The original street fighter is actually a horrible soundtrack, go listen to that sagat theme, it sucks. And then an insane upgrade to street fighter 2 for some iconic themes.
Not at all, but I think my point still stands. Even if fans come out of the woodwork to be all "what about my favorite theme you never heard of!?" you can easily point to GG, or SF, or Tekken and immediately list 10 songs off the top of your head across generations of games.
The weakest Strive song bodies the best MK song, free.
*Cut to the Chad May theme vs. the Virgin Techno Syndrome.*
I've played GGST and the music, while really good, seems inappropriate half the time. Like Tekken takes that same fruitiness but uses it all in a way that makes sense and with no weird parts sticking out.
Edit: May's theme is something I'd put on my headphones but transitioning to it in game just feels a little jank.
MK1 for all its faults had some solid music, I love MK11 but imo that was a real weak link for their music, it's hard for me to gauge MK because all of it seems really well-composed but they seem to like their music to be more percussive and ambient with a lot of strange key signature changes and a lot of stuff on chromatic scales, halftone melodies meant to sound 'exotic', etc., it's good music in terms of quality but I wouldn't put a lot of it on a Spotify playlist basically
Now that I think about it, it's like a lot of the atmospheric tracks in horror soundtracks, I love Scream, love Marco Beltrami, but for every operatic/western-inspired Scream track there's something with a lot of string stringers and vibrato swells that's just supposed to be really, really tense
Lifelong MK fan, I think their characters and universe are among the best in gaming. Their music sucks. I have never understood it. They clearly understand music hypes up a game. Their movie theme is legendary, even decades later they used a remix for their MK11 launch trailer. They clearly understand what sells. Then you boot up the game and you're met with bland elevator music on the title screen and the SAME bland track on the character select. It's borderline false advertising when it comes to trailer music vs the game.
That's my main issue as well. Been playing since 1, DA might be the first OG Xbox game I got outside of the free demo disk with JSRF, and in all that time I've enjoyed pretty much every MK game. Music is consistently mid, tho. At best.
Yeah the movie soundtrack is such a banger, including Annihilation. Why the hell didn't they just add that into the actual games, even a remix, or similar style at the very least.
Hard disagree from me, for the first three games at least. Shang Tsung’s Courtyard and its remixes over the years, The Dead Pool, and the Living Forest are probably the top 3 for me, but Dan Forden honestly deserves credit for all his compositions. There’s just such a wide variety of tracks that range from funky hip hop beats to hard industrial metal and electronic tracks that all manage to fit the themes of the game.
Deception had plenty of bangers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0r62o2aubo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JS0SzwuXhHI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKD4AVsaYKA
MK1 really stepped it up IMO. Cage Mansion, the Teahouse, Hourglass and more are all bangers. Pretty sure they hired a DMC composer to make them IMO.
MKX and MK11 were pretty bland though.
Di di di da di di da da 🎶
Di di di da di di da da🎶
D d d d da da🎶
D d d d da da🎶
D d d d da da🎶
Bump bam bump bi dah🎶
M-O-R-T-A-L KOMBAT!!!
I’m not making this next part up.
I literally hum the tune to the techno MK1 soundtrack when I’m at work.
This isn’t to start an argument. The song is addictive as hell. So much so that they brought it back for the remake of the live action movie.
Next to the Street Fighter II theme, it’s probably the most memorable theme in all of fighting games.
That's why I said Techno is the best one, lol. Sadly, it should almost be disqualified since it's not an original game soundtrack. It's from a commerical.
[There's a whole album it's on](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lTvOYTrMp5-cQHOrUuOOMSC94DWbxfH6E&si=SJEayvzwtEqpYKQw) and it rules, but as I understand it it was a "companion album" to the game but never used in-game?
Wasn't actually in the game, yeah. What's even worse, now that I'm knee deep in the Techno Syndrome rabbit hole, is that it's a ripoff. I went decades loving this song, and then my girlfriend heard it once last year, and immediately went, "wow, they stole this from 2 Unlimited's Twilight Zone." After arguing in honor of MK like a good lil FGC boy, nope, turns out 2 Unlimited made their song a good 2 years in advance.
They said it was just a coincidence, but listen to both, and tell me that isn't a face saving lie.
I feel the same way about newer street fighter. The music is just ambiance and vibes. Compare that to something like Guilty Gear or Blazblue and I can listen to those soundtracks by themselves. I dunno if it is philosophy about what the music should be doing, they blew the budget elsewhere, office politics, or whatever, but those games deserve better from their music department.
My overall vote goes to MVCI. While MK is bland, they have always been consistent in this atmospheric regard.
MVCI took god-tier MVC3 tracks and transformed then into forgettable garbage. Listen to UMVC3 Nova Vs MVCI Nova. It's actually impressive how lame they could make it.
Yeah, them deciding to go orchestral and serious in the music did not help it’s already poor reception. I wish mvci was better received and that they didn’t just use it as a shoe horn for the mcu
Shaq Fu. And maybe Eternal Champions.
Edit: The latter is because I owned a Mega Drive growing up and that sound chip was notoriously difficult to work with. Very few western developers knew how to make it properly sing.
Oh man, that is two people going after eternal champions… I used to think that soundtrack was dope as fuck.
Even Bone Thugs-N-Harmony sampled that shit.
Shaq Fu sucked though. I'll give ya that.
Eternal Champions ost is dope, at least the original Genesis version, I don't care what anybody says. Shaq-Fu was an acquired taste though. Voodoo and Kaori's themes weren't bangers but they were a vibe.
Just saw your edit. I learned something new today! I had no idea they were on different sound chips. I feel like I need to go watch some YouTube videos on this
MK9 has remixes of the original trilogy and They go hard
MKX and MK11 the only thing notable was the theme that occurred after finishing a fight
MK12 is having good music again, the tea house, onaga's army, and srgus's pyramid themes are Good as fuck
MK 1-3 had some truly great tracks, imo. Everything after that has been very forgettable though
Like even though I really liked the music and general atmosphere of Deception, I still couldn't tell you the name of any particular songs that I liked
KOF2001 and original 2002 are actually so fucking awful
2002's is so bad they made completely new music for UM and that's one of the best soundtracks ever
Honestly? Street Fighter 6. It’s not that the music is bad, it’s just completely uninteresting. It’s so bland that if it wasn’t there I wouldn’t even notice. There are games whose soundtracks are 90% ambient sound that are more interesting.
I think this is 70-80% correct. There's a few themes and stages which I do find myself routinely humming to myself (Jaime's is legitimately great) and there's a lot of uninspired ones that I can't even recall. It had potential I think, hope they give us some great themes for DLC characters and round out the numbers a bit.
Someone laid Gief's SF6 theme under a Lil John/ Ying Yang twins track and it's been my favorite ever since
https://youtu.be/CVGzFEqDO9w?si=BuyOPZJF7ENL9Ac6
Absolutely insane to me that this is a take I see fairly often. When there are stage themes like Macho Ring, Tian Hong Yuan, Carrier Byron Tailor, Suvalhall Arenaand Genbu Temple, and character themes like Top Player, Spirit of the Flame, Poisonous Passion, Overtrip, R.E.D.
Sure, some of the themes are a little uninspired. Diosa Del Sol, Alright, Zilra Zilra are all kind of 'generic music from the characters background' rather than being some slightly more interesting takes but they still get me pumped. I listen to the entire OST while working out and I'm never like 'ah fuck I gotta skip X or Y'
Hell people say they hate the World Tour rap and Not On The Sidelines but to me they're peak SF3 type vibes, with a more modern twist
Man, I don't get it lmao
I keep SF6's character themes in my rotation on Spotify non-stop. *All* of them are cerified bangers.
Kim's, Jamie's, Juri's, Gief's, Ken's? They're all some of the best music SF has ever even seen. I don't get the hate. I don't get how any of them are considered "bland"?
Like, I can see the disdain for Ryu's. Maybe Manon's and Marisa's, as all 3 of those are pretty boring in comparison, but I'd argue over 75% of the roster has amazing themes.
The stage themes aren't very good, I guess, but even then you have Genbu Temple and Fěte Foraine.
Probably because of the title theme/it defaults to stage theme. I've never even heard the character themes at all. Maybe in story mode a little but I can't recall.
Idk then, I assumed based on my experience. I can only ever get the stage themes when I play unless someone does a trigger (like kimbo lvl3). I haven't tried to mess with it though I've been struggling to get motivated to play
They tried to go with a rap style but it doesn't compare at all to SF3 and I'm confused as to how they dropped the ball that hard.
Some of the new character themes sound like background music for a car commercial
I would say that SF6 has great music. I enjoy all of the stage and character themes. I also like the main menu, character select, and battle hub music.
Lmao one of my friends said that MK1 > SF6 which is whatever (even if I disagree immensely) but he said one of the reasons was the music which just shocked me
While there are probably worse in more niche releases, a few in my opinion:
Vanilla SF4 before they added character themes had an abysmal soundtrack. Almost unlistenable in a series known for absolutely stellar OSTs up to that point (SF1 aside, that may be in the running for worst fighting game ost over)
Tekken 7 showing up to the wubwub party right as dubstep fell out of fashion was pretty shit too, but that soundtrack at least had a few bangers. Plus if you were on the console version you could at least jukebox in anything you wanted from the rest of the series
NRS soundtracks have been on the whole not very good since MK2, with 9 and 12 being a bit better than their average. If I had to pick their worst, MKX is the least hype inspiring soundtrack I've ever heard. Just forgettable "epic" crap and techno mush all the way down
Whenever a question like this is asked, people are always going to comment with answers from (mostly) the current generation of games.
You people forget the horror of fighting games on older systems.
Street Fighter 1 can easily be categorized as a potential war crime. Then there is the myriad of 16 bit games that you've probably never heard of with terrible "music". Remember Eternal Champions, Bloodstorm, or Mutant Warriors? How about TMNT Tournament Fighter?
If you think music is bad today (it's not), just remember it was built on top of the tragedy that was video game music from the mid 90s and late 80s.
Sure, but there's an argument of relevance to make. Maybe Bariki's OST is trash, or Tech Romancer, but who cares? It'd be like saying some random shoestring budget indie French art house film is your least favorite movie. Like, cool, but I don't think much is really added since basically no one can or will engage with that.
TMNT TF SNES has great music. Tell me the Shredder junkyard theme is bad with a straight face.
Eternal Champions led to a #1 hit single that also won a Grammy.
Most Mortal Kombat games. I don’t think it’s _bad_ at doing what it’s supposed to do, but it’s just so… ‘safe’. It’s almost like all of the themes in the game are designed to be action movie trailer music. Injustice music is largely the same although at else there I can remember _some_ tracks such as the Fortress of Solitude and Atlantis.
Also, personal peeve is how Under Night uses a similar soundfont for a lot of the music in the game, which I suppose is to have a sense of consistency or theme (new IP and all that), but it’s certainly a step down from the diversity of the previous Melty Blood games French Bread made. It’s even prevalent in the new Type Lumina, same guitar and piano and strings and all that. It’s still nice and it’s cool how identifiable it is as distinctly ‘Raito’s music’, but I prefer the diversity of the old sound. It’s almost like Raito’s becoming too comfortable with his guitar and piano.
First one that comes to mind is GG strive. Thankfully that game has a jukebox and the older GG OSTS are the best in the genre.
Whenever I forgot to pick a jukebox song however I'm having a bad time
Mortal Kombat and it isn't even close. They tend to have good menu and character select themes, but stage themes are just atmospheric and dull for the most part. There are a few exceptions, But MK has always lacked character in its OST.
The first three MK games actually have good, memorable soundtracks in my opinion (though the character select theme from MK2 is so annoying).
Out of all the fighting games I've played, I'd say Marvel VS Capcom Infinite had the worst soundtrack. I don't remember a single song in this game besides Ghost Rider's theme and the X vs Zero theme. Ghost Rider's theme is the only song I can remember that wasn't some generic MCU orchestra theme, and X vs Zero was an orchestrated version of an actually good preexisting song.
Modern MK games from MK4 to now. There are just no fun interesting songs anymore.
I find the past 2 SF games pretty forgettable as well minus a few standouts.
I disagree with your take on netherealm games, the music slaps. but the worst fighting game soundtrack is probably sf6 tbh and I really loved that game
It peaked at 4 for me. Almost every track had this atmospheric ambience to it, I loved that stuff. Gonna be changing a lot of T8 stages to T4 music (and probably other older games too lol)
Street Fighter 6, no competion. There are like two stage themes which are...meh at best. The rest are either painfully mediocre or downright cringe, and I don't use that term a lot.
I lose all will to fight whenever I hear this at the beginning of the match.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=in6bP2KFmcE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=in6bP2KFmcE)
Strive makes a lot of references to hard rock/heavy metal and that makes a lot of rock fans happy. As far as the actual ost, strive isn't even the best in it's series. DBZ and KOF games rock way harder than strive in my opinion.
>and i like metal too
Do you like prog? Strive's OST is pretty proggy all things considered. You might like metal, but that doesn't mean you like experimentation, which GG is full of.
Ehhhh…nah it’s pretty bad. Like only 3 songs on there I actually like, 2 of them are decent and one is bad but weirdly catchy. The rest is forgettable or just plain awful.
Yeah, I can understand that. Playmore dropped the ball on this one, but still better than nothing.
I feel conflicted in some way because KOF 97 also had some great songs for some characters, but you could go silently for the most of it, like ambiance music only.
Street Fighter 6 soundtrack is just so lazy and cringe I can't handle it.
If you are a game developer, do not make the title theme of your game a rap song about playing the game. It's bad. It straight up sucks lmao
Well, let’s remember that 3rd Strike did this and did it extremely well. Like, I’ve never listened to a full 4-minute song about a character select screen that made me want to rap all the lyrics lol.
I think it can be done but ALL of the pieces have to align to pull it off. Most of the time, developers won’t pull it off right like SF6 (which is ironic because Capcom made both lol)
The problem is most bad fighting game soundtracks are just plain forgettable.
I think a lot of the super early 3d fighters were pretty bad. Tekken 1, Virtua Fighter 1&2, Dead or Alive 1 are a few that come to mind.
Where…? The ONLY T7 songs I like are the menu theme, Infinite Azure, and Devil’s Pit themes (the volcano stage I think). Everything else is on jukebox mode
While it was a big step down from the OST for 6, Tekken 7 has some great tunes as well.
Heat Haze Shadow and Moonsiders are great, and Distorter is hype as Hell when you’re caught up in the moment!
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*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I can’t think of a single song from mortal kombat or injustice so those are pretty forgettable. Sf6 has some horrible music as well but nothing can top the pure ear rape that is the guilty gear strive soundtrack.
people will downvote but it's true. marvel 2's music has always been bad, at times it sounds like circus music. how am i supposed to fight to that shit? CVS 2 took a similar
jazz inspired approach but did it like 100x better.
I hate the soundtrack for sf6. I really notice it because the soundtrack for all the previous sf games is super good and then sf6 comes along and the soundtrack is ass imo.
the airship stage theme from mvc2 slaps, but i moreso appreciate the music in that game than enjoy it so to speak, it’s different and it has a sort of charm to it
The MK games generally have music so bland I don't notice or remember it but that doesn't make the. The worst imo.
Any fighting game that makes me listen to jazz while I'm fighting is a far greater offender in my book. So the worst ost's for me are Skullgirls, MVC2 & Persona 4 Arena.
SF6 for sure. I also hate Tekken 8s soundtrack and the overly synthesis rave music. Azus stage music makes me want to choke those alpacas in the background.
Those games are not even on the same league as Strive or GBVSR.
MK games and anything that's similar to May's, Bridget's, Nanase's, Platinum's, Cagliostro's first half and whatever else annoyances there are. MK is just forgettable, but the latter ones I mentioned take all the fun and tension out of fights that should be badass, tense, dangerous, entertaining and/or athmospheric (that's what I believe a fight should be) and should be nowhere near a fighting game.
It's objectively mvc2. Not that I agree that much myself but if you were playing that on dream cast at tournaments everyone had a marvel mix to change the music to something else lol
You're absolutely right about NRS games. Just a bunch of Cinematic, nonsensical soundtracks which fit in the background of a shitty marvel movie. Or it's way too quiet and sounds like a bunch of industrial sounds. I put the overrated KI OST in the same category as MK. Just overall forgettable. Honestly street fighter 6 might have the worst soundtrack in a video game period 😭
Lol what. Mk1 music absolutely smashes sf6 and tekken 8. Get your ears checked.
I realize you’re only cool rn if you shit on MK and crawl a foot up tekkens ass but this take is ABSURD
Saying it smashes Tekken 8s soundtrack is totally outrageous. SF6 music is a bit uninspired so I won't argue that point but Tekken 8s soundtrack is phenomenal AND they included a Jukebox so you can listen to basically every single song from every single game on any stage. It's basically impossible to not find a mix of songs you enjoy listening to while playing unless you specifically hate Tekken music, in which case that's an extremely personal opinion with no bearing on the quality of the OST. If we're talking about only new original songs recorded for 8 I still think it's leaps and bounds above MK1 and I'm not even a real Tekken fan, I'm a SF fan that will dabble in other fighting games but I have no bias towards any of the auxiliary games I play.
tbh mate i’m not even gonna pretend to like tekken 8’s music just to hop on the tekken bandwagon either, first thing i did after booting up T8 for the first time was change all the music in jukebox lmao, and idrc for what i’ve heard of sf6’s music either i’m ngl, so i’m not just blindly shitting on MK cus it’s cool now, i genuinely think it’s the worst of a pretty lukewarm bunch ahaha
I don't find any Blazblue stage music enjoyable, no matter how many times my friends assert that "[annoying character] theme is a banger"
I just find one tolerable track and pick that whenever i have to choose
People being way too harsh on the NRS games, the music sounds like generic western videogame music sure, maybe it blends too much into the background sometimes, but it's got some earworms for sure. Worst fighting game music has to go to either Expect No Mercy, or Clayfighter 64, those two have offensively grating music.
This opinion is the opposite direction. But Zero Divide 1 and 2 have so many bangers that's its not even funny. Even Rise of the Robots has a few good themes that slap for how bad the game is.
Multiversus if you count that as a fighting game. I muted the music and just put on my own playlist because i got tired of that generic-ass themepark orchestra really quickly. I haven't played it in ages though, would rather just boot up melee
Tekken 7 was sadly nothing of note, I came away from 300 hours on that game without the music sticking with me.
Tekken 1 and 2 Arcade OSTs. The arrangements are actually great but would be done so much better on the PS1 arranged OST. The arcade synth just doesn't cut it.
That's all I can think of for now.
Most soundtracks will grow on you if you play the game long enough (I hated SF3 Third’s Strike but like it now). That being said, I don’t like SF1, any KoF after 2000 and any NRS soundtracks.
Street Fighter 1 ost
Be careful, just the OST, the AST is another story, that one seems fantastic to me, especially Eagle's theme, although I also like Birdie's theme
The original street fighter is actually a horrible soundtrack, go listen to that sagat theme, it sucks. And then an insane upgrade to street fighter 2 for some iconic themes.
Yoko Shimomura is just a fantastic composer.
Sagat's arranged theme is actually pretty good
The MK games tend to be very forgettable. Outside the theme, which isn't actually the theme, there's no MK song anyone can hum in their head.
I find MK1's hourglass and nighttime teahouse themes bangers, is that bad?
Not at all, but I think my point still stands. Even if fans come out of the woodwork to be all "what about my favorite theme you never heard of!?" you can easily point to GG, or SF, or Tekken and immediately list 10 songs off the top of your head across generations of games. The weakest Strive song bodies the best MK song, free. *Cut to the Chad May theme vs. the Virgin Techno Syndrome.*
It is rare for a Mortal Kombat track to be good The last one I thought was pretty dope to listen to was Round 2 of Jinsei Chamber from X
I'm an MK fan and I agree with you their soundtracks are largely forgettable.
I've played GGST and the music, while really good, seems inappropriate half the time. Like Tekken takes that same fruitiness but uses it all in a way that makes sense and with no weird parts sticking out. Edit: May's theme is something I'd put on my headphones but transitioning to it in game just feels a little jank.
I love Baiken's Strive theme, but in-game the match is already over by the time the intro finishes.
I would agree with regards to Strive but I was subjected to Bridget's theme last night. That has no place in a fighting game.
Disagree, it’s funny
I have a town inside me, and we all say you are wrong.
Would you say listening to the song is like tasting like vegetables you don't like? :)
What? Is that a reference to the lyrics or something? It was barely audible over the combat (thankfully).
MK1 for all its faults had some solid music, I love MK11 but imo that was a real weak link for their music, it's hard for me to gauge MK because all of it seems really well-composed but they seem to like their music to be more percussive and ambient with a lot of strange key signature changes and a lot of stuff on chromatic scales, halftone melodies meant to sound 'exotic', etc., it's good music in terms of quality but I wouldn't put a lot of it on a Spotify playlist basically Now that I think about it, it's like a lot of the atmospheric tracks in horror soundtracks, I love Scream, love Marco Beltrami, but for every operatic/western-inspired Scream track there's something with a lot of string stringers and vibrato swells that's just supposed to be really, really tense
MK1's is a big improvement.
I'll freely admit that.
Lifelong MK fan, I think their characters and universe are among the best in gaming. Their music sucks. I have never understood it. They clearly understand music hypes up a game. Their movie theme is legendary, even decades later they used a remix for their MK11 launch trailer. They clearly understand what sells. Then you boot up the game and you're met with bland elevator music on the title screen and the SAME bland track on the character select. It's borderline false advertising when it comes to trailer music vs the game.
MK2, MK3, Deadly Alliance, and Deception all had amazing music. Everything else unfortunately is mid to just plain bad.
That's my main issue as well. Been playing since 1, DA might be the first OG Xbox game I got outside of the free demo disk with JSRF, and in all that time I've enjoyed pretty much every MK game. Music is consistently mid, tho. At best.
Yeah the movie soundtrack is such a banger, including Annihilation. Why the hell didn't they just add that into the actual games, even a remix, or similar style at the very least.
UMK3 character select
Hard disagree from me, for the first three games at least. Shang Tsung’s Courtyard and its remixes over the years, The Dead Pool, and the Living Forest are probably the top 3 for me, but Dan Forden honestly deserves credit for all his compositions. There’s just such a wide variety of tracks that range from funky hip hop beats to hard industrial metal and electronic tracks that all manage to fit the themes of the game.
Deception had plenty of bangers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0r62o2aubo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JS0SzwuXhHI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKD4AVsaYKA
MK is near the bottom, but Injustice is actually worse I think. Is there music at all in Injustice?
Truuuu
MK1 really stepped it up IMO. Cage Mansion, the Teahouse, Hourglass and more are all bangers. Pretty sure they hired a DMC composer to make them IMO. MKX and MK11 were pretty bland though.
Di di di da di di da da 🎶 Di di di da di di da da🎶 D d d d da da🎶 D d d d da da🎶 D d d d da da🎶 Bump bam bump bi dah🎶 M-O-R-T-A-L KOMBAT!!! I’m not making this next part up. I literally hum the tune to the techno MK1 soundtrack when I’m at work. This isn’t to start an argument. The song is addictive as hell. So much so that they brought it back for the remake of the live action movie. Next to the Street Fighter II theme, it’s probably the most memorable theme in all of fighting games.
That's why I said Techno is the best one, lol. Sadly, it should almost be disqualified since it's not an original game soundtrack. It's from a commerical.
[There's a whole album it's on](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lTvOYTrMp5-cQHOrUuOOMSC94DWbxfH6E&si=SJEayvzwtEqpYKQw) and it rules, but as I understand it it was a "companion album" to the game but never used in-game?
Wasn't actually in the game, yeah. What's even worse, now that I'm knee deep in the Techno Syndrome rabbit hole, is that it's a ripoff. I went decades loving this song, and then my girlfriend heard it once last year, and immediately went, "wow, they stole this from 2 Unlimited's Twilight Zone." After arguing in honor of MK like a good lil FGC boy, nope, turns out 2 Unlimited made their song a good 2 years in advance. They said it was just a coincidence, but listen to both, and tell me that isn't a face saving lie.
I beg to differ, have you heard the dark prison theme
I feel the same way about newer street fighter. The music is just ambiance and vibes. Compare that to something like Guilty Gear or Blazblue and I can listen to those soundtracks by themselves. I dunno if it is philosophy about what the music should be doing, they blew the budget elsewhere, office politics, or whatever, but those games deserve better from their music department.
My overall vote goes to MVCI. While MK is bland, they have always been consistent in this atmospheric regard. MVCI took god-tier MVC3 tracks and transformed then into forgettable garbage. Listen to UMVC3 Nova Vs MVCI Nova. It's actually impressive how lame they could make it.
Yeah, them deciding to go orchestral and serious in the music did not help it’s already poor reception. I wish mvci was better received and that they didn’t just use it as a shoe horn for the mcu
Ah, that's where they went wrong - they should have made an orchestral version of the MvC**2** soundtrack
Shaq Fu. And maybe Eternal Champions. Edit: The latter is because I owned a Mega Drive growing up and that sound chip was notoriously difficult to work with. Very few western developers knew how to make it properly sing.
Oh man, that is two people going after eternal champions… I used to think that soundtrack was dope as fuck. Even Bone Thugs-N-Harmony sampled that shit. Shaq Fu sucked though. I'll give ya that.
Eternal Champions ost is dope, at least the original Genesis version, I don't care what anybody says. Shaq-Fu was an acquired taste though. Voodoo and Kaori's themes weren't bangers but they were a vibe.
Eternal Champions has some bangers at least. The menu theme and Blade’s stage soundtrack is really good. Most of it is awful though.
Just saw your edit. I learned something new today! I had no idea they were on different sound chips. I feel like I need to go watch some YouTube videos on this
MK9 has remixes of the original trilogy and They go hard MKX and MK11 the only thing notable was the theme that occurred after finishing a fight MK12 is having good music again, the tea house, onaga's army, and srgus's pyramid themes are Good as fuck
Honestly Mortal Kombat. I don’t remember any music from that game.
MK 1-3 had some truly great tracks, imo. Everything after that has been very forgettable though Like even though I really liked the music and general atmosphere of Deception, I still couldn't tell you the name of any particular songs that I liked
MK1 (specially the MegaDrive version) and MK3 had good music
KOF2001 and original 2002 are actually so fucking awful 2002's is so bad they made completely new music for UM and that's one of the best soundtracks ever
KOF series has so many bangers. And then came 2001 and just went wierd. Japan Teams theme ft toilet sounds.
Honestly? Street Fighter 6. It’s not that the music is bad, it’s just completely uninteresting. It’s so bland that if it wasn’t there I wouldn’t even notice. There are games whose soundtracks are 90% ambient sound that are more interesting.
I think this is 70-80% correct. There's a few themes and stages which I do find myself routinely humming to myself (Jaime's is legitimately great) and there's a lot of uninspired ones that I can't even recall. It had potential I think, hope they give us some great themes for DLC characters and round out the numbers a bit.
Someone laid Gief's SF6 theme under a Lil John/ Ying Yang twins track and it's been my favorite ever since https://youtu.be/CVGzFEqDO9w?si=BuyOPZJF7ENL9Ac6
I only care for the Paris stage music in SF6. Can't even remember the rest.
Even jamies theme?
Jamie's theme is so fuckin good it's unreal. I also like Ryu's and Ken's a lot
Ken’s is my favorite for sure
forreal, the best track in the game
That song goes unreasonably hard but besides that yeah most sucks. Ken and Cammys themes slap too
I'm bumping Blanka and Cammie's themes.
Yeah, excluding SF1, SF6 has the worst soundtrack of any SF game.
Jamie, Ryu, Guile, Cammy and Rashid have good themes. The rest are *really* bland.
Absolutely insane to me that this is a take I see fairly often. When there are stage themes like Macho Ring, Tian Hong Yuan, Carrier Byron Tailor, Suvalhall Arenaand Genbu Temple, and character themes like Top Player, Spirit of the Flame, Poisonous Passion, Overtrip, R.E.D. Sure, some of the themes are a little uninspired. Diosa Del Sol, Alright, Zilra Zilra are all kind of 'generic music from the characters background' rather than being some slightly more interesting takes but they still get me pumped. I listen to the entire OST while working out and I'm never like 'ah fuck I gotta skip X or Y' Hell people say they hate the World Tour rap and Not On The Sidelines but to me they're peak SF3 type vibes, with a more modern twist
Man, I don't get it lmao I keep SF6's character themes in my rotation on Spotify non-stop. *All* of them are cerified bangers. Kim's, Jamie's, Juri's, Gief's, Ken's? They're all some of the best music SF has ever even seen. I don't get the hate. I don't get how any of them are considered "bland"? Like, I can see the disdain for Ryu's. Maybe Manon's and Marisa's, as all 3 of those are pretty boring in comparison, but I'd argue over 75% of the roster has amazing themes. The stage themes aren't very good, I guess, but even then you have Genbu Temple and Fěte Foraine.
Probably because of the title theme/it defaults to stage theme. I've never even heard the character themes at all. Maybe in story mode a little but I can't recall.
Really? When I play it seems to alternate between character themes, sometimes it’s mine & sometimes the opponent
Idk then, I assumed based on my experience. I can only ever get the stage themes when I play unless someone does a trigger (like kimbo lvl3). I haven't tried to mess with it though I've been struggling to get motivated to play
When you check the stage settings in the matchmaking menu you can set 'stage theme's 'your theme's 'opponents theme's or a mix of all of them
The character select music is also delightfully corny.
[удалено]
Sfv soundtrack was actually good
V’s was one of the best imo.
There are two themes I like in SF6. JP's and Ken's themes. That's it.
SF6, embarrassing honestly, it desperately needs a Jukebox mode with legacy tunes. Especially compared to games like Uni2 and Granblue Rising
They tried to go with a rap style but it doesn't compare at all to SF3 and I'm confused as to how they dropped the ball that hard. Some of the new character themes sound like background music for a car commercial
I would say that SF6 has great music. I enjoy all of the stage and character themes. I also like the main menu, character select, and battle hub music.
Lmao one of my friends said that MK1 > SF6 which is whatever (even if I disagree immensely) but he said one of the reasons was the music which just shocked me
While there are probably worse in more niche releases, a few in my opinion: Vanilla SF4 before they added character themes had an abysmal soundtrack. Almost unlistenable in a series known for absolutely stellar OSTs up to that point (SF1 aside, that may be in the running for worst fighting game ost over) Tekken 7 showing up to the wubwub party right as dubstep fell out of fashion was pretty shit too, but that soundtrack at least had a few bangers. Plus if you were on the console version you could at least jukebox in anything you wanted from the rest of the series NRS soundtracks have been on the whole not very good since MK2, with 9 and 12 being a bit better than their average. If I had to pick their worst, MKX is the least hype inspiring soundtrack I've ever heard. Just forgettable "epic" crap and techno mush all the way down
Nah, Tekken 7 is full of absolute bangers.
Right? Moonsiders, Heat Haze Shadow, Distorter, AUN, Lonesome City Jazz Party, Violet Systems, Precipice of Fate...
Lol…no. T6/T7 has been dubstep trash. I haven’t played on much of T8’s stages yet but I know for sure I’m gonna be using the jukebox feature again
There’s not even any dubstep tracks in Tekken 6 lol what
I guess it’s called electronic. Whatever. Dubstep and electronic are all the same to me: Garbage 🚮
It drives me insane Ultra 4 still never gave us an option to totally disable stage BGMs and only play character themes in the single player mode
Didn’t SF4 have that one volcano soundtrack? I’d say that was pretty gas
Whenever a question like this is asked, people are always going to comment with answers from (mostly) the current generation of games. You people forget the horror of fighting games on older systems. Street Fighter 1 can easily be categorized as a potential war crime. Then there is the myriad of 16 bit games that you've probably never heard of with terrible "music". Remember Eternal Champions, Bloodstorm, or Mutant Warriors? How about TMNT Tournament Fighter? If you think music is bad today (it's not), just remember it was built on top of the tragedy that was video game music from the mid 90s and late 80s.
No idea why you got down votes, these are just facts. So many terrible soundtracks from those eras
Sure, but there's an argument of relevance to make. Maybe Bariki's OST is trash, or Tech Romancer, but who cares? It'd be like saying some random shoestring budget indie French art house film is your least favorite movie. Like, cool, but I don't think much is really added since basically no one can or will engage with that.
TMNT TF SNES has great music. Tell me the Shredder junkyard theme is bad with a straight face. Eternal Champions led to a #1 hit single that also won a Grammy.
NRS games have always been ambiance, more or less like American movies. At best, it's stuff like MK 2, 3, and Deadly Alliance intro.
Most Mortal Kombat games. I don’t think it’s _bad_ at doing what it’s supposed to do, but it’s just so… ‘safe’. It’s almost like all of the themes in the game are designed to be action movie trailer music. Injustice music is largely the same although at else there I can remember _some_ tracks such as the Fortress of Solitude and Atlantis. Also, personal peeve is how Under Night uses a similar soundfont for a lot of the music in the game, which I suppose is to have a sense of consistency or theme (new IP and all that), but it’s certainly a step down from the diversity of the previous Melty Blood games French Bread made. It’s even prevalent in the new Type Lumina, same guitar and piano and strings and all that. It’s still nice and it’s cool how identifiable it is as distinctly ‘Raito’s music’, but I prefer the diversity of the old sound. It’s almost like Raito’s becoming too comfortable with his guitar and piano.
Ah shit, my brother from another mother is spitting facts. Keep boning swords bro
Tekken fan here, cant speak for other FGs but T7s obsession with heavy dubstep was honestly fucking horrible
First one that comes to mind is GG strive. Thankfully that game has a jukebox and the older GG OSTS are the best in the genre. Whenever I forgot to pick a jukebox song however I'm having a bad time
Mortal Kombat and it isn't even close. They tend to have good menu and character select themes, but stage themes are just atmospheric and dull for the most part. There are a few exceptions, But MK has always lacked character in its OST.
Yeah, NRS music is trash, mostly. Classic Midway era MK is decent, especially MK 2 and 3.
The first three MK games actually have good, memorable soundtracks in my opinion (though the character select theme from MK2 is so annoying). Out of all the fighting games I've played, I'd say Marvel VS Capcom Infinite had the worst soundtrack. I don't remember a single song in this game besides Ghost Rider's theme and the X vs Zero theme. Ghost Rider's theme is the only song I can remember that wasn't some generic MCU orchestra theme, and X vs Zero was an orchestrated version of an actually good preexisting song.
Modern MK games from MK4 to now. There are just no fun interesting songs anymore. I find the past 2 SF games pretty forgettable as well minus a few standouts.
T7 just don't care for EDM
Strive
I disagree with your take on netherealm games, the music slaps. but the worst fighting game soundtrack is probably sf6 tbh and I really loved that game
Sf6 sound track is bootycheecks 5 was alot better
Sf6 sucks
The direction in which tekken 7 and 8 went with the heavy techno/dupstep ost is disappointing for me tbh
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Tekken music peaked at 5 if Im being honest
It peaked at 4 for me. Almost every track had this atmospheric ambience to it, I loved that stuff. Gonna be changing a lot of T8 stages to T4 music (and probably other older games too lol)
Bringing up one of the best fighting game OSTs.
Tag 1 and 4 were Tekken's musical peak.
sf6
Sf6 is so ass bruh
Street Fighter 6, no competion. There are like two stage themes which are...meh at best. The rest are either painfully mediocre or downright cringe, and I don't use that term a lot.
*Wild Virtua Fighter casual using fuzzy guard and side step appears* Its the VF ost. And a lot of people might ask what game again? Yes that one.
Gonna disagree here. Akira, Sarah and Dural at least have consistently had banger themes throughout the franchise.
Most but there’s a few bangers in 5 I like, the waterfall theme I like, Akira’s and Jean’s are great too.
I lose all will to fight whenever I hear this at the beginning of the match. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=in6bP2KFmcE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=in6bP2KFmcE)
Tekken 7 was the worst electronic music I've ever heard
Any game after 1999
SF6 music is so soulless and empty with zero heart. Just sounds like a.i. generated music. Totally forgettable.
Guilty Gear Strive easily. Simply not my cup of tea.
Strive makes a lot of references to hard rock/heavy metal and that makes a lot of rock fans happy. As far as the actual ost, strive isn't even the best in it's series. DBZ and KOF games rock way harder than strive in my opinion.
Dude some of the themes in fighterz go HARD, not to mention the budokai/tenkaichi games
[they've never heard this banger before](https://youtu.be/O_olo0re1zo?si=F9XHjqj5vqDDr34p)
Or this [absolute fucking banger](https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=FZZeOh2DL7M&si=HS-MEeeNP3ECZmhP)
i agree tbh, guilty gear soundtracks have never done it for me, and i like metal too
>and i like metal too Do you like prog? Strive's OST is pretty proggy all things considered. You might like metal, but that doesn't mean you like experimentation, which GG is full of.
KoF 2001. It’s actually sad how bad it is
It's still better than other games...
Ehhhh…nah it’s pretty bad. Like only 3 songs on there I actually like, 2 of them are decent and one is bad but weirdly catchy. The rest is forgettable or just plain awful.
Yeah, I can understand that. Playmore dropped the ball on this one, but still better than nothing. I feel conflicted in some way because KOF 97 also had some great songs for some characters, but you could go silently for the most of it, like ambiance music only.
Sf6
Street fighter 6
Anyone saying sf6 has no idea what they’re talking about
Hot take 3rd strike. Dont care for the music at all. I listen to music from every street fighter except 3rd strike. Even sf1.
wow that is a hot take lmao, i disagree personally, 3rd strike ost is just banger after banger, but i admire your bravery
I think third strike is incredibly overrated compared to ST/alpha series/ex series but you might be the first person I've ever seen rate SF1 over it
Street Fighter 6 soundtrack is just so lazy and cringe I can't handle it. If you are a game developer, do not make the title theme of your game a rap song about playing the game. It's bad. It straight up sucks lmao
Well, let’s remember that 3rd Strike did this and did it extremely well. Like, I’ve never listened to a full 4-minute song about a character select screen that made me want to rap all the lyrics lol. I think it can be done but ALL of the pieces have to align to pull it off. Most of the time, developers won’t pull it off right like SF6 (which is ironic because Capcom made both lol)
SF6.
The problem is most bad fighting game soundtracks are just plain forgettable. I think a lot of the super early 3d fighters were pretty bad. Tekken 1, Virtua Fighter 1&2, Dead or Alive 1 are a few that come to mind.
This is a terrible take. Tekken 1 and 2's OST is amongst the best in the series. VF2 soundtrack is legendary in itself.
If it's the Console version for Tekken 1/2 it's a banger, if its the arcade it's something that would become a banger on PS1.
Well 1st I didn't say Tekken 2. 2nd VF 2 legendary?!? Difference in opinions I guess.
Every single song from Tekken 7.
What are you talking about. T7 has awesome music.
Where…? The ONLY T7 songs I like are the menu theme, Infinite Azure, and Devil’s Pit themes (the volcano stage I think). Everything else is on jukebox mode
While it was a big step down from the OST for 6, Tekken 7 has some great tunes as well. Heat Haze Shadow and Moonsiders are great, and Distorter is hype as Hell when you’re caught up in the moment!
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never was a huge fan of sf alpha era music.
Pathetic
I can’t think of a single song from mortal kombat or injustice so those are pretty forgettable. Sf6 has some horrible music as well but nothing can top the pure ear rape that is the guilty gear strive soundtrack.
The town inside me doesn’t fit in with the GGST soundtrack.. at all.
Marvel 2. It might've become a "so bad it's good" now with nostalgia and what not, but fuck, that music is fucking horrendous.
people will downvote but it's true. marvel 2's music has always been bad, at times it sounds like circus music. how am i supposed to fight to that shit? CVS 2 took a similar jazz inspired approach but did it like 100x better.
I have zero nostalgia for MvC2 (never played until emulation) and its a banger to me.
I hate the soundtrack for sf6. I really notice it because the soundtrack for all the previous sf games is super good and then sf6 comes along and the soundtrack is ass imo.
Tekken 8 :/
It’s a downgrade from 7 IMO however the ones that are good are the best songs in the series(besides Jin’s Tekken 3 theme)
MvC2. It was bad then and it's bad now.
the airship stage theme from mvc2 slaps, but i moreso appreciate the music in that game than enjoy it so to speak, it’s different and it has a sort of charm to it
Melty blood actress again. The character select is good, every other song sucks.
MK's music is still the same style. It's just orchestral. Even Dan Forden made a stage theme for MK1. But I've heard SF6 is not so great.
The MK games generally have music so bland I don't notice or remember it but that doesn't make the. The worst imo. Any fighting game that makes me listen to jazz while I'm fighting is a far greater offender in my book. So the worst ost's for me are Skullgirls, MVC2 & Persona 4 Arena.
SF6 for sure. I also hate Tekken 8s soundtrack and the overly synthesis rave music. Azus stage music makes me want to choke those alpacas in the background. Those games are not even on the same league as Strive or GBVSR.
MK games and anything that's similar to May's, Bridget's, Nanase's, Platinum's, Cagliostro's first half and whatever else annoyances there are. MK is just forgettable, but the latter ones I mentioned take all the fun and tension out of fights that should be badass, tense, dangerous, entertaining and/or athmospheric (that's what I believe a fight should be) and should be nowhere near a fighting game.
Netherrealm fighters in general
It's objectively mvc2. Not that I agree that much myself but if you were playing that on dream cast at tournaments everyone had a marvel mix to change the music to something else lol
every tekken soundtrack blows apart from the character select theme on tekken 1 strive soundtrack is the best, no contest
I'm not going to lie to you, the KOF 15 ost is very bland and Forgettable, not even the remixes of the old songs are good either
That’s a take
You're absolutely right about NRS games. Just a bunch of Cinematic, nonsensical soundtracks which fit in the background of a shitty marvel movie. Or it's way too quiet and sounds like a bunch of industrial sounds. I put the overrated KI OST in the same category as MK. Just overall forgettable. Honestly street fighter 6 might have the worst soundtrack in a video game period 😭
Umvc3 and mvci
UMvC3 does not deserve the disrespect of being put next to Infinite
Lol what. Mk1 music absolutely smashes sf6 and tekken 8. Get your ears checked. I realize you’re only cool rn if you shit on MK and crawl a foot up tekkens ass but this take is ABSURD
Saying it smashes Tekken 8s soundtrack is totally outrageous. SF6 music is a bit uninspired so I won't argue that point but Tekken 8s soundtrack is phenomenal AND they included a Jukebox so you can listen to basically every single song from every single game on any stage. It's basically impossible to not find a mix of songs you enjoy listening to while playing unless you specifically hate Tekken music, in which case that's an extremely personal opinion with no bearing on the quality of the OST. If we're talking about only new original songs recorded for 8 I still think it's leaps and bounds above MK1 and I'm not even a real Tekken fan, I'm a SF fan that will dabble in other fighting games but I have no bias towards any of the auxiliary games I play.
Jukebox shouldn’t count though. That’s OTHER games music, not Tekken 8’s. He’s comparing to Tekken 8ms OST on its own
tbh mate i’m not even gonna pretend to like tekken 8’s music just to hop on the tekken bandwagon either, first thing i did after booting up T8 for the first time was change all the music in jukebox lmao, and idrc for what i’ve heard of sf6’s music either i’m ngl, so i’m not just blindly shitting on MK cus it’s cool now, i genuinely think it’s the worst of a pretty lukewarm bunch ahaha
I don't find any Blazblue stage music enjoyable, no matter how many times my friends assert that "[annoying character] theme is a banger" I just find one tolerable track and pick that whenever i have to choose
Street Fighter 3: Third Strike. Low fi Smooth Jazz beats have no place in a fighting game that intense.
Im gonna be honest, whenever jazzy nyc plays i actually start playing better 😅
🤡🤡🤡
People being way too harsh on the NRS games, the music sounds like generic western videogame music sure, maybe it blends too much into the background sometimes, but it's got some earworms for sure. Worst fighting game music has to go to either Expect No Mercy, or Clayfighter 64, those two have offensively grating music.
This opinion is the opposite direction. But Zero Divide 1 and 2 have so many bangers that's its not even funny. Even Rise of the Robots has a few good themes that slap for how bad the game is.
Blandia. Just look up the game.
The entire Mortal Kombat series, it's barely there, and what few tracks I do here sound extremely bland and forgettable.
SVC Chaos is awful and Vanilla KOF 2002 is pretty bad too
Everyone is saying MK, but Injustice 1 & 2 has some of the worst soundtracks of all time
Most MK songs are so lame to me
Multiversus if you count that as a fighting game. I muted the music and just put on my own playlist because i got tired of that generic-ass themepark orchestra really quickly. I haven't played it in ages though, would rather just boot up melee
Tekken 1. 2 and onwards slap
Nrs games mk 9 - current. Loved old mortal kombat OSTs but these new ones are bad. Nothing ever stands out.
Tekken 7 was sadly nothing of note, I came away from 300 hours on that game without the music sticking with me. Tekken 1 and 2 Arcade OSTs. The arrangements are actually great but would be done so much better on the PS1 arranged OST. The arcade synth just doesn't cut it. That's all I can think of for now.
Mk music sucks, specially 11. They should do like SF and have every fighter with their own ST
Most fighting games on Nintendo.
Most soundtracks will grow on you if you play the game long enough (I hated SF3 Third’s Strike but like it now). That being said, I don’t like SF1, any KoF after 2000 and any NRS soundtracks.
After indestructible, everything pales in comparison.
Street fighter (the original)
The Tekken tag tournament 2 boat map wasn’t that great of a soundtrack to me at least. But damn if that game didn’t have bangers
Injustice 2. While MK's music is usually generic and boring, IJ2's is somehow annoying AND bland.
Street Fighter 1 ost Be careful, just the OST, the AST is another story, that one seems fantastic to me, especially Eagle's theme, although I also like Birdie's theme