Gone Home is high on my stack of games I really really need to play. I’ve had it installed for a while now and seriously need to just boot it up.
Undertale is a really good suggestion, I can’t believe I forgot about that game… This track definitely gets under my skin, and I still have trouble listening to Hopes & Dreams / Save the World without thinking about how sad that fight is…
Oh yeah. You go in expecting a cute Pokemon crossover with some fun dungeon crawling and you come out bawling about some really surprisingly well-written characters.
Man, that entire beginning of ME3 was just HEAVY. This definitely set the tone well for it.
all these posts on space games has reminded me of this gem.
I remember playing through this game drunk with a friend one evening and even though we were pretty buzzed by the end this still managed to register pretty much as intended.
So many good themes here! I feel the same way about BotW’s theme but it’s Revali’s theme for whatever reason warms me up every time I listen and ultimately got me teary during the game credits:
A piece from No Man’s Sky that makes me feel feelings:
And the Alex Theme from Prey makes me want to look out a rainy window and think for a while:
Sword and Sworcery’s story and soundtrack have become for me inseparable from the feeling of mountains and long journeys by foot—whenever I listen to Guthrie’s work while walking in the woods, I feel this tremendous melancholy settle into me. The final tracks do it to me, of course—but what gets me more than any other track is the song that Guthrie plays for you in the stony hollow as you sit beside him in the dreaming woods.
The final boss fight to Dark Souls is such a gut punch that really underscores the story of that game.
(spoilers for who it is)
The way this theme resurfaces in the final phase of the Soul of Cinder theme in DS3 really caught me off guard, really beautiful moment that really sells finality coming to the cycle of linking the fire, and the weight of history as you are literally fighting the ghosts of everyone who has linked the fire all the way back to Gwyn himself.
That one piano chord gets me every single time. Just hearing the return of that iconic music gets me so damn pumped for whatever they’re doing with Halo, especially after the incredibly lackluster campaign of Halo 5. Give me that sense of wonder again!
In Cave Story, “Moonsong” plays during your very first exposure to the “outside world,” and god, what a moment. You spend the entire game up to that point in cramped corridors and dark caverns, only to suddenly walk out into the open night air. It also underscores one of the game’s most pivotal choices - Quote can choose to escape on the back of a dragon with Kazuma, but at the expense of the safety of the Mimigas. Something about the song really pushes you to keep moving forward despite those temptations, and I’m still stunned by just how much this one piece is able to convey.
This plays during a boss fight.
Pairbond, the main theme of Bioshock 2.
Makes me cry every time.
Seconding Weight of the World, and also adding…(bit of a spoiler from the song name but)
‘Longest Night’ from Night in the Woods really gets me. I think it is a good representation of the tone of the game, that melancholic sound and autumnal feel. It also reminds me of my childhood hometown, which also has a somewhat melancholic vibe to it.
This piece of music from Firewatch reminds me of the end of the game, and the culmination of that 4 hour journey. Firewatch is a game that really worked for me and made me quite emotional at the end, so that whole score by Chris Remo gets to me.
Lastly, the piece of music from Journey through the whole ending is the first time I cried at a game, just being overwhelmed by the combination of story, visuals and music. I love that game so much.
Sorry I had to do it to ya. So blessed this is getting re-released.
For the nostalgia pick I’m going to go with Song of Gabriel, the intro track to Little Big Adventure 2:
I can’t imagine the game holds up very well today – arguably it didn’t at the time in many respects – but it’ll always have a place in my heart.
Yeah, you beat me to it with ME3. As someone who was late to the Mass Effect party and played all three games with all dlc back to back, that was one emotional investment. I saved the Citadel dlc for last right before embarking on that final mission, and being untainted by all the discussion surrounding the endings, the end hit pretty hard.
It’s probably more context than music, because to me most of the ME soundtrack feels pretty generic and something about (what I think is) the post-production is rubbing me the wrong way, but it can’t be a coincidence that the parts Clint Mansell worked on are the most haunting and touching parts of that score:
Lots of good ones have already been posted, but here’s a more me-specific NieR: Automata track for the pile:
Heart of Anxiety
