First Things First

Most Castlevania games have fantastic opening tracks, and you can pretty much take your pick as to which one deserves a place on this list. Super Castlevania IV made great use of the Super Nintendo’s wavetable sound chip, and it felt like a big step forward for the series. The opening stage starts off in silence as Simon Belmont works his way towards Dracula’s eponymous castle. After entering the castle grounds, a pipe organ plays a few haunting chords before things finally get kicked into high gear. The track does a great job of building anticipation, and it was a bold move to start the game in total silence. It doesn’t feel like the adventure has truly begun until the tempo picks up, and it goes to show how important music was to the Castlevania series. The audio on the SNES was much more convincing than what the NES could produce, and I could almost imagine someone rocking out on a church organ. (That scenario would probably play out like the “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” scene from The Simpsons, but I digress.) Rock music and pipe organs make strange bedfellows, but the opening track of Super Castlevania IV shows that they compliment each other perfectly.

Turrican was a fantastic game that pushed the limits of the Commodore 64, but the Amiga version blew it out of the water. One of the most significant additions to the Amiga port was a new, energetic soundtrack from Chris Huelsbeck. Against all odds, Chris outdid himself when Super Turrican was released a couple of years later. The opening level featured a track that was both heroic and tragic. I’m still not sure if the song is supposed to be upbeat or sad, but I guess that’s part of the genius. I’m not sure what it makes me feel, but I know that it makes me feel something. Although the game was released in 1992, the song sounds like it was ripped straight out of the ’80s. It wouldn’t have been out of place in The NeverEnding Story, and nobody would bat an eye if it started playing during hockey practice. The song was used again in Mega Turrican, and there’s some debate over which version sounds better. I feel compelled to mention the original version for the purpose of this list, but both versions make brilliant use of their respective sound chips.

One advantage compact discs had over cartridges was that they allowed developers to use real instruments rather than relying on MIDI or other synthesized protocols. Recording live music is prohibitively expensive, however, so “real” audio wasn’t as common as you might think. Although most of the music in Panzer Dragoon used the Saturn’s Yamaha sound chip, the opening stage featured a full-scale orchestral piece. The aptly titled “Flight” was a breathtaking track that made you feel like you were really flying over a surreal sunken city on the back of a dragon. The persistent drum beat functioned as a call to action, and the majestic wind instruments were well-suited for the imaginative flight of fantasy that was beginning to unfold. It’s a magical track that still holds up today, and it’s the sort of thing I’d expect to hear in a Studio Ghibli film. The only downside is that it set unrealistic expectations for the rest of the game. “Flight” is easily the best track in the entire series, and I completely understand why Sega felt compelled to reuse it in Phantasy Star Online 2.

DOOM is one of the most influential games of all time. It was one of the codifiers of the first-person shooter genre, and it gave us all a glimpse of how games would be like in the future. DOOM was visceral, violent, and packed with non-stop action. The premise – which involved killing demons with chainsaws and shotguns – was a far cry from the colorful platformers that dominated the gaming industry at the time. In an era where most games could be described as interactive cartoons, DOOM made you feel like you were living on the cover of a heavy metal album. This concept is certainly reinforced by the game’s opening track. Bobby Prince had worked on id Software titles like Commander Keen and Wolfenstein 3D, but DOOM is his magnum opus. Some of the tracks were influenced by techno and others relied on ambient sounds, but “At Doom’s Gate” was all about heavy metal riffs, aggressive drums, and screeching guitar licks. It sets the tone for the game and makes you feel like grabbing a weapon and becoming a veritable one-man army. Instead of accentuating how dangerous the demons are, “At Doom’s Gate” underscores how dangerous you are to them.

When Donkey Kong Country landed in 1994, everyone was taken aback by the game’s pre-rendered graphics. In lieu of traditional pixel art, the folks at Rare rendered 3D models on Silicon Graphics workstations and converted them to 2D sprites. This technique allowed for remarkable detail and stunning animation, and the game picked up numerous Game of the Year awards on the back of its breathtaking art direction. The sound design was just as impressive, as far as I’m concerned, and the soundtrack holds up even better than the visuals do. The original Donkey Kong had no music – few games from the early 1980s did – so David Wise had carte blanche to define the musical core of the entire franchise. The first set of stages are set within a jungle, and the music is the perfect fit for the environment. “DK Island Swing” starts off with infectious bongo drums overlaid on top of ambient jungle sounds. Chirping insects and chattering monkeys eventually give way to a more aggressive drumming pattern as synths lay the foundation for the melody. Everything is taken over by a catchy bassline before the entire thing transforms into a swinging chorus. The track has the same jazzy energy as “I Wanna Be Like You” from The Jungle Book, and I can imagine King Louis dancing to the beat. Suddenly, the tempo slows down and the song ends on a calm and mellow note. The “DK Island Theme” takes you for a ride, and it sets the stage for the rest of the adventure.

If we were trying to single out the most iconic opening track in gaming history, then Super Mario Bros. would be the clear choice for number one. The “Ground Theme” (sometimes known as the overworld theme) was a lively tune that captured the spirit of the entire game. The Latin-style composition uses a periodic structure and calypso rhythms, and Koji Kondo took obvious inspiration from the Japanese fusion band, T-Square. Kondo took special care to match the tempo to the game’s speed and the rhythm of Mario’s movements, and the song defines the series just as much as the graphics or gameplay. The theme is one of the most recognizable pieces of music to ever appear in a video game, and it’s the sound of an entire industry. It’s the type of song that only comes around once in a generation, and people will still be able to identify the “Ground Theme” a century from now. The song is used in more than half of the stages in Super Mario Bros. – it would be more accurate to describe it as the game’s theme rather than the first level’s theme – but it’s still fair game for this countdown. I’m a huge fan of Super Mario Bros. 2‘s ragtime compositions and I’m rather fond of Super Mario 3D World‘s jazzy soundtrack too, but the original Super Mario Bros. has etched a permanent place in music history.

Raiden is a vertically scrolling shoot ’em up that’s set in the year 2090. The game puts you in the cockpit of a supersonic aircraft and tasks you with defending Earth from alien invaders. Like most games in the genre, Raiden is fast paced and full of action. The opening track does a great job of hyping you up for the game, and it fits perfectly with the on-screen intensity. Much in the same way that Top Gun‘s flight scenes were supported by a bombastic soundtrack, Raiden is underpinned by exhilarating music. The first song sets the stage for the entire game, and it really gets the adrenaline pumping. It should be noted that we’re recognizing the FM Towns port of Raiden rather than the arcade original. There was nothing inherently wrong with how the arcade game sounded, but the FM Towns version was a lot more energized. Everything felt like it was turned up to 11! (The Atari Jaguar version, in contrast, was completely gutless.) The opening track it’s not exclusive to the first level – it’s re-used in the fourth stage as well – but it’s still an effective introduction to the game.

Typical beat ’em ups are relatively sluggish compared to other genres, so developers often rely on exciting soundtracks to compensate for the slow pacing. This is why the Double Dragon soundtrack is faster than the action, for example. There are any number of classic beat ’em ups that could have been mentioned on this list, but I’m partial to Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game. The game – which was based on the graphic novels and released mere months after the 2010 film adaptation – was a delightful throwback to old-school brawlers like River City Ransom. The adventure begins in the snow-covered streets of Toronto, and players are forced to fight endless waves of enemies. The game was a love letter to a bygone era, so it only made sense to enlist a chiptune band to make the soundtrack. Anamanaguchi had been making music since 2004, so they obviously knew a thing or two about the bitpop scene. (If Weezer composed music on the NES instead of electric guitars, they’d probably sound a lot like the band.) “Another Winter” is a kinetic track that accentuates the game’s energetic street fights. Anamanaguchi’s soundtrack manages to feel contemporary and nostalgic at the same time, and this juxtaposition is the very foundation the game was based around.

Sega envisioned Sonic the Hedgehog as a cooler, edgier alternative to Mario. His games put an emphasis on speed, and Sonic himself was a perfect representation of the 1990s. Green Hills Zone was an ideal venue for Sonic’s introduction, since it was filled with amazing scenery and exciting set pieces. With enough speed, Sonic could launch off springboards, bust through walls, and defy gravity by running around looping structures. All the while, the on-screen action was supported by a jaunty little number that somehow managed to be calming and energetic at the same time. The soundtrack was more contemporary than typical video game music from the era, and this is because Sega looked outside the video game industry for help. Rather than using one of their in-house musicians, Sega commissioned a J-pop artist named Masato Nakamura to compose the soundtrack. Although he had never worked on a game before, he turned in one of the most iconic video game soundtracks of the 16-bit era. The theme from Green Hills Zone almost feels like it’s counting down the start of a race, and this fits nicely with the central theme of the game. It’s the kind of upbeat tune that makes you want to bop your head from side to side. If I didn’t know better, I’d assume that the catchy melody was created from a concentrated form of happiness.

StarFox was treated as a revolutionary game in 1993, and it’s easy to see why. In an era where the overwhelming majority of games were 2D affairs, a 3D shooter with polygonal graphics was obviously going to raise some eyebrows. You could find games in the arcades or on PC that were technologically superior, but StarFox gave players an experience that wasn’t associated with the 16-bit era. (Incidentally, it was the first game to make use of the Super FX coprocessor, which allowed for rendering capabilities that were seldom seen on the Super Nintendo.) Unfortunately, time hasn’t been kind to it. It’s locked at 15 frames-per-second and you can literally count the polygons on screen. Even though the graphics haven’t held up, the soundtrack is just as impressive as it ever was. The upbeat theme that plays on Corneria gets you ready for battle, and the hurried tempo helps drive you forward. It could be described as a futuristic take on war drums, and the song motivates players more the game’s story does. The music is the biggest reason to replay the game in the current era, and it’s unfortunate that subsequent StarFox games had (relatively) lackluster soundtracks. I’m 95% sure that if you were to play the Corneria theme on a commercial flight, the plane would sprout laser canons and start doing barrel rolls.