< Awesome Music

Awesome Music/Fourth Generation

This is the Awesome Music page for SNES, Genesis, Neo Geo, Turbografx-16, Jaguar etc.

  • Shining in the Darkness is a relatively unheard of game made by Sega, due to being overshadowed by its Spiritual Successor the Shining Force series and the Phantasy Star series. Nonetheless it does have a few tunes that are great.
    • 'The Ancient Temple', a great way to start your first forays into the mysterious labyrinth to perform the trials of the light.
    • 'Searching for Princess Claire', the dungeon theme heard in the later half of the game as you search the labyrinth proper for the hero's father and the princess, it is quite epic.
    • 'Fateful Battle', if you have ever beaten Shining Force 1, you'll immediately recognize this theme, which originated from this game. Only played at two points in the game, once when facing the Dark Knight and again when battling the final boss, naturally. And it is worth it!
  • "Midnight Wandering" from Metal Slug 3 or "Heavy African" from MS 5 for some guitar facemelting. Assault from Metal Slug 3 ranks pretty high on the heroism meter. And the End Title from 3 contains pieces from most of the previous themes, making it some form of epic remix.
  • That Old Army Game, Nightmare Buzz, Buzz Battle, and Inside the Claw Machine from the SNES Toy Story Game.
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 4: Turtles in Time: Sewer Surfin' and Technodrome - Let's Kick Shell!
  • Daddy Mulk from The Ninja Warriors is one of the most awesome, catchy and unique songs ever.
  • Secret of Mana/Seiken Densetsu 2 has some of the best music of the SNES, which is saying a lot.
    • Danger, the boss battle theme. Fast-paced, segues from fast to dangerous to victorious to slow and about to burst and back again, and really gets a person's blood racing.
    • The Oracle, used for the Dark Lich battle. Starts out with three ominous gongs and just gets creepier from there.
      • Fun trivia, most of the sound from the song comes from the Indonesia chanting called Kecak. Kecak is comprised of 5 different groups chanting in different patterns in unison, which gives it its unique sound. And true to this form, 5 sound channels out of eight on the SNES audio chip are dedicated to the chanting.
    • Meridian Dance. The final boss music. Words do not do it justice, just listen.
    • On the calmer side of things, Fear of the Heavens, the opening theme, begins with the distant cry of a dragon, and fully pulls the gamer into the ambiance of the game.
    • All three Flammie themes qualify.
      • Flight Into The Unknown is a happy affair, highlighting the sense of freedom the player gets from receiving a white dragon as a Global Airship.
      • The Dark Star, however, is a heavy-hearted, somber tune. Appropriate, as it replaces Flight Into The Unknown after The Lost Continent, and the Mana Fortress, rise from the sea.
      • And Prophecy, the theme that plays after the Mana Fortress rises, is a fast-paced, exotic-sounding tune, making good use of bells.
    • The overworld theme, Into the Thick of It, never manages to get old despite playing very often in the game.
    • A Curious Tale which plays in Southtown and on Gold City. This is one of the best town themes in all RPGs.
      • Suffice to say - there's a reason that the composer is the 2nd credit listed in the opening.
  • Seiken Densetsu 3, its sequel, likewise has one of the best soundtracks on the SNES, doesn't get nearly the attention of its more widely published predecessor though.
  • F-Zero features some nice scores. "Port Town" is good; even better is F-Zero GX's Fire Field.
  • Area88 (known in the West as UN Squadron) gives us the Forest Fortress theme
  • A lot of the soundtrack of Illusion of Gaia should be mentioned here.'The Guardian' (normal boss theme) and 'Clash of Darkness and Light' (the final boss theme) are certainly awesome, but we can't forget the peaceful Itory Village.
    • Don't forget In the Earthen Womb, probably the only track that could be used to truly convey the majesty of outer space.
  • Similarly, much of the soundtrack of Terranigma deserves mention here. Some of the better tracks include the opening movie (and fanfare), the Underworld Theme and the final battle theme.
  • Any soundtrack for a Sega Genesis game composed by Howard Drossin, most of which pushed the sound processor to its limits. Sonic Spinball, Comix Zone, and The Ooze
  • Phantasy Star has plenty of CMOA to speak of:
    • Phantasy Star III's music for the penultimate dungeon, Lashute, is sheer, unadulterated Nightmare Fuel. And it's awesome.
    • The same could be said for "Maia's Abduction," (Track #6) which kicked off the entire adventure in the first place. Never let it be said that 16-bit sound hardware is incapable of conveying a character's bubbling, seething rage and hatred born of age-old wars.
    • Searren Type 386: when Wren Transforms into the Global Airship or Aqua skimmer
    • How about PSIV's remixes of the Dungeon themes from the first game?
      • Of course, the game has it's own original music, too: "Behind the Circut", Her Last Breath (Careful, that one's a spoiler), A Terrible Sight, and more.
        • Takeuchi sure knows how to do depressing music. Her Last Breath was about 10x the Tear Jerker that Aeris' theme could ever hope to be.
      • How did we manage to talk about awesome PSIV music and forget Laughter?
        • Truly a shame that it was only used twice in the entire game - when you fight Zio and later the reincarnated Lashiec.
          • I don't know what you're talking about? It's the music both times you fight Zio, and is basically his theme (as opposed to The Black Blood, which is the theme for any serious bad guy).
      • Requiem for Lutz was sad and haunting and conveyed the feeling of thousands of years of history and heartbreak in the Espers' Mansion to a tee. It's also interestingly reminiscent of the Phantasy Star III main theme.
          • This piece, which tends to play as the theme of female party members who have a connection to the Algo system's past has a similar feel, invoking feelings of sadness for the lost history of a bygone age.
      • The Age of Fables, another track that was sadly only used twice, will give you goosebumps. Especially if you hear it in its in-game context - that of everything finally coming together and the story becoming complete.
      • Organic Beat deserves special mention, both for being objectively awesome, and also for how it is used in the story. This is the music that plays the first time you enter the fort of the game's first Big Bad, which is the moment in the game you realize you're up against something far older and more frightening than you at this point are prepared for. Pretty soon, shit gets real, and this is the music that lead up to it.
      • And how about the music for the opening sequence: Made. Of. Pure. Win.
    • I find it dissapointing that nobody has mentioned the Land Rover battle theme: Cybernetic Carnival or Thray or even the Landeel's theme.
    • How has nothing been said of PSII? Every single track is awesome, but special mention must be made of the opening title sequence, Death Place (which is used as boss music), Mystery, and perhaps the most crowning of this game's awesome music would be this piece, called Rise or Fall. Final boss music? No, that's the basic battle music in PSII!
  • Ecco The Dolphin: The whole damn soundtrack. Choice mentions go to "Aqua Vistas", "The Machine", "Jurassic Beach" and "City of Forever".
  • We are Worms, we're the best, and we've come to win the war...
  • Amiga shooter Superfrog had some great tunes, but World 5 particularly stands out.
  • Two words: Dynamite Headdy. The entire soundtrack is downright amazing, but Sky High and Dark Demon's Song are quite possibly some of the most intensely awesome 16-bit boss themes ever, and Crosswalk of Love stands out for really making you feel victorious at the end of the game.
  • The Ristar soundtrack.
    • Made all the more awesome by Planet Sonata making the BGM into a gameplay element. Round 4-1 is one big MacGuffin Escort Mission where you must literally build the BGM a piece at a time by transporting metronomes through the level to a composer. At the end of the level the composer summons a mini-boss that not only attacks in time with the now-complete tune, but times its attack phases to the different phrases in the song.
  • Earthworm Jim. Who could forget this lovable worm and his game full of music goodness? If the music were chocolate then we'll be fat. Seriously, Jim+ music check out the music .
  • While Lufia II had many great tracks, the Boss Theme stood out as one of the most orchestrated-sounding pieces of the SNES's early days, proving that a lot could indeed be done with mere synthesized music.
  • Also, many of the songs in 1994's Aladdin video game. They sound best in the PC version.
  • Romancing SaGa 3 is a Crowning Soundtrack of Awesome. From the Light King's Palace to the battle theme to the Winter Galaxy. It also pushes the SNES' sound chip to its limits with orchestral sounds.
  • Rudra no Hihou is not a very well known game, which is a shame, not only is this game one of the most well done RPG of the SNES era, it has a crowning sountrack of awesome. Those Three Boss Themes are Actually remixes of the three main characters themes. Basically a Theme Music Power-Up, which does a lot to show that despite the fact that the game's story happens Just Before the End, the heroes are NOT going to give in to despair.
  • E.V.O: Search for Eden has once been described as having some of the best music tracks in the SNES era, marred by a spattering of absolutely horrid 10-second loops. Some of the better ones: The Ocean, the Boss Battle theme, and the Final Showdown against the Big Bad Eldritch Abomination.
  • Don't forget Live a Live! There are several, but one of the greatest standouts is the impossibly epic BURIKI DAIOH THEME! GO! GO! BURIKI DAIOH!
  • As The Angry Video Game Nerd points out, the Terminator Sega CD version's music. He looked at this one, but this music is cool too.
    • According to his IMDB Biography page, with this game, Tommy Tallarico became the first person to ever use a live guitar and 3-D audio in a video game. Awesome and innovative. You can't beat that.
  • Soul Blazer is FULL of truly good music... especially this one.
  • The music playing for the first track in any national cup, or just the Stonehenge track from Top Gear. Once those opposing cascades kick in, you'll feel the hair on your neck stand up.
  • This guy's not sure if it belongs in this category for being a public domain Venezuelan Genesis game released freely in 2004-2005, but the soundtrack for CrazyBus is damn good. In a So Horrible, It's Freaking Hilarious way.
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