Happy Monday, folks, welcome to the Weekly Video Games Thread, and boy am I tired! As a sort of journalist I try to always be there for The Game Awards—well, sort of. They always start airing when I’m at work, meaning that I usually “only” see the last two and a half hours. They are long, which is ironic seeing how many awards they just read off and that there are a few ones that probably should be there.

But that’s just me. The Game Awards may often be disappointing, but they always have one consistently good thing: the game of the year medley. The actual event is chock-full of musical numbers, many of them bad (and for this year, two of them being Snoop Dogg at his most lifeless), but the final one is always great. It’s a medley of songs from the six Game of the Year nominees and is always wonderful. From that one multifaceted musician who always goes hard to the way it tries to remix sedate or chill songs from the likes of Animal Crossing and Balatro, it’s always a pleasure. And thus leads me to my final musical prompt of the year.

I want you to imagine a musical montage of your top six games from 2024, showing the one song from each game that the Game Awards Orchestra would bring to life. If your list was the one up on stage, what six songs would you pick? And to help you out, here’s mine.

First off, I don’t have to do all the work, as one of my top favorites made it in: Balatro. I’ll just use theirs. Those of you who’ve played the game and heard the cover know exactly how much work had to go in this transformation. And there’s really only, like, one song in Balatro? Maybe? Anyway, here’s the actual orchestra from this year, so those of you who missed it or just want to watch again can see it.

After that, there’s my actual Game of the Year: Lorelei and the Laser Eyes. Now, there is a big song in the game, and while I’m not too fussed about musical spoilers here, I think it might not work. It’s really slow. Of course, that’s a general problem with the game in this particular conundrum, as like Balatro—and Lorelei isn’t the only game here that’s like this—this game has a largely ambient, spooky, and unheroic soundtrack. I decided on “Call from the Past,” which shows up in the game’s back half, sort of, and I think could be reworked into this very limited house style. Take a listen:

Crow Country has a similar issue, where a lot of its soundtrack is this deliberately kind of atonal PS1-era creepy music. In a good way! I considered one of the first traditional songs, the welcome theme for the evil haunted theme park. I could work, but I think it’d be a bit chintzy, so I’ve got a new idea: “Haunted Hilltop.” It’s… well, the whole game’s a spooky level, it’s a horror game, but this is the explicit “scary” part of the park. I think this could be turned into something still scary, but also very epic and overwhelming. The orchestral instruments could work really well taking the place of the synths.

And if those were hard, Animal Well is probably worse than all of them combined, as it really has no traditional soundtrack, just very atmospheric ambient noise. So I’m just gonna cheat and go with the credits song. Whatever, “Time Capsule” is my choice. And if this game had been in the Top Six, they’ve have picked it too.

Fortunately, I did pick games with some more traditional exciting game music, and The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom will hold this whole thing together. I mean, this game’s iteration of the “Hyrule Field Theme” is effectively the main theme, so this just the one that would’ve been picked anyway.

Finally, and this is a bit of a cheat given how aggressively faithful of a remake it is, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. While the original game and the remake both have plenty of great music, I decided I’d want to include one of the new pieces. There’s actually quite a lot of them! There are the amazing songs for the bonus bosses, the alternate versions of the various battle themes, and a shockingly high number of character themes—many for NPCs of a surprisingly low standing of importance. I mean, Mayor Kroop? Ishnail? Grifty the Minstrel? Anyway, I’m gonna combine these two ideas by using “Yoshi Kid,” the theme for the pint-sized dinosaur martial artist. This could be the last song in the bunch or be a bridge between two really different once. And c’mon; don’t tell me you wouldn’t wanna see Flute Guy go ham on this one.

Of course, my list is limited. I only played seven games this year (I ultimately did pick up a secondhand copy of Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, and maybe it’d make this list, but that’s for then and this is now), and sadly, Snufkin being snubbed does mean we won’t hear any Sigur Rós music in this one.

…Well, that was fun. Anyway, uh, how was your gaming this weekend?