Sad game music?

What video game music do you find sad? I always found this one kind of sad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSUZZXGbipc

Heavy Rain, Final Fantasy X, The Last of Us.

I dare you to find sadder tunes.

i don't even remember the last of us' music besides that one guitar riff they played all the time.

anyway, like 99% of nier's soundtrack counts. it's easily one of the greatest videogame ost's of all time.

Re-Stung from Blazblue

Lost Odyssey's A Return Indeed, piano version. It's like the official Tear Jerker theme for the game as it almost ALWAYS plays when something sad happens. But interestingly enough the actual song is one of hope and the latter half of the song is a bit more joyus. It's like happiness after sorrow which only makes it more powerful.

Lower Value City from Skies of Arcadia, also made famous by SMBZ. If poverty, squander, and the utter failure of society had a theme, this would be it.]]

Artorias the Abysswalker sounds like a hero who has simply failed it all and succumbed to pure evil. This piece embodies the despair and regret for the once proud and noble who have long fallen from glory. I know a lot of people consider Gwyn's theme the saddest, but to me Artorias' is more sorrowful in how oppressive it sounds and how it relates to the character.

Granas Sanctuary from Grandia 2 is pretty sad sounding too.]]

The saddest ending/credits music of all time.

And also the saddest ending.

En'garde.

What a perfect way to break in the first and last PS 2 you will ever own.

This:

I get a little more teary-eyed every time I listen to it. One of those odd, yet beautiful gems of gaming.

Lost Odyssey is actually my favorite Uematsu score. I enjoy it more than anything he's done for final fantasy. Immortal Life and House of the Witch are really melancholic, powerful songs too. one of my favorite game scores in general.

I'll be honest and say I like Gwyn's theme a lot more, partly because I think the composition itself is better and because it uses actual instruments as opposed to synth. i'm not sure why sakuraba got demoted to subpar-sounding synth for the dlc and dark souls 2, but i really disliked that and most of the compositions.

i do like artorias' song though, it's the best boss theme in the dlc.

edited 1st Oct '14 10:10:49 PM by wehrmacht

Eh Synths are not bad and DS 2 had a few winners as well, such as Velstadt, Sihn, and Nashandra's theme(which I honestly find to be one of the best themes in the whole franchise along with O&S). Soul series' soundtrack is a little indistinct for the most part but the high points are pretty high.

I agree with the rest of Aot A DLC's tracks being bland although I can't say I noticed an instrumental difference in them. In fact both DS 1/2's soundtracks sound like they were made with the same thing to me but maybe it's because of my limited knowledge on such.

I personally felt like Sakuraba put little to no effort into DS 2's score. I did like a couple of the songs (Vendrick, Nashandra, skeleton lords, mostly), but even then i don't like them as much as the songs in ds1 (gwyn, iron golem, gaping dragon, o&s, sif, gwynevere, etc). even the songs i didn't care for that much felt like he was actually trying, as opposed to just making chaotic strings with little to no discernible or bland melodies in ds2.

that's just me though.

on a different note, i have to rep MONACA again and mention drakengard 3. this song in particular. most of the soundtrack doesn't sound like this, so this was a nice stand-out.

edited 1st Oct '14 10:32:35 PM by wehrmacht

i love you for posting a song from demon's crest, that game is so underrated.

Yeah. It needs more love

Dare accepted. (Especially in context. Beware spoilers in video comments if you want to avoid them.)

Honorable mention:

Answers (Final Fantasy XIV); currently my personal favorite song in any genre, but it is less sad and more hopeful-bittersweet and emotionally complex, and I almost never fail to get at least a little choked up.

Medal of Honor; I've not played the actual game but having heard this with Video Games Live, it always struck me as an excellent Due to the Dead war movie sort of piece.

edited 2nd Oct '14 3:05:55 AM by Elle

Excuse me, I think I've got something in my eye.

Two Persona songs in a row? Sure.

In the context of the series, a track as somber as this is a little out of left field.

LINK DUMP AHEAD

Yuki Kajiura and Xenosaga:

• Hepatica - KOS-MOS
• I Love You, Sincerely
• Hepatica#3 - I Believe in You

Motoi Sakuraba:

• Valkyrie Profile:
  • Through a Thin Haze
  • Chamber of the Heart
  • Epic Poem to Sacred Death
  • Tragic Scene of Doom
  • To the Eternal Land
• Star Ocean:
  • Rena's Theme
  • So Alone, Be Sorrow
  • Whistle On the Wind
• Tales Of Hearts:
  • Spir Maze - Sorrow
  • Richea's Lullaby. The R version made it a vocal track, and it's even more amazing.

Oh, and for something that's not Sakuraba: Dot Hack: Aura's Theme.

Okay, enough tears for one day.

edited 3rd Oct '14 3:53:35 AM by lu127

To be honest, it's hard to separate songs from the emotional memories of the context you heard them in, so most of these are "I really liked the scenes in this game, so here's what was playing while I cried". Not to say that good music can't enhance a scene, but if you lack any attachment at all, they won't do much for a stranger.

To prove my point, this is currently the song most capable of bringing a tear to my eye, and I think we can all agree that it is by no means a sad song.

A young girl lives, and an Old Man dies.

@Wehrmacht: Frankly, I already strongly disliked Sakuraba's work in the first Dark Souls. It's a disjointed, borderline amateurish mess that sounds like the work of an overzealous sophomore student of classical music wildly masturbating over Bach and Händel. By comparison, Kida Shunsuke's score for Demon's Souls was sparse and a bit repetitive due to the relatively short tracks, but the chamber ensemble orchestration actually worked in its favour, and the individual themes felt organic and well representative of their respective scenarios, rather than messy, pseudo-epic background blaring. Gwyn's theme in Dark Souls is really the only track I can say I genuinely liked at all, but it also reminds me a lot of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, so there's that .

By the by, Bloodborne is apparently being scored by some western composer named Michael Wandmacher. Let's see what comes of it.

edited 2nd Oct '14 11:00:38 AM by TAPETRVE

• Unwavering Emotions from Pokemon Black and White
• Dust to Dust from Final Fantasy XIII
• Roxas’ Theme from Kingdom Hearts II
• Musique Pour La Tristesse de Xion from Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days

That's enough for now.

edited 2nd Oct '14 11:11:48 AM by GavsEvans123