores have been right up there with the best of Hollywood or television. Of course, that’s probably because a lot of film and TV composers also write for games. The stigma of games as being an embarrassment for music creators is entirely gone. All that being said, it’s also true that game music rarely gets the same attention as graphics, art design, or gameplay mechanics.
Here’s the best game music of the year. At least in the opinion of the COGconnected staff!
10. The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom
Composed by Hajime Wakai, the soundtrack for The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is, unsurprisingly, bouncy, upbeat, and full of wonder and fun. There’s also a fair amount of weirdness and slightly unsettling music as well. This is a score that’s definitely worth listening to outside the game.
9. Persona 3: Reload
Azumi Takahashi’s music for Persona 3: Reload is an incredible mixture of driving dance beat drums, funky horn riffs, vocals, and guitar. This soundtrack is pure adrenaline. Here’s an example, but the whole soundtrack is great.
8. Enshrouded
The score for the fantasy/survival/crafting game Enshrouded was composed by the team of Alex Röder, Armin Haa,s and Matthias Wolf. The music is incredibly varied, ranging from soaring orchestral cues to intimate and melancholic piano solos. Since launch, Enshrouded has been steadily improving and growing. But the music started out already great.
7. Stellar Blade
Stellar Blade is one of the year’s best action games. It has an almost unbelievable 10 hours of music. Probably too much for any one composer to handle, so the soundtrack was handled by a team of over a dozen writers. As a result, there’s a wide range of styles and soundscapes, but somehow they all work together.
6. Silent Hill 2
Over its six-hour listening time, Yakira Yamaoka’s music will impress you with its drama, beauty, tension, and variety. Kind of like the game itself. Some scores for games or movies are so closely connected to the visuals they don’t make sense without them. This might be one of them. There’s a lot of ambient music that’s simply background.