Music is fuel for emotions. It creates, enhances,manipulates them. At it’s finest it’s like magic, coursing through our ears and minds. The best games developers know this and use it to great effect; a series like Final Fantasy is wfamous for its classic themes, creating stirring epics and evoking mournful reflection. Other tunes are playful and fun, such as the simple Dig-Dug ditty or the joyful Kirby compositions. These score our adventures and stay in our hearts. There are even concerts dedicated to the playful, wonderful melodies that soar from our speakers when as we game.
Here are ten tracks that get you hyped, pumped, psyched AND charged to kick ass the moment they drop their beats. These are ten adrenaline-injecting, audio-explosions of old-school skill that still have the power to push you to the edge of your seat. For the purposes of the article I limited myself one track per series and eliminated games after 1998. Read on!
HEAVEN OR HELL? LET’S ROCK!
TRACK ONE: Shiva’s Fight – Streets of Rage 2 (Mega Drive/Genesis)
Composer: Yuzo Koshiro
Streets of Rage is a game that is literally all about ass-kicking. You walk to the right and you beat the living shit out of everything that appears, animate or not, and all the while you’re doing it to some of the most badass tracks the Mega Drive/Genesis ever had. Not one moment in the series isn’t about some combination of limb-backside interaction and so picking a single track to represent that was tough. My instincts were to go with the theme for Mr X, the final boss, but that is well known and I felt that this list should highlight some of the less obvious pieces out there.
So it’s Shiva’s, the penultimate boss of the second game, who gets the nod for his fast beats and raw energy. It begins with high, ominous, opening notes floating over a dirty, distorted bassline and then quickly gives way to hard drum kicks that tell you one thing: FIGHT OR DIE. There’s a real intensity to this track, fitting perfectly with it’s narrative position right before the finale; no matter how tiring the journey has been, there’s no time to rest, keep that blood pumping and those fists pounding.
TRACK TWO: The Pit – Mortal Kombat (Mega Drive/Genesis)
Composer: Matt Furniss
This track is an anomaly, since it only exists in the Mega Drive/Genesis version of Mortal Kombat and is entirely unlike the arcade or SNES versions. It’s also a hell of a lot better. The original music was a strange but decent attempt at creating a tense track that stuck to the Eastern influence permeating the game. It wasn’t particularly memorable and, for whatever reason, the Mega Drive composer, Matt Furniss, replaced the track entirely.
What we got instead was this funky, dark number that kept to the gleefully brutal atmosphere of the game, and The Pit in particular, while turning the badass dial to eleven. It’s a showdown track that fits against the cloudy dark sky, above the spikes, it’s the kind of track that plays when two fighters, both who know they’re good, smile at each other before unleashing a barrage of cool action. When this fires up you know the battle is going to be good, and you’re ready.
TRACK THREE: Legacy – Throttle (PC)
Composer: The Gone Jackals
Switching gear, let's move on to the full licensed track for the classic PC adventure Full Throttle, an adventure game about a biker fighting a corrupt car manufacturer, set to the backdrop of a tune that drips with that iconic sound.
When this plays with the lead character, Ben, riding high on his hog at the head of his gang, you feel an undeniable sense of identification with a takes-no-shit, tough-as-leather, secret-heart-of-gold character who gets the job done. He’s all muscle, all power and for the duration of the game, you're controlling him. The track invites you to the fictional biker world, the distillation of the good parts with just the right hint of the rough. One listen and you’re ready for the road.
TRACK FOUR: Beginning – Castlevania 3 (NES)
Composers: H. Maezawa, Jun Funahasi, Yukie Morimoto
Castlevania is a franchise so in love with music that five games so far have incorporated musical themes in the titles. It’s a series with such an absolutely astonishing number of fantastic tracks that there’s even a top 100 countdown on YouTube.
I picked this track, out of all of the, because it represents one of the peaks of the NES sound library. It’s got incredible ambition, the catchiness that defined the era, the gothic sound and the sense of adventure. It wastes no time; the drums instantly driving hard while the chords slam out like a one-two punch, pausing only to switch into the catchy, yet complex, melody. It’s a song that says “I don’t care if you have no skin, if you’re a demon or a goddamn medusa head, I am going to whip you so hard you’ll explode.”
Which is precisely what you do.
