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.

#30

We’ve reached the top 30, the top half of the list! Every tune up here is essential to my game music appreciation for one reason or another, and I had to make a lot of hard cuts.

Yasunori Mitsuda’s Chrono Trigger work is legendary, widely considered one of the best overall video game soundtracks of all time. Despite making hard cuts and narrowing down my list to only one song per game as much as possible, there are three Chrono Trigger songs in the top 30. If I hadn’t forced it, there would be a lot more than that. Here’s one of them. Try to guess what the other two will be.

“Schala’s Theme” is a great sad/slow song, because it doesn’t lean too heavily to the sappy side (like, for example, Rosa’s theme from Final Fantasy IV). There’s an undertone of potential here that also gives it a tinge of nostalgia, of loss, of grasping for something you can’t quite reach. Terra’s theme from Final Fantasy VI is another one that hits these same kind of notes. It’s great when the same tune can carry multiple thematic burdens for your game.

Track: “Schala’s Theme” (YouTube Link)
Game: Chrono Trigger (SNES, 1995)
Composer: Yasunori Mitsuda