Just For Fun: My Top Ten Videogame Music Selections

As I have mentioned more than once, when writing I usually listen to music. I look for music that inspires and shapes my imagination, often becoming themes for events or characters or settings. As the technology has progressed, I have found that video games often provide some surprisingly inspirational themes. Here, then, are my top ten favorite pieces of music from various video games!

• Silent the Universe: Star Ocean 2 Opening Theme. Composed by Motoi Sakuraba, this beautiful piece of music opens the game with a deep-space object crashing to a planet, then turns across empty space to a huge space station and the launch of a truly gorgeous starship. Sakuraba's name was given as the middle name of my scientific hero Simon Sakuraba Sandrisson in Grand Central Arena, and the starship shown at the end of the opening is, almost exactly, what I have envisioned as the general appearance of Atlantaean starships in the deep background of my main writing universe.

• Into the Wilderness: Wild Arms Opening Theme. This main melody composed by Michika Naruke for the strangely Western-themed Japanese RPG Wild Arms is a wonderful piece of music for setting out on adventure; I've used it as a mood setter for multiple stories, to the point that I'm actually reluctant to assign it to a particular group; I like it too much to let it be attached to one set of heroes.

• Time's Scar: Chrono Cross Opening Theme: Composed by Yasunori Mitsuda, this haunting, exciting opening is actually based to some extent on the original Chrono Trigger theme (see later) and has inspired many images for my writing. This is actually particularly associated with the mysterious figure called the Wanderer in the Balanced Sword trilogy (Phoenix Rising, Phoenix in Shadow, and Phoenix Ascendant), and particularly with his original adventures on Zarathan. As a game, Chrono Cross was quite good, although it was not, in my view, very good as a SEQUEL to Chrono Trigger itself.

• Chrono Trigger Main Theme: Also by Yasunori Mitsuda, this theme (orchestral version given in the first link), and the opening associated with the original version, first swept me into the world of JRPGs. So popular was Chrono Trigger that it has been remade and reissued more than once, with a new and fully-animated opening. Even today it retains a power of excitement and adventure that few pieces of music match, no matter the source. Careful listeners can hear that Time's Scar is actually derived from this theme.

• Primal Eyes: Opening theme for Parasite Eve. This is an eerie and fast-moving theme composed by Yoko Shimomura whose opening video riveted me when I first saw it. For my writing, however, it has become a theme I associate with Jason Wood; I can even envision an opening to a TV show for Jason using this music.

• Durandal: Theme for the battleship in Xenosaga. This thrilling battle theme, composed by Yasunori Mitsuda, fits its purpose in the game, and works well for other combats, both space and elsewhere. In my own work, I actually mostly envision this as being used for particular scenes in two currently unpublished novels.

• The Dawn of Wisdom: Opening theme from Star Ocean 3: 'Till the End of Time. One of the most beautiful openings, with some of the most perfect music, I've ever seen. Also composed by Motoi Sakuraba, this theme was meant to evoke the magnificence of the civilization of Earth in Star Ocean, and I use it when writing as the theme of Atlantaea, the greatest civilization ever to exist in my multiverse.

• Trigger Situation: Dirge of Cerberus OST. This darkly contemplative piece suddenly turns into a dramatic combat theme; it was composed by Masashi Hamauzu. For me, it has come to represent one scene over all: the one I call "DuQuesne's Awakening" in Grand Central Arena. "Your problem, you pea-brained, pompous, overbearing crayfish, is that you think you have the faintest idea of what you're dealing with."

• Dragonborn: Main theme for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Composed by Jeremy Soule. There is possibly no greater warrior theme composed, at least in the field of videogames, than this powerful chant, sung in a language invented solely for the game. I've used it as background for multiple sessions of writing, though I associate it with a particular scene I look forward to writing in the as-yet-unpublished Demons of the Past. Another interesting point is that it is the same basic theme/motif as was used in the prior game, Oblivion, but is much more powerful a piece.

• Staff Credits: Final Fantasy Tactics. I could not complete this list without at least one selection from the immense and wonderful music produced for the most famous JRPG series of all. Composed by Hitoshi Sakimoto, this ending theme for Final Fantasy Tactics is, simply put, one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever made for a game, or just about anything else. As a general background to writing it's superb, and I've used it while writing pieces of just about every one of my series.

This is, of course, not even close to a comprehensive overview of videogame music that's worth listening to. In all honesty, I could probably change out four or five of these tunes with four or five others and be just as happy. A few would stay regardless – The Dawn of Wisdom, Time's Scar, and Silent the Universe, certainly – but I could probably stretch this to twenty or more pieces without even working hard. Still, this is a decent sampler of some of the wonderful music available from a medium that used to be considered secondary (or worse) to any other form of entertainment!