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

#44

Final Fantasy XII basically defined the first year of my PhD program. What a great game. Hitoshi Sakimoto has composed better songs, but this one kind of fills the same role as the Teostra theme song from last month—great atmospheric background music with a grand hook. Listening to this for several hours while chipping away at Yiazmat burns it into your brain.

Track: “Boss Battle” (YouTube Link)
Game: Final Fantasy XII (PS2, 2006)
Composers: Hitoshi Sakimoto

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

#48

I got into the Dynasty Warriors games via Koei’s somewhat heavier Romance of the Three Kingdoms strategy series, and this track contains a nice thematic throwback to Yoko Kanno’s original main theme for those games, making the title particularly apt for me. It successfully invoked nostalgia then, and it continues to do so today.

I sing this song to my dog.

Track: “Memories” (YouTube Link)
Game: Dynasty Warriors 5 (PS2, 2005)
Composer: Masato Koike

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

#53

You know, this game isn’t even particularly special to me. I’ve been a fan of Koei games since playing the original Romance of the Three Kingdoms on NES. It prompted me to read the book in junior high, and my voracious consumption of all things Three Kingdoms eventually made me branch out into Koei’s peripheral properties.

Samurai Warriors 2 has a kind of endless castle mode where you hack & slash through floor after floor of mindless peons until your skills (or patience) fail you. Every once in a while, this peppy tune kicked in, and it was somehow the perfect match for my murderous endeavours.

Track: “City of Flowers (Sengoku 2 Mix)” (YouTube Link)
Game: Samurai Warriors 2 (PS2, 2006)
Composer: Masato Koike

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

#54

My friends and I had a lot of fun with Monster Hunter: World for a few months after it came out. It became our social hangout game after Destiny spiraled down the pipes.

Each monster has its own signature theme that plays when you battle with it, and several of them are suitably epic, but the one that lodged in my brain was Teostra’s. It’s regal and grandiose, transitioning between background music and a booming melodic hook. I can’t help but sing it every time it loops around, ensuring all my friends mute me and ensuring its place on this list.

Track: “Ruler of Flame – Teostra (World Version)” (YouTube Link)
Game: Monster Hunter: World (PS4, 2018)
Composer: Tadayoshi Makino

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

#56

Lots of people love the Chrono Cross soundtrack. It’s not bad. I liked the famous opening when it first came out, but now I find the soundtrack a little thematically uneven. This is mainly here because I’m forcing myself not to include every single Chrono Trigger track in this list.

To be fair, this is one of the tracks that has always stuck with me from this game. It’s got a heroic sound that reminds me of some of the music from Yasunori Mitsuda’s previous masterpiece. It’s not as soaring and melodic as Frog’s theme, but it has echoes of the glory of a bygone age, much like the rest of this whole game.

Track: “Dragon Knight” (YouTube Link)
Game: Chrono Cross (PS1, 1999)
Composer: Yasunori Mitsuda

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

#59

Final Fantasy VIII is a strange game. It features dream-like flashback sequences where the player controls a completely different set of characters, led by Laguna, a man with a machine gun. “The Man with the Machine Gun” is his theme song.

It was interesting for a Final Fantasy game at the time to play a unique battle theme when controlling a different character. I like that the music conveys something of the dreamlike quality and mystery that the player faces as they struggle to understand how these intermissions fit into the rest of the story.

Track: “The Man with the Machine Gun” (YouTube Link)
Game: Final Fantasy VIII (PS1, 1999)
Composer: Nobuo Uematsu