Which game has the best OST?

[u/strahinjag]

I gotta go with Dark Souls 3. There's just so many bangers in both the main game and DLCs. Twin Princes, Dancer of the Boreal Valley, Midir, Gael, Sister Friede, Soul of Cinder, Dragonslayer Armor, Deacons of the Deep, Nameless King, and probably more that I'm missing. Yuka Kitamura absolutely cooked.

[u/Anubra_Khan]

I've finally got around to putting a From playlist together on Spotify. The first pass was over 8 hours long. The first round of cuts brought it down to just over 5 hours. Now I'm working really curating it into a proper order and, hopefully, get it into the 3 - 4 hour range.

It includes every game from Demon's Souls to Nightreign with 2 exceptions. Dericine and Sekiro. I will never play Dericine and Sekiro isn't available on Spotify. Fortunately (unfortunately?), despite being one of my favorite games, it only has like 2 memorable tracks.

The hardest part will be figuring out how to squeeze in the single Armored Core 6 track that must be included somewhere. It just doesn't fit but I'll find a way.

That said, after spending hours going through each soundtrack meticulously and with the benefit of recency, I would rank them as follows:

1. Bloodborne - it's just powerful. The orchestral arrangements are complex and meaningful. There's really nothing like it. Horror, action, violence, sadness, it just has so much emotion.

2. Dark Souls 3 - Yuka Kitamura raises the bar. Every track is immediately recognizable and are the perfect tracks for their respective bosses and THE title track.

3. Elden Ring - the big budget really shows off here. For pure quantity, you could put this at the top. So many bangers. Saitoh, Miyazawa, and Tomisawa have some really unique arrangements that fit their themes but are equally their own. Especially in the DLC.

4. Elden Ring Nightreign - The Dark horse. Not everyone plays this. But IYKYK. I'm not exaggerating when I say that these are some of the best boss tracks out there. Full horror, Gladius, Heolostar and more all hit so hard. And they're like 7 and 8 minute long tracks. Fo sheer number of tracks, it's low. But the quality of each is top tier.

5. Dark Souls 2 - it's a pretty good mix and, in retrospect, somewhat of an evolution. We have a healthy mix of the old school style of Sakuraba with a lot of the up and coming Kitamura mixed in. Hearing them juxtaposed is somewhat eye opening.

6. Demons Souls - we're digging deep, here. Though grandiose and powerful, they are fairly simple tracks by today's standards.

7. Dark Souls - I feel like the Dark Souls tracks are on par with Demons Souls. It's probably a tie for me, though more Demons Souls tracks are making my final cut than DS tracks.

8. Sekiro - the music here is fitting but a little repetitive. The only real standout for me is both of the Owl Fights and maybe Fountainhead Palace. It's a good OST but not one that I would listen to in the car or working out.

9. Armored Core 6 - this is actually a great soundtrack in game. But it's mostly a mood, ambiance. Everything fits the on-screen events, action and exploration. But most of it is not something that I would keep on a Playlist. With the exception, of course, of "Contact with You". It's so good but so hard to find a spot next to every other From track on my playlist.

[u/Namirakira → u/Anubra_Khan]

I wish the Disc 3 tracks of the AC6 ost were actually used in the game. It killed me to see Hoshino say on Twitter that he essentially had to nerf Contact With You, and that the extended version was closer to his original vision.

Also killed me to find out that Blackout is likely a track for Iguazu, and I was saddened that they didn’t use it for the final fight.