The Video Game Critic

As well as providing kickass gameplay, Sonic the Hedgehog provides kickass music. So which game in your opinion has the best soundtrack?

My personal favorite is Sonic 3D Blast on the Genesis. The quality and resolution of techno pop is NUTS, and "Volcano Valley" and "Rusty Ruin" especially have awesome themes. Oh yeah, and the bass arrangement rules.

A runner up is Sonic Adventure. Some of the music is too cheesy for my tastes, but there's also a lot of styles that I do like. The soundtrack had something for everyone.


Honorable mentions

Sonic 3 & Knuckles (Duh)
Sonic 1
Sonic 2
Sonic CD

Thoughts?

Don't know if I have a favorite sound track, but I find myself humming the Green Hill Zone theme often enough to consider it a favorite tune.

Sonic 1's soundtrack is pretty much perfect. Green Hill Zone is the tune from that game everybody remembers, but the rest are brilliant as well. Labyrinth Zone in particular is deceptively infectious.

Chemical Plant Zone from Sonic 2 and Ice Cap Zone from Sonic 3 are my favourites really adrenaline pumping.

Also Sonic 1 on the Master System has a Janet Jackson style tune (can't remember which Zone) which always gets me humming.

As my favorite franchise, it would be hard to find a #1 pick. So here's some of my favorites:

Sonic 1: "Green Hill", "Star Light"
Sonic 2: "Emerald Hill", "Aquatic Ruin", "Oil Ocean"
Sonic 3: "Icecap Zone"
Sonic & Knuckles: "Flying Battery"
Sonic 3D Blast (Genesis): "Rusty Ruin", "Diamond Dust", "Volcano Valley", "The Final Fight"
Sonic Adventure: "Station Square", "Emerald Coast", "Mystic Ruin", "Egg Carrier", "Twinkle Park (Pleasure Castle)", "Sadness", "Unbound", "The Past"
Sonic Adventure 2: "Escape from the City", "Chao Garden (Hero Version)", "Radical Highway", "White Jungle"
Shadow the Hedgehog: "I Am", "Main Menu"

On a side note: since Sonic Generations (Xbox 360) supports custom soundtracks, I like throwing my love for 80's music and classic rock into the mix, but only the songs that are appropriately upbeat (i.e. "Blue Monday", "Ace of Spades", etc.). If I ever get a capture card, I just might share it on YouTube.

I was inside a local game store recently and heard "Escape from the City" from Sonic Adventure 2 playing in the store. It's such a good song that it inspired me to finally pull SA 2 off my Dreamcast shelf, and I've been slowly playing through it the past couple months. Every time I boot it up, I replay the first level again, just to hear "Escape from the City" (and because it's a great level). So forget just Sonic--I think "Escape from the City" is in the top 5 vocal video game songs of all time.

As far as overall soundtrack, Sonic 1 for Genesis is the most memorable to me, mainly because of Green Hill zone.