Alexandria's Musicians Rank the Sounds That Shaped Gaming

From square-wave chiptune loops to full orchestral scores, we break down what makes game music unforgettable — one soundtrack at a time.

Recent Deep-Dives From the Desk

Fresh soundtrack analysis and composer profiles, written by working musicians

01

The Sega Genesis FM Sound That Defined an Era

How the Yamaha YM2612 chip gave Genesis-era composers a raw, biting tone that orchestral remasters still struggle to replicate faithfully.
02

Nobuo Uematsu's Quiet Ballads, Reconsidered

A look past the bombastic battle themes toward the understated piano and strings pieces that carry entire narrative arcs on their own.
03

Grant Kirkhope's Brass-Heavy Platformer Sound

Tracing how tuba and trombone lines turned Banjo-Kazooie and its peers into some of the most orchestrally ambitious 3D platformers of their generation.
04

Chiptune Revival: Why Modern Indies Still Use PSG Waveforms

Composers today choose square and triangle waves deliberately, not out of nostalgia alone but for the rhythmic clarity they still offer.
05

Scoring Dread: The Minimalism of Silent Hill

Akira Yamaoka's industrial textures and sparse percussion built dread without melody, a technique still referenced by horror composers today.
06

Yasunori Mitsuda and the Sound of Time Travel

Examining the leitmotif work across Chrono Trigger's score and how recurring themes tie disparate eras of the story together musically.

Send us your pick and our writers may feature it in an upcoming ranking or teardown.

Written by musicians, not just fans with opinions

Trained Musical Ears

Our contributors read scores and play instruments, so our analysis covers harmony and orchestration, not just vibes.

Composer-Focused Profiles

We go beyond track lists to study the people writing the music, from veteran studio composers to solo indie artists.

Alexandria's Gaming Circle

Built by a small group of local musicians and gamers who meet regularly to argue over rankings before publishing them.

Original Transcription Work

Several pieces include our own notation breakdowns of iconic themes, not just secondhand commentary pulled from elsewhere.

New teardowns, rankings, and composer spotlights added regularly

A rundown of tracks that pushed the NES's limited channels furthest, judged on melody, arrangement, and technical creativity.

Comparing early synthesized FF themes with their later live-recorded counterparts and what gets gained or lost in translation.

Long before Pokémon, Tanaka was shaping Metroid's isolating soundscape. We revisit his early Nintendo work.

A look at how Middle Eastern scales and instrumentation have appeared in recent soundtrack work, and where composers get it right.

Revisiting combat music across three console generations, ranked on tension-building and replay value rather than nostalgia alone.