The Smash Bros Melee opening theme
Always punches me right in the nostalgia. I can remember playing Smash 64 like it was my job and then getting my hands on Melee. Popped that little disc into my Gaming Cube™ and sat on the floor, waiting patiently. Then, right before my eyes, the grandest and most hype inducing opening young me had ever experienced. Awe-inspiring visuals combined with a musical masterpiece that I believed could only be constructed by a flawless, unrivaled galactic musician that travels through the video game universe changing the lives of little gamers by blessing their ears with aural perfection.
Yeah, it wasn't actually that impressive, but dang does it give me a bad case of the emotional sniffles.
The entire OST of the Gameboy Camera. It's just so quirky and catchy, it made me laugh to play all the minigames. Some other Gameboy games too like Link's Awakening and Wario Land.
Also, Super Puzzle Fighter IIX. This was the first Capcom game I ever played after MvC so I really had no idea what SPFIIX was. I thought it was just a versus puzzle game featuring some random kids with superpowers. Regardless of how unaware I was, the soundtrack kicks ass!
A bit of a weird one for me. Find myself whistling it at work every now and again. I think it gets me nostalgic because it was when I considered Nintendo to be at the top of their game again. Instead of well, whatever it is they are doing now...
Also this terrible repetitive tune. Because it was the first game I was determined to complete after buying a load of NES games for like £1 each.
I think every NES owner had a love hate relationship with this game.
And finally...
Like man, all of Battletoads' soundtrack was bad-ass...
Live and Learn from Sonic Adventure 2. Reminds me of a time when I thought Sonic was cool. The main theme from Metroid Prime also gets me nostalgic because it was my first Metroid game, and one of my favourite games overall.
But for a curveball, the main theme from Phantom 2040 on the ol' Super Nintendo. I remember spending a lot of time playing that game, and it's still pretty damn good by today's standards. Shame it'll never see a re-release. (All I could find to link was a "full soundtrack" video but the whole soundtrack's pretty good too.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sbX4XH1wKI
Yes, I know the song isn't the correct pitch but it was how I played the game on my Mega Drive back in the day. Even now, I try to play the game on 50Hz just for the memories even though it has been about 15 years since I heard it on its original speed (various emulators, Sonic Mega Collection). It goes back to a time when everything isn't cynical and dark but bright and pleasent of the mid 90s, also when people loved Sonic. For me, this is the memory triggering song. I feel old...
As well as that and other various Sonic songs from 1, 2, R and Triple Trouble; there are others too. This one people are very familar with anyway.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_zAxPqKa8Y It goes back towards a time when Sega was king and arcades were the place to play the most advanced games (now it is PC and mobile mixed but not the same). When the arcades disappeared and the arcade style of gaming collapsing within the past few years on top of Sega barely being here anymore, it felt like a bit of gaming died for me. The echos of Daytona is a bit haunting if you think about it.
A few Mario games as well, with
this one and
this one. Unlike many, I grew up with the portable Mario games with Super Mario 64 being my first console one. While Mario games do thankfully still get made and many still have great soundtracks (such as World Bowser in Super Mario 3D World that is swanky), it is the older ones that give me the memories.
The last ones that give me the memories are from the Dreamcast era. While many, many games still have great music afterwards (some fantastic), it is from a era where the good memories start to turn rotten for me and society started to change (that changed again and again and has mostly flatlined for the past 8 years with a few changes here and there). The DC era is still in between the 90s mixed with the hype of the millennium.
Virtua Tennis made me a fan of tennis games and graphics started to get lifelike,
the Slot House and
Tomato Store from Shenmue,
Sega Rally 2 gave me the time of the my life even if the port could be better and
MSR is like saying goodbye (strangely the lyrics retrospectively are really fitting). Would have also mentioned Crazy Taxi but that was licensed. Saying that 16 years has passed is making me feel old and still think that it hasn't felt like 16 years.
An oddball one is this from Gran Turismo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sbX4XH1wKI (when I thought racing games couldn't get any better and was really the big game) Would have also combined with Sweet 16 with a few others from the game but they are licensed.
The music to the very first video game level I ever played. The PlayStation version is higher quality, but this is the one that I grew up with.
Ahaha I started whistling the tune to that spongebob stage before I even clicked the video. Was a pretty okay game.
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