I’ve put together a list of 60 tunes that have stuck with me through the years, inspired by Jeffrey Canam (@GrahfMetal)’s Twitter rundown of his top 100 favourite video game tracks. I’ve attempted to limit myself to a couple songs per game, but there are exceptions.

I’ll post them here and on Twitter every Tuesday and Thursday using the hashtag #KongsTdayTunes.

#55

Faxanadu is one of the earlier games I remember playing a lot—my uncle gave it to me for my birthday, along with Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. I loved that the world felt huge and alive. There’s a great mix of dark and ruinous towns and brighter overworld areas (which still stuck to earthy yellow, green, and brown tones), and the enemies were unlike the stereotypical beasts of traditional fantasy to which I had become accustomed.

Jun Chikuma is the first female composer on my list, but not the last. Her creative and inspired soundtrack fits the unique world of Faxanadu perfectly. Out of all the excellent tunes to choose from, I had no choice but to select the song that plays while you enter a password. Passwords in this game are fucking enormous, and the font (and my handwriting as a child) isn’t the most forgiving. I remember spending a lot of time painstakingly entering a password, only for it not to work. That counts as my earliest “debugging” experience. It helped burn this little melody into my brain.

Track: “Mantra” (YouTube Link)
Game: Faxanadu (NES, 1987)
Composer: Jun Chikuma