When it comes to video games, one of the most effective ways to capture and maintain a player's engagement is through its soundtrack. The more pleasant the music is, the longer a player will sit and continue to beat the game. The more unpleasant the soundtrack is, the quicker a person is likely to check out and never return. Sometimes, a video game soundtrack is so ridiculous that one can't help but laugh at how absurd it is.
From some of the most celebrated video games titles including Sonic, Yoshi, and Final Fantasy to more obscure titles that gamers may have never heard of, laughable video game soundtracks abound.
Yoshi's Island DS
Considering how the Mario games have provided some of the most iconic video game music ever composed, it's oddly hilarious how inept the soundtrack for Yoshi's Island DS is. It's even funnier considering how well the game was otherwise received from critics, and even more disappointing compared to the pleasant music of the previous Yoshi game.
Reminiscent of Ferris Bueller breaking the fourth wall while struggling to play the clarinet, the disted starts-and-fits of loud horns mixed with Yoshi's wildly annoying bleats and a strange repetitive xylophone sound comes off like an infant learning how to count. There isn't even percussion until nearly one minute into the song.
Crazy Bus
Exactly what you might expect from an unlicensed tech demo video game, Crazy Bus is notorious for having one of the most over-the-top and intolerably shrill soundtracks of all time. But the game simply consists of driving a bus forward and backward to rack up points, so music is hardly a priority.
If a cat stepped on every digital touchtone telephone key from the 1990s all at once, over and over again, one still wouldn't be able to conjure the droning robotic repetition of the Crazy Bus soundscape. It sounds like the warning alarms from a bad Star Trek episode have gone on the fritz, legitimately calling to question if it can even be considered music. Fax machines have more dulcet tones.
Street Fighter IV
The Street Fighter series isn't known for having particularly good music, but somehow Street Fighter IV manages to sink to new lows. Imagine a dancy club track sung by a guitar-riffing Fallout Boy with shades of a '90s boy band. That's what the over five-minute main theme song has to offer.
Unlike some of the others in the game that annoy to no end, the song has a so-bad-its-good, guilty-pleasure quality that, while feeling completely out of place for a violent fighting game, is pleasurable enough to enjoy while making fun of how awful it is.
The Adventures Of Rocky & Bullwinkle
Released in 1992 for the NES, The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle has one of the most hilariously glitchy, unsynched, and uninspired video game soundtracks on record. In trying to hew to the gaming sound effects of the day while paying homage to the movie, the result falls woefully short of greatness. As such, it's one of the worst video game adaptations of the '90s.
With droning, single synth notes that come out of nowhere at different volumes, awkward pauses, and uncomfortable silences, the rudimentary sound design leaves one wondering if the composers were drunk, much less awake when arranging the increasingly grating music.
Sonic Arcade
While the Sonic franchise has had an up and down track record in of music, there's no denying how obnoxiously hilarious the music for Sonic Arcade is. The lowest of low points comes with the track "King of the Ring," which no one wants to hear more than once.
The up-tempo techno beat punctuated with shrill and overbearing chipmunk voices and a relentless, headache-inducing synth bassline couldn't be more annoying if the composers tried. It sounds like a Richter scale was hooked up to a microphone with off-key infants singing over it.
Extreme PaintBrawl
Often considered one of the worst video games of all time, Extreme PaintBrawl's soundtrack doesn't do any favors for its reputation. The first-person shooter paintball game has a soundtrack that can only be described as incomplete, to put it politely.
Imagine a baby playing with an electric keyboard and pounding all of the keys at once and it would still only approximate half of the risibly awful soundtrack. The rest of the main theme sounds like another song altogether laid over the first, creating a dissonant mashup of ugly nonmusical sounds that will leave everyone plugging their ears and scratching their head.
Resident Evil Director's Cut
While the Resident Evil gaming series had some riveting music early on, a major misstep was made when creating the spinoff, Resident Evil Director's Cut. The mansion basement orchestration sounds like one giant repetitive loop that echoes the universal sound of a loser: wamp wamp wamp.
The defeatist synth sounds come with no further instrumentation, not even a drum beat, and leave players to fight their way through a dark corridor to the unpleasant sounds of a clown-show circus act. According to Cnet, original composer Mamoru Samuragochi lost his hearing during the creation of the soundtrack and had to be replaced with a ghostwriter, only later to reveal that maybe he wasn't deaf after all.
Hong Kong 97
The entire soundtrack for the listless fighting game Hong Kong 97 consists of two lines from the popular Chinese song, "I Love Beijing Tiananmen," repeated on a loop over and over again. No matter what level a player reaches, the same catchy tune plays ad nauseam.
While the unfathomable laziness of simply repeating a sample from beginning to end is hilarious in its own right, it's the jovial upbeat song itself that makes no sense when played behind such a violent fighting game. The emotion of the music is diametrically opposed to the subject matter, which only heightens the hilarity.
Final Fantasy XIII-2
One of the most hilarious video game soundtracks includes Final Fantasy XIII-2, which somehow felt the need to upgrade the franchise's sweet, cherubic Chocobo theme song written by Japanese composer Nobuo Uematsu with a strident heavy-metal cover by a band called Shootie HG. Despite boasting one of the best Final Fantasy stories, the result sounds like a rainbow in a blender.
While the song could potentially work in another game, seeing the cute feather-winged creature hop around the various caves while the thrashing metal track plays create such a jarring counterpart that one can't help but chuckle.
The Adventures Of Rad Gravity
Released in 1990 for the NES, The Adventures of Rad Gravity was a bad cyberpunk space game in which the title character travels to different planets to complete various tasks. While the bassline remains consistent, the neverending onslaught of clashing notes and dissonant synth-tones make one think off Crazy Bus.
The messy arrangement sounds like a frenzied final boss battle meets an Adult Swim cartoon, combining the entire kitchen sink of musical instrumentation into one weird and laughably overbearing whole. Oddly unnerving and ridiculous at once, it sounds like someone threw their NES in the bathtub while it was still plugged in.