Still maybe unfinished but got all the links in and a few additions.
Mainstream
1. Persona Q - Footsteps of Time -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqCxONuUK3sPersona dungeon crawling music, but with a more mainline SMT vibe. Is it safe to call this prog rock? I don't even know what it is, but it's good. Captures the feel of a slick, slightly creepy but not really scary environment.
2. Shovel Knight - Strike the Earth! (Plains of Passage) -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqAYMZSOQaoA whole lot of indie retro platformers try to do the whole "recapture the sheer joy of playing a fun video game" thing. Shovel Knight might do it best, and this song exemplifies the theme.
--- Fromsoft Zone ---
3. Dark Souls - Gwyn, Lord of Cinder -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AB6sOhQan9YIf you traveled back in time and told the DL that Motoi Sakuraba would compose a soundtrack for a difficult swords and sorcery action RPG, would anyone expect the final boss battle theme to be THIS? Likewise, people who have only heard about the game secondhand may be surprised at how strong its atmophere is. It's explicitly inspired by and patterened after Icelandic saga, with a sense of earnestness its imitators lack. Nowhere does that shine through more clearly than here. No bombast, no great fanfare, just a one on one with a hero's echo, to extinguish the flickering embers of an age. The best final boss theme in gaming, for my taste.
4. Dark Souls - Nameless Song -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvvFnR0kJFwCompanion to the above, played after killing Gwyn, while the end credits scroll over a black screen. Emi Evans on vocals, the very same from NieR/Drakengard 3/NieR Automata's soundtracks. Supremely emotive. I can't listen to it without tearing up.
5. Dark Souls 2 - Majula -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O39qOA60Hm4The hub area, a vaguely unreal place where ghosts and scholars gather. Captures a bit of a home base feel that DS1's Firelink Shrine lacked, and helps sell the theme of DS2 as being a little more obviously "this place is magic and the areas aren't actually connected."
6. Bloodborne - Hail the Nightmare -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlQcKBUcgmASome ways into Bloodborne, after a certain boss, the game starts spawning extremely high-statted enemies that look like trash mob rag men in areas that only held trash mobs before. The player is all but guaranteed to be caught off guard and "die" to one of them... and when you do, you don't actually die, you get dragged off in a cutscene and wake up in a cell in a new, otherwise inaccessible, and extremely creepy area. It looks vaguely like the busy town you've been running around in, but there are no mundane houses or structures. All the architechture goes in twisting nonsense directions, and every building is some sort of jail or cathedral or empty edifice of unknown purpose. The entire area is almost completely deserted, no enemies except for a light scattering of the rag men, a couple of enemy hunters, and a few wild animals. And this track, playing on loop the entire time you're there. The best possible use of Ominous Latin Chanting.
7. Bloodborne - Lady Maria of the Astral Clocktower -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rdt5XNvPkcGotta have a clock tower boss in a Castlevania game, right? That's her in the picture there. Not pictured: her flipping around the room, dual wielding katanas set on fire with her own blood. Completely indulgent. AWesome.
--- Supergiant Zone ---
3. Bastion - Setting Sail, Coming Home -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDflVhOpS4EBastion's one of those games where every song deserves a nom. This is the ending, a medley of the two main vocal character themes.
4. Bastion - The Mancer's Dilemma -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HHqdLrTBwQLet's say, hypothetically speaking, you're a scientist in a slightly magical steampunk-western-frontier setting, and someone asks you to maybe build some sort of magitek nuke. For reasons. Just in case we need it...
10. Transistor - We All Become -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9O2Rjn1azcThe main theme played in all the trailers and used as a riff all throughout the game. Self explanatory.
11. Transistor - The Spine -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41tIUr_ex3gI guess "Weird boss themes that don't sound like they should be boss themes" is a theme of these noms. It is literally a gigantic technorganic spinal cord jammed into a city, you climb it and it tries to stab you and such while the song reinforces the cyberpunk sexual worldbuilding metaphors. Transistor is a weird game.
--- Yoko Taro Zone ---
12. NieR - The Wretched Automatons -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cj4V7V-ALGcThis area is kind of tangential in NieR itself, except that it sets up all the basic plot for Automata about robots slowly making their own civilizations in the ruins of humanity. I think I don't need to say much about the music quality in this series.
13. NieR - Kainé/Salvation -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dxcNHCFkf8Everybody ride the chimera-go-round!
14. Drakengard 3 - This Silence is Mine -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGbja6xxM2wEnd credits.
15. NieR Automata - Wretched Weaponry (medium/dynamic) -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMTEfT9NatMThis plays in a few places, but most prominently as a callback in spots evoking or linking to NieR 1 and The Wretched Automatons.
16. NieR Automata - Possessed by Disease (machine vocals) -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xT-h8cEZbMMy personal favorite track, played for a mostly plotless boss but really for the climax of 2B's character arc and a lot of other thematic elements.
17. NieR Automata - Memories of Dust -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnFX6GuiBSMDesert area, and stuff. No particular context, just a great song.
18. NieR Automata - End of the Unknown -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGkWhPBxzMsAnd now for something completely different, in which Keiichi Okabe deliberately breaks out of the NieR house style and goes back to his Tekken roots. One of the game's major themes is "hey, these people you're in conflict with are actual people, other points of view exist." Great song for conveying that while you (get) beat up (by) certain antagonists.
19. Drakengard - Thirteenth Chapter (Closing) -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rgr5iW73UJgIn which the gargantuan salt statue of a blasphemous goddess descends from beyond reality and sings the song that will end the world. Come on, you know you love it.
--- End Yoko Taro Zone ---
20. Melty Blood Actress Again - Kara no Kyoukai -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtXBNGrkZLkCheating in Yuki Kajiura anime music, awwwwwwww yeeeeeaaaaaahhhhh. It plays in a game. Ryougi is the most stylish flippy anime fighter in a game full of stylish flippy anime knife fighters. You want to play her just because it's Ryougi. Go watch the Kara no Kyoukai movies. Link is an extension because the song was exclusive to the PS2 version due to licensing issues.
21. Amnesia: The Dark Descent - Brennenburg Theme -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-clO2UE4vgwThe big "you are alone in a giant spooky castle (except when you aren't alone, which is maybe worse)" theme. It's saved for a ways into the game, when the player is past their initial disorientation and really starting to soak in the setting. Pure genre, but very effective - there's a reason this title gets called one of the best and most atmospheric horror games ever.
22. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance - Collective Consciousness -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYnDsr8z4iUI could also nom Rules of Nature and It Has To Be This Way, but ehhn, full dubstep is better and something people might've been exposed to less. Also this song only gets more and more topical with every day that passes. The only thing that doesn't ring true is that the real Republican Party could never come up with anyone half as charismatic or competent as the fictional Senator Armstrong.
23. Undertale - Another Medium -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLsuam9o9BAAmazing area theme.
24. Undertale - Bergentrückung/ASGORE -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfgmMPke7_kAmazing dramatic theme.
25. Sid Meier's Civilization IV - Baba Yetu -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJiHDmyhE1ANo one put this in yet?!
26. FTL: Faster Than Light - Mantis (Explore) -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKfjuBgUtwYStellar track. The Mantis are the galaxy's hyperaggressive slicey melee warrior race, but composer Ben Prunty knows better than to focus on that. There's a lot of space in space.
27. FTL: Faster Than Light - Lanius (Battle) -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mG6Ys2opFD0Revisiting a more upbeat piece from the Advanced Edition update. Every track in the game has two versions, "explore" for when you aren't in combat, and "battle" for when you are, seamlessly transitioning when an enemy appears on sensors or ceases to be a threat. Lanius ships are the actual most dangerous things in the game, if encountered late, so hearing this sector theme shift to the battle version is... intimidating.
28. Hotline Miami - Miami Disco -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5zTNr11kk8Also shamelessly getting Perturbator in here. Hotline Miami is about... well, mainly this aesthetic.
29. Risk of Rain - Coalescence -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysPtBjY8o_AMaybe not DL popular, but generally popular enough I'mma put it on main list instead of obscure list. Action roguelike, minimalist story, you're a crewmember on a cargo ship carrying assorted goods, it crashes on a strange planet full of neat environments and aliens who seem to have it out for you. This here's the music for the final stage, in which there's a nice sunset out as you finally make it back to the ship and fight to retake it and get off this rock. Oh yeah, there's some tough looking guy up in the bridge, he's acting like you're the bad guy here, but he's the asshole who teleported in and blew a hole in the cargo bays to begin with, so who cares what he thinks?
30. Professor Layton and the Curious Village - Layton's Theme -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFBKHSitIjoFairly self explanatory. Edutainment games continue to have the best music. Technically pre-2010 but I don't think anyone tossed it in back then.
31. Touhou Shinkirou ~ Hopeless Masquerade - The Lost Emotion -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZOnG5vAj60As if we're really getting off this train with no Touhou. Final boss theme from one of the newer fighters, in which a collection of masks tries to find the lost emotion of hope. Sparking a three or four way religious war and turning the human town into zombies were just incidental. You know how it goes.
32. Dangan Ronpa - DANGANRONPA -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeitvjG-dgITitle screen theme. Lets you know what you're in for? Kinda. But it's good.
33. Doom 2016/Doom 4 - BFG Division -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHRuTYtSbJQSometimes dreams do come true and stupid series reboots are actually really good games. With great music. Context should be self explanatory.
Niche Stuff Nobody In This Crowd's Played (But It's Good!)
1. 100% Orange Juice - Sweet Breaker's Theme (Dear Dragon) -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5_D6LKF45Q100% OJ is one of the world's most serious esports, perhaps best described as "Mario Party, but with chibis and mini RPG battles and stats instead of minigames." The part where there's a lot of RNG, but just enough strategy to be engaging, and the part where it ruins lives and turns people into pillars of solid salt? Those are the same. Anyway, whenever a character levels up, the music switches to their theme. Sweet Breaker's theme has nothing whatsoever to do with her personality or playstyle, it's just super fun and crazy. Hype ;evels off the charts when the piano starts running wild.
2. Sora - Le Train -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdXOYSAWJncThe Suguri/Sora series are extremely fast paced bullet hell shooters that are WAY better than they have any right to be, but usually overlooked because their insane pace, mechanics and visual confusion make them impenetrable to onlookers, even those used to other shmups. Music's a big part of that "way better" thing though, some killer electronic stuff. This is I think the most popular track? Engrish singing, always a fun time. Context, uhhhh... there's an anime war, everyone knows they're gonna die but hopes and dreams of a better world etc etc.
3. We Know The Devil - Incense (Smoke & Honey) -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb83zpkAIg8If you don't know what "industrial" and "harsh wall noise" mean, maybe be careful about clicking this. I doubt (m)any other people are going to find this to their taste, but eh if I'm repping the game at all I might as well go all in on the most effective track, right? WKTD is in a close tossup with Undertale for best and most important game of 2015. It is about... well, read the page:
https://datenighto.com/game/we-know-the-devilThis track plays when the incense is burned and the devil is known.
4. Mahoutsukai no Yoru (Witch on the Holy Night) - Five -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFZyw6mr2ZsBefore Kinoko Nasu turned to the dark side of mobage, he did actually finish one of his long-outstanding VN projects and give us Aoko's backstory. If you don't know what I just said, don't worry about it. Main character achieves her anime powerup mode and unlocks unstoppable bullshit magic lasers, that's all you need to know. It's really cool.
5. Hanakisou - Kenkyuusha (Researcher) -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWQ3LcqgpIQThis is apparently a yaoi game, with some sort of magic-science plot excuse for dramatic fated tragedy. I haven't personally played it, just listened to it and nodded and said "Yes. Akiko Shikata. Yes." Maybe I'm nominating this just because of that. Maybe because someone else played it and asked me to nom it for them because they didn't want to let the DL know they played the game. Regardless, real good song!
6. Alien Vendetta (Doom 2 custom levelset) - Misri Halek (Fight the Logic if You Can) -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eJloUHWkB8Gotta give it up for the old school MIDI crowd. A song doesn't have to be super orchestrated and hi-fi to be sweet. The specific level this was composed for is a sprawling Egyptian pyramid complex, quite famous in Doom and general FPS level design circles for how well crafted it is for its time.
7. Dustforce - Baryogenesis -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqJHi7gRTK8Maybe some people have at least seen this game. It's a masocore precision platformer, with a very high difficulty even for that genre, but a very chillaxed aesthetic about being a group of super ninja janitors. No real story or anything. This plays in later levels.
8. Qbqbqb - Armen -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVtZnpk8lbQThis is not even Qbqbqb the game in the video, I couldn't find much in the way of links. That's okay though. The game in the video is Soundodger and it makes equivalent use of the song. Qbqbqb itself is a spherical playing field piece drop color matching puzzle game, kind of like a mutant child of Tetris, Super Hexagon and Audiosurf. Totally abstract though. Just good music.
9. Our Darker Purpose - Time With Your Caring Friends -
https://natefenwicksmith.bandcamp.com/track/time-with-your-caring-friendsODP is an action roguelike similar to The Binding of Isaac, but with a heavier focus on combat, story and a strong kid-gothic creepy school atmosphere. This plays in the final set of floors, completely dark libraries populated no longer by rival students, but by the Administrators and the Caring Friends (creepy demon things.) Anyway they got a film composer to do the soundtrack and it owns.
10. VA-11 HALL-A - Every Day is Night -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jnD6dF0u_sAnother extremely excellent game, VA-11 is a cyberpunk bartending simulator. Which means, it's a visual novel with a small life sim element and a drink making minigame; there are no explicit dialogue choices, but you can affect conversations by serving patrons different drinks, sizes of drink, or amounts of alcohol. Emphasis is mostly on enjoying the slice of life cyberpunk setting, colorful characters and well crafted aesthetics, though. I mention all this not just to hype the game, but because the sound design in VA-11 is also unconventional: other than a few touchstone pieces between workdays, the player themselves sets the entire soundtrack. There's a library of some fifty or sixty ish tracks, and at the start of every work shift you set up the bar's jokebox with about ten of them to play in the background of that shift's conversations. Of course, you have free access to change the songs at any time, but most players won't unless something really inappropriate to the current scene comes on. Having to set it every day encourages keeping your favorites on the list and swapping out others to eventually hear everything. It all feels very natural, like you'd treat a real jukebox, and this sort of organic design is the game's real strength. As for the songs themselves, they all fit the cyberpunk MSX aesthetic, but also sound distinct and cover a wide variety of styles. This is probably my favorite, a nice rolling "nod your head and get in a good groove" kinda deal that fits almost any scene.
11. VA-11 HALL-A - Synthestitch -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzTvc8yFX40And another quite different track. You might not think this would work nearly as well for bartending, but it's surprisingly effective.
12. Knytt Underground - Ljus -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bQx06TLtuIAnother amazing atmospheric exploration platformer, and another game where it's hard to pick out a single standout track, because all the music is so atmospheric and blends well together. Ljus will do, I suppose. Originally an abstract rose garden in Within a Deep Forest, Ljus in Knytt Underground has been remodeled into a mental health and counseling center for assorted fey and undercreatures. It contains some of the trickier puzzles in the game, but counteracts the frustration with a calm, soothing atmosphere and some poignant conversations... and this music.
13. Rule of Rose - The Attic -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqiuG5ixVKEPre-2010 and certainly obscure, but dang, I finally got around to experiencing this game and it is great. Impossible to explain in a few sentences though. Silent Hill + Secret of Evermore + Lord of the Flies in a blender? You don't really need context for this though, it's more like the music establishes the context for the game.
14. I Wanna Kill The Kamilia 3 - Next Stage (Influka) -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQ6qZudoWPcI Wanna Be the Guy fangames get ultra sadistic, maybe you've seen some of them, maybe not. They tend to come in a few flavors: barebones spike jumping platforming, "avoidance" bullet hell boss fights usually choreographed to vocaloid or similar songs, or full adventure games similar to the original IWBTG. The Kamilia series are all three, sort of a masterpiece collection of rooms from other fangames tied together into a full game with more polish and production value than the originals. They're also brutally difficult even for the genre. Yes, a level above Dustforce. Yes, I know about Yotta. Anyway, this is kind of cheating and sneaking in a vocaloid song, but watch the video and tell me that isn't spectacular use.
15. I Wanna Kill The Kamilia 3 - Common World Domination (Doruppi) -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZ11-Lkq6-ISame deal as above. THIS one I'm just putting in because I love the base song.
