best video game music

what are some of the best 8 or 16 bit games for music?

ill start off with some of my favorites.

1. Lords of thunder - awesome metal soundtrack. 2 thunder force IV - same thing see #1 3. the castlevania series - the music always fits the series. 4. Metal slug 5 - another awesome guitar heavy game. see a trend here? 5. the sonic games - some genesis music isnt programmed so well but sonic team knew how to make that genesis sound chip great.

Sonic 2 has a lot of great stuff. Oil ocean, chemical plant zone.

I like flying battery zone from sonic and knuckles. that music is ace.

some nes stuff is great too especially with the nesrgb sound mod. alien 3 is pretty cool and sky shark has some awesome, electronic sounding music. not to mention Mr. Gimmick. but that game has help in the form of the sunsoft 5b.

btw - ive noticed that with the latest release of the N8 os expansion sound has gotten much better!

Thanks for pointing out the n8 update I've been too busy working on my sd2snes cd audio hacks to check.  Gimmick music doesn't sound good because of the 5b, it sounds good because it's good music.  There's a non-5b enhanced gimmick cart out there and the music still sounds good on that.  Are you going to start claiming that snes music sounds better than nes music because the snes has better sound hardware?  Hardware doesn't make music good, just good composing.

There's a couple of link to the past songs I always felt are excellent.  The dark world theme and the dungeon theme from the light world for those pendant dungeons.

Also mind being a bit more specific about which tracks you like?  Saying "the castlevania series" is only listing hundreds of songs.