It's time for Music of the Year! 2024 was absolutely stacked with game releases. Some even felt it was one of the all-time best years in gaming. And the side effect of a year filled with excellent games means a year of excellent soundtracks. For this annual special, we let each panelist bring on three songs. Even so, how did we pick just nine today? It wasn't easy.

2024 being such a great year for RPG music meant that one episode could not contain our Music of the Year celebrations, so we have split it into two back-to-back episodes. Enjoy the likes of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Arco, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, and much more today. Then come back next week for three more panelists' highlights of the year!

Featuring: Mike Salbato, Hilary Andreff, Michael Sollosi, Gio Castillo, Patrick Gann; Edited by Mike Salbato

Links for this episode

• The End of Service: A NieR Re[in]carnation Postmortem Retrospective

Pat's Picks
0:02:58 - The World's Heartbeat (comp. Kenji Ito, arr. Tsutomu Narita) - SaGa Emerald Beyond
0:04:49 - Battle! (Terapagos - The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero) (comp. Toby Fox, Go Ichinose, Rei Murayama, arr. Go Ichinose) - Pokémon Scarlet & Violet
0:08:16 - Lantern&End (Keiichi Okabe) - SINoALICE

Hilary's Picks
‌0:39:58 - Renoir (Lorien Testard) - Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
0:42:55 - Moiety Theme (Robyn Miller) - Riven (2024)
0:45:01 - Nadie Los Podrá Salvar (José Ramón "Bibiki" García) - Arco

Michael Sollosi's Picks
‌1:17:52 - Impregnable Triangle (Chihiro Aoki) - Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth
1:20:59 - Coral Crown (Darren Korb, feat. Erin Yvette, Ashley Barret, Judy Alice Lee) - Hades II
1:25:04 - Queen's Blood - Prodigious Pedigree (Mitsuto Suzuki) - Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

Album links for places to buy, stream, and more are available in our post on RPGFan.

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Almost exactly a year ago, four panelists came together to build a soundtrack to an imaginary RPG out of 8 fragments of other RPGs. Today, we're doing it again, except our "Hard Mode" rules dictate that we must choose songs from our source games with different use cases. So our Town Theme could be anything except another game's town theme, and so on. What kind of RPG will we assemble this time? Find out with us!

Featuring: Mike Salbato, Hilary Andreff, Gio Castillo, Lucas Greene; Edited by Mike Salbato

Links for this episode

• Rhythm Encounter 126 - Build Your Own RPG Soundtrack | RPGFan
• Retro Encounter 442 – The Legend of Zelda: Draft of Fantasy

Tracklist
0:16:41 - Title Theme: Hollow Charge (Chris Geehan, Dan-Byrne McCullough) - Cosmic Star Heroine
0:26:30 - Map/Overworld Theme: Vana'diel March #2 (Naoshi Mizuta) - Final Fantasy XI
0:39:33 - Town Theme: Title Screen (Tsuyoshi Tanaka) - Harvest Moon 64
0:47:29 - Battle Theme: communication breakdown (Yuki Kajiura) - Xenosaga Episode II: Jenseits von Gut und Böse
0:58:03 - Dungeon Theme: One Small Step (Masayoshi Soken) - Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker
1:10:20 - Sad/Emotional Theme: Bloom Outro (Mili)  - ENDER LILIES: Quietus of the Knights
1:21:16 - Final Boss Theme: Touch It - FINAL FANTASY BRAVE EXVIUS Remix (Ariana Grande) - Final Fantasy Brave Exvius
1:36:02 - Ending Theme: Welcome to our Town (Motoaki Takenouchi) - Symphonic Suite Shining Force II ~ Ancient Sealing ~

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Between our recent milestone of 150 episodes and the start of a new year, we will have some fun changes coming to Rhythm Encounter, starting with this episode. New games and music release all the time that don't always fit with our episode themes. Starting today, we will release a "new music" episode every few months to spotlight the latest in RPG music. These episodes will typically be a shorter listen with a smaller panel, featuring 6–8 songs each. Today, Mike and Hilary highlight Metaphor: ReFantazio, Ys X: Nordics, Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake, and more!

Featuring: Mike Salbato, Hilary Andreff; Edited by Jonathan Logan

Links for this episode

• Rhythm Encounter 53 - Feel the Burn!
• Rhythm Encounter 150 - Name That (RPG) Tune

Tracklist
0:00:47 - Warriors in Arms (Shoji Meguro) - Metaphor: ReFantazio
0:09:35 - Ceruleum Smoke at High Noon (Takafumi Imamura) - Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail
0:21:31 - Heroes in Training (Winifred Phillips) - Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord (Remaster)
0:30:27 - Alefgard (Koichi Sugiyama) - Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake
0:35:44 - Facing the Distant Horizon (Falcom Sound Team jdk) - Ys X: Nordics
0:41:34 - VS. The Rutile All-Stars (Lena Raine) - Beastieball
0:57:09 - Mike's Bonus Track!

Album links for places to buy, stream, and more are available in our post on RPGFan. This post also contains a bonus listing of more recent music that were considered for this episode, so don't miss it!

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WARNING: This episode contains major spoilers for Slay the Princess, so listen at your own risk if you have not yet played the game!

Every now and again at Rhythm Encounter, we have the chance to bring on a special musical guest. For today’s episode, RPGFan Music editor Patrick Gann sits down with Brandon Boone, composer for the indie visual novel hit Slay the Princess. The interview includes Brandon’s insights and reflections on the process of building the game’s score from the ground up, then expanding the soundtrack for its newer form, The Pristine Cut. Brandon also provides some interesting background information on how he got his start in music, his ties to studio Black Tabby Games (Abby Howard & Tony Howard-Arias), and his recent win at the World Soundtrack Awards!

Featuring: Patrick Gann, Brandon Boone, Mike Salbato; Edited by Jonathan Logan

Tracklist
0:24:13 - The Princess (Brandon Boone) - Slay the Princess Original Soundtrack
0:40:44 - The Shifting Mound Movement V (Live) (Brandon Boone) - Slay the Princess Live
1:23:26 - Brandon’s Bonus Track! House of Woodcock (Johnny Greenwood) - Phantom Thread Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

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Retro Encounter can't be the only one making quiz show episodes. Rhythm Encounter had to get in on the action to celebrate our 150th episode milestone! Which of course means making our contestants identify songs, composers, and more across five themed rounds. Who will triumph? Feel free to play along too and see how you do! We had enough fun with this one that we don't want to wait another 150 episodes to bring it back. But for now, put your quiz show hats on (those are a thing, right?), make some guesses, and ring in 150 episodes with us!

Featuring: Mike Salbato, Patrick Gann, Hilary Andreff, Gio Castillo; Edited by Jonathan Logan

Rounds
0:05:31 - Round 1: Better Together
0:16:45 - Round 2: This One's for the Girls
0:35:35 - Round 3: This, That, or the Other: Sakuraba Edition
0:51:50 - Round 4: Final Fantasy Arrangements
1:13:10 - Round 5: Know Your Eras
1:31:06 - Round 6: Final Question

Album links for places to buy, stream, and more are available in our post on RPGFan.

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We all have origin stories about how we got into RPGs (several of us shared them almost six years ago in this feature!), so today our panel discusses music origins — what RPGs attuned us to the RPG music scene or otherwise elevated our senses and made us take notice. For some of us, this dates back to the days of the NES, and sometimes our awakening happened during the days of the GameCube. Whenever these songs hail from, they each hold a special place in our hearts.

Featuring: Mike Salbato, Wes Iliff, Gio Castillo, Rob White; Edited by Paul Dennis

Warm Beginnings
0:05:01 - Diddle's Organ (Yoko Shimomura) - Legend of Mana
0:05:53 - Godot - The Fragrance of Darkness; That is Coffee (Noriyuki Iwadare) - Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Trials & Tribulations

16-Bit Vibes
0:25:35 - Kids Run Through the City (FFPR ver.) (Nobuo Uematsu) - Final Fantasy VI Pixel Remaster
0:28:11 - Frog's Theme (Yasunori Mitsuda) - Chrono Trigger

Round 3: Fight!
0:44:50 - Colosseum Round 3 (Tsukasa Tawada) - Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness
0:49:05 - Battlefield Without Light -War Theme 2- (Miki Higashino) - Suikoden II

Iconic Themes
1:11:11 - Tantagel Castle (Koichi Sugiyama) - Symphonic Suite Dragon Quest I
1:14:31 - Fear of the Heavens (Hiroki Kikuta) - Secret of Mana
1:46:22 - Gio's Bonus Track!

Album links for places to buy, stream, and more are available in our post on RPGFan.

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We're no strangers to game series-themed episodes on Rhythm Encounter, such as our Mario RPGs or Dragon Quest shows. Now, it's time for the Tales series! Bandai Namco's long-running series turns 30 next year, and the mainline series alone contains 17 games (or 18 depending on which ones you count). That's more than enough material to showcase on an episode, wouldn't you say? Join our panel as we talk about the oldest, newest, and several Tales games in between, and listen to music by the venerable Motoi Sakuraba and company.

Featuring: Mike Salbato, Michael Sollosi, Wes Iliff, Stephanie Sybydlo; Edited by Paul Dennis

Tracklist
Tales of Strings
0:09:30 - Risk It All (Takao Ogi) - Tales of Crestoria
0:12:35 - Flame of Hope (Motoi Sakuraba) - Tales of Arise

Tales of Battle
0:30:09 - Fighting of the Spirit Remix (Motoi Sakuraba, arr. S.S.H) - Tales of Phantasia
0:34:17 - The Arrow was Shot (Motoi Sakuraba) - Tales of the Abyss

Tales of Resolve
0:55:12 - White Light (comp. Koichi Tsutaya, Shiho Ochi, perf. Superfly) - Tales of Zestiria
0:57:21 - Theme of Velvet (Motoi Sakuraba) - Tales of Berseria

Tales of Forest
1:14:09 - Mystic Forest (Motoi Sakuraba and Shinji Tamura) - Tales of Phantasia
1:16:59 - Sunlight Filtering through the Trees (Go Shiina) - Tales of Legendia
1:53:16 - Wes' Bonus Track!

Album links for places to buy, stream, and more are available in our post on RPGFan.

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It's been awhile since our last instrument spotlight, so in this episode, we're sharing some favorite RPG songs featuring woodwinds, like flutes, ocarinas, and more! Whether it's the incredibly moving sounds of Xenoblade Chronicles 3, the adventurous Dark Cloud 2, or Final Fantasy III's Maiden of Water, we have a lot to cover, so join us on this lovely journey, won't ya?

Featuring: Mike Salbato, Hilary Andreff, Gio Castillo, Tin Manuel; Edited by Paul Dennis

Links for this episode

• What is a zurna?

Tracklist
Calming Melodies
0:09:48 - Village of the Elw (Michiko Naruke) - Wild ARMs
0:11:18 - A Life Sent On (Yasunori Mitsuda) - Xenoblade Chronicles 3

Open Plains and Seas
0:27:27 - Shinshu Plains (Masami Ueda arr. Tomomichi Takeoka) - Okami Goju no Onchou
0:31:28 - Elia, the Maiden of Water (comp. Nobuo Uematsu, arr. Takashi Hoshide, perf. Siena Wind Orchestra) - BRA★BRA FINAL FANTASY BRASS de BRAVO 3 (FFIII)

Slippery & Drippy
0:53:40 - Price (Shoji Meguro) - Persona 5
0:55:25 - Ding Dong Dell -The Cat King's Castle- (Joe Hisaishi) - Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch

Your Big Chance
1:15:30 - The Adventure that Never Ends (Rush Theme) (Tomohito Nishiura) - Dark Cloud 2
1:17:09 - Field (With Marin version) (Normal) - (Ryo Nagamatsu) - The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening
1:47:23 - Hilary's Bonus Track!

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Somehow it's been four years since Rhythm Encounter's last Halloween episode, back in 2020's episode 56. Well, it's time we rectified that. A sequel to that episode and a spiritual successor to our previous episode about the works of Michiru Yamane, our panel dug into our gaming experiences to find music for the most spooky time of year. You'll find one of Pokémon's most iconic themes, and everything from old PC adventures to SNES, PS4, and more. If you need some tunes while carving pumpkins, or you're baking some Halloween treats... well, first of all, send us some. But either way, join us for a spooky good time!

Featuring: Mike Salbato, Hilary Andreff, Mario Garcia, Wes Iliff; Edited by Paul Dennis

Tracklist
What Lurks Beneath
0:04:34 - Forest Temple (Koji Kondo) - The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
0:08:14 - The Surface of the Water (Yoko Shimomura) - Parasite Eve

Let's Have Some Fun
0:25:01 - Heart of the Idol (Robert Holmes arr. Space Quest Historian/Troels Pleimert) - Gabriel Knight: Synths of the Fathers
0:29:47 - Amusement Park (Keigo Hoashi) - NieR: Automata

Witchy Vibes
0:52:49 - Lavender Town (Junichi Masuda) - Pokémon FireRed & LeafGreen
0:54:40 - Freshly Glazed Porxie (Masayoshi Soken, Nobuo Uematsu, and Daiki Ishikawa) - Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers

Unsettling Ambiance
1:14:45 - Magus' Castle & Confusing Melody (Yasunori Mitsuda) - Chrono Trigger
1:16:43 - Firelink Shrine (Motoi Sakuraba) - Dark Souls
1:42:35 - Mario's Bonus Track!

Album links for places to buy, stream, and more are available in our post on RPGFan.

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We are at the beginning of "spooky season," and while this isn't (yet) our Halloween episode, October is a fine time to shine a spotlight on composer Michiru Yamane, known in our parts for her excellent work on the Castlevania and Suikoden series. That means some games you may expect, but definitely some you wouldn't, from this talented composer. So dim the lights, summon your favorite fairy companion, and get ready.

Featuring: Mike Salbato, Hilary Andreff, Audra Bowling, Patrick Gann; Edited by Paul Dennis

Tracklist
Come See the Softer Side of... Oh
0:06:45 - Searching for a Past Hero (Flame Champion Waiting Ground BGM) (Michiru Yamane) - Suikoden III
0:09:36 - Nocturne (comp. Michiru Yamane, vo. Hekiru Shiina) - Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

Perplexing 3D Attacks
0:29:04 - Unknowable Geometry (Symphony Mix) (comp. Jim Guthrie, arr. Michiru Yamane) - The Scythian Steppes: Seven #Sworcery Songs Localized for Japan
0:33:06 - Reincarnation of Light and Darkness ~ Shagaru Magara (comp. Marika Suzuki, arr. Michiru Yamane) - Monster Hunter 10th Anniversary Compilation Album [Tribute]

House of Fortune
0:57:04 - House of Sacred Remains (Michiru Yamane) - Castlevania: Lament of Innocence
1:00:55 - Gears of Fortune (Michiru Yamane) - Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night

Ecclesia the Elder
1:16:03 - Screen Credit (Staff Roll) (Michiru Yamane) - Elder Gate
1:19:54 - Wandering the Crystal Blue - Arranged (Michiru Yamane) - Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia
1:39:34 - Pat's Bonus Track!

Album links for places to buy, stream, and more are available in our post on RPGFan.

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