You know, I always cringe a little when the mainstream press covers the video game industry in any way, but MSNBC did a pretty good job with a no-brainner top five list of the most memorable game tunes. There's still a little bit of "cringe action" worked in -- never mind that this is something you'd expect to see on one of those silly video game blogs. In honor of those silly blogs, I'll respond in silly blogger style.
Of course, Super Mario Bros is listed. It's a natural, although they incorrectly list the song as the "theme song." The "overworld theme" is called "BGM 1." Koji Kondo would forgive you, and so do I.
Halo is also listed, and is a great choice. There's no questioning that the Halo's theme sticks in your ear. It's too bad the score for Xenogears was compared and dogged in the process. For most game music fans, those are serious fighting words, and the various Xenogears themes have made their way into many a concert and album. What's more is that composer Yasunori Mitsuda would throw his head back and laugh at the comparison.
Ms. Pac Man is a solid choice that gets no complaints from me. I'll even agree with the comment about the following pellet pick-up sound effects.
The Zelda series is another given, and we agree that just about every Zelda title had very memorable music, though some (Ocarina of Time, The Legend of Zelda) were more memorable than others. It probably would have been good to mention that most Mario and Zelda games share the same composer, Koji Kondo.
Finally, there's Final Fantasy VII. First off, a major nerd rule was broken by using the numeral "7" in the title instead of the roman numerals -- you just don't do that (unless you don't know or care). That's like bait for those silly bloggers. My biggest cringe of the whole feature happened after reading that "the music from this game was so popular that it was released as a four-disc album." Silly Ken Smith of MSNBC, all Final Fantasy scores are released as albums, and many of them are multi-disc. And everyone knows that Final Fantasy VI is the best of the Final Fantasy scores. Duh.
[Thanks, Justin]
Contest:
4:13 PM on 10.13.2007
| 
The guy's an IDIOT.
In order of noise:
5.) Halo - Main Theme (you're lucky you made it 'cause you're not even 10 years old)
4.) Final Fantasy - Prelude
3.) Tetris - "A" (Korobeiniki)
2.) The Legend of Zelda - Overworld Theme
1.) Super Mario Bros. - Overworld Theme (BGM 1)
dumbass...
Halo wasn't more memorable than:
Super Mario Bros 2
Mappy
Pokemon
Megaman 2
Metal Gear Solid
Pong (joke)
although, i would agree that 4 of the 5 games have memorable music, i could honestly not think of the ms pac man music in my head. I know what the original pac man music sounds like, is ms pac man the same?
but if we want to pick out specific songs from games i think there would be some tough competitors. Mortal Kombat has a fucking tight song that I think most anybody would recognize. the Tetris song "Korobeiniki" (as was mentioned above) is also one of the top competitors.
I think where it gets hard is how you would determine what the most recognizable Final Fantasy song is, even just looking at VII. I mean, One Winged Angel is fucking brilliant. But the battle music is played through the whole game, and Aeris' Theme is one of the defining pieces of music for FFVII in my mind.
I think when doing a memorable music list, 5 is too short. You need at least 10 to fit in more songs.
I'm gonna stick with missing Sonic now.
Wait, what was this about? Mainstream media making more stupid gaming lists? Whatever.
but still in my heart nothing can beat Metal Gear Solid Main Theme, and Mario main theme
Consider my mind boggled. "Some gamers think..." should have been my clue to not finish the sentence. I don't know anyway who thinks that, gamer or not. Classic game music and modern game music both have plenty of fantastic material to their credit. Burning Crusade, Katamari, Advance Wars DS - all unique styles, all noteworthy.
That being said, the list is fairly well done considering how appalling the associated text is; however, I think they're using the word "memorable" as if it were synonymous with "widely recognized." The Mario theme is alright, but there are plenty of songs that are a hell of a lot more memorable than that, even within the series. For example, the ending theme from SMB2 or the castle theme from Super Mario World.
Finally, actually making this list would be impossible. There's just too much material and the level of variety would make it difficult to order. I would suggest a top 50 unordered list.
HAHAHA. You win the internets
I'm going to go play tetris right now.
I really liked the ff2 and ff3 music as well...
hopefully still alive will make it there from portal one day.