Virtual Playground
music from video games
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I opted for a more literal theme for this month’s show and only played music from video games. I would consider myself a lightly active nostalgia-oriented gamer — I might play 0-1 bigger RPG once a year, and then dabble in lighter DS, GameCube, or PlayStation games, or check in on my Animal Crossing island every few months — but I become heavily invested in the lore of games that I am attached to.
Music can really make or break the spirit of a video game, and a great soundtrack is a key part of what makes a game open my heart in some way, rather than just serve as banal entertainment. You can really tell when game developers invest in the soundtrack, whether that be large corporations like Nintendo cultivating a long history at the cutting edge of game audio, or short-lived indie game houses like Love-de-Lic employing composers with eclectic repertoire and giving them creative influence over the game’s storytelling through sound.
I played a few songs each from two of my favorite games that I wanted to highlight — EarthBound (aka Mother 2) and Moon: Remix RPG Adventure. In the show I referenced an interview with EarthBound’s (1994) composers (Hiroshi Kanazu, Keiichi Suzuki, Hirokazu Tanaka) where they discuss their influences for the game soundtrack, which include King Tubby, Brian Wilson, Chick Corea, and Weather Report to name a few. Many people have written at length about EarthBound’s music, but aside from the music itself, I remain impressed at how they were able to create such a compelling score and fit it on a 3.2MB SNES ROM. The average MP3 these days is a larger file size than that. Like, they didn’t have to go so hard making a dub theme that plays in the hospital … but they did … and I thank them for that.
EarthBound’s followup Mother 3 (2006) expanded the significance of its music in-game when it introduced the ability to make combos during boss fights by syncing your button taps with the beat of the music. They composed some nefariously off-kilter beats for some of these battles.
Moon: Remix RPG Adventure (1997) includes several original works in its soundtrack credited to Thelonious Monkees (teehee) but it also includes a wildly diverse assortment of music by over 30 independent Japanese artists, such as The Sleepwalk who made dreamy and occasionally nightmarish experimental shoegaze in the 90s through the 00s. I played a song by The Sleepwalk on the show called “warp-wet-woods” that is just…so good. (Shout out to Gus for sending me it, which led me to play the game.)
I played another song from Moon game called “A meu Pai peço firmeza” or “Father grant me the strength of God” which is a hymn sang in Portuguese from Santo Daime — a religion originating in the northwest corner of the Amazon in Brazil. I am charmed wondering how this hymn from the Amazon ended up on this 90s Japanese game soundtrack, but it goes to show how when creative teams are compelled to create something original, magic can happen. I could tell how much devotion was put into the game’s creation simply by playing it, but reading interviews with the game designers really solidified the feeling in my heart that this game was made with deep intention, and this makes it stand the test of time. Moon was translated and localized for Western audiences for the first time in 2022, revealing itself only quite recently to a new audience of gamers who are interested in the confluence of video games, philosophy, and music.
When you make something in a pure way, unfettered by the misunderstandings of adulthood, this is what you get. I hope it becomes one of your most fondly remembered games.
— Kenichi Nishi, writer for Moon: Remix RPG Adventure
Anyways, I might harp on about game soundtracks more in the future, but that’s enough for now.
Featured poems:
Professor Oak’s Pokémon poetry 😬
Olivia’s poem from Grim Fandango
Originally aired live on WXGC 90.7 FM Acra / wavefarm.org on April 9, 2025. WGXC relies on listener support. Support community radio! Make a donation to WGXC.
Tracklist
7pm (Sunny) / Various Composers (Animal Crossings: New Horizons)
Clarity / Kettel (Ibb and Obb)
Light of Life / Hirokazu Tanaka (Mother1+2)
Dire, Dire Docks (Underwater) / Koji Kondo (Super Mario 64)
スケルツァーレ ア ノッテ (Track 31) / Melagrana (Moon: Remix RPG Adventure)
Gameplay BGM / Watanabe Akihito, Chiba Daisuke (Acid)
System Settings - Internet Settings (Nintendo Wii)
warp-wet-woods / The Sleepwalk (Moon: Remix RPG Adventure)
Pyramid / Akio Ohmori, Ritsuo Kamimura, Keiichi Suzuki, Hirokazu Tanaka (Mother 2)
Hospital Dub / Akio Ohmori, Ritsuo Kamimura, Keiichi Suzuki, Hirokazu Tanaka (Mother 2)
Sanctuary Guardian / Akio Ohmori, Ritsuo Kamimura, Keiichi Suzuki, Hirokazu Tanaka (Mother 2)
Aquatic Ambience / Grant Kirkhope (Donkey Kong Country)
Hanging Waters / Tim Follin (Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future)
You Lost / Kenta Nagata (1080 Snowboarding)
Cat Cemetery / Urotsuki (Yume 2kki)
Underwater Passage (Lake Lamode) / Koji Kondo, Shiho Fujii, Naoto Kubo (Super Mario Odyssey)
Dream Suite / Manaka Kataoka, Atsuko Asahi (Animal Crossing: New Leaf)
Title Theme / Koji Kondo (Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker)
A meu Pai peço firmeza / Riverside Inauini People (Moon: Remix RPG Adventure)
Kakariko is Saved / Koji Kondo, Toru Minegishi, Asuka Ota (The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess)
Further dreaming
The soundtrack for Moon: Remix RPG Adventure is available here for interested parties. You can buy the game on Switch or on Steam. It comes with a short manual and I recommend actually reading it to understand the game’s systems for time and health. It’s a complex game, where certain events only happen at certain times and in specific succession with very subtle, if any, hints… and while I admire the game for rewarding an aimless virtual wander with a great soundtrack… at this point in my life, with what little time I currently have to devote to gaming, I am not at all above playing with a spoiler-marked walk through.
This was a fun read on RA about how Tekken’s soundtrack came to be. I’m quite interested in 90s game soundtracks that incorporate rave culture and DnB, grime, jungle music. In retrospect, that time in gaming seems a little like a flash in the pan — a hot sec when video game and underground music culture were walking in step toward new boundaries, exposing fans of one to the other and vice versa.
<3 <3 love this mix ty for including it in the post!!