"an evergreen is forever green/until it dies, of course" (Ryan Roth & Halina Heron)

"Undertale" (Toby Fox) — i remember when we were talking abt how i felt after playing through it i was like "yeah i really liked the song that plays during [scene]" and he was like "oh cool because that's the title track" and i was like damn. that does make sense huh.

"Elegy for a Cosmonaut" (Cecile Richard)

"Superman" (Goldfinger) — i couldn't guarantee it's my favorite song on the soundtrack but it's maybe the most iconic use of a pop song in all of videogames so

"And We Got Older" (Jim Guthrie) — increasingly afraid of how this would go down on replay but i do think jim guthrie's soundtrack would at least hold up

"Birth" (Mahito Yokota)

"Mall Rat" (Jerry Martin)

"True" (Akira Yamaoka)

"The Farthest Land" (Kow Otani) — this was one of a handful of soundtracks i downloaded as a teen without ever having played the game in question, which is a thing i don't typically do. i did manage to play a bit of it during college, on like, a girlfriend's roommate's console or something like that, but i still don't actually know the context in which this appears in-game, just that it's important enough to have a reprise

"End of the Dark" (Konami Kukeiha Club) — kinda breaking my rules a bit here because i'm not 100% sure when you hear this version (as opposed to just having the motif pop up in other tracks) but i will say that the opening of the game (which uses "Old L.A. 2040", in which the motif appears partway through), when you still think "oh maybe this is going to be better than snatcher" is solid enough to be here itself

"Chicago: Stealth" (David Clynick, Grant Kirkhope & Graeme Norgate)

"Tallon Overworld" - Kenji Yamamoto & Kouichi Kyuma

"Song of Healing" (Koji Kondo)

"Water" (Hirokazu Ando, Shogo Sakai, Tadashi Ikegami and Jun Ishikawa)

"Too Late to Love You" (Ben Babbitt (as Junebug)) — tempted to include another act or two here but that's probably cheating so i'll restrain myself

"Title Screen" (Jay Levorson)

"Temple of Light" (Russell Shaw)

"Tessie!" (Keiichi Suzuki & Hirokazu Tanaka) — honorary mention also to "The Green Train's Fun, Too!" by Shogo Sakai from Mother 3, which I took off the list because it felt like too much overlap

"La Revacholiere" (British Sea Power)

"Days Feel Long Now" (Matt Briganti & Sal Ghamo)

"Tristram" (Matt Uelmen) — admittedly i associate it more with the sequel

"Majula" (Motoi Sakuraba)

"Estampe Galactus# Barbare Epaulé Giraffe# Ennui" (Monplaisir)

"Happy Shabby Life ~Daytime Stroll in Kakashigahara~" (Taniguchi Hirofumi) — i'm not familiar enough with the game to guarantee it's my favorite track but i caught a bit of one of nina freeman's streams and was enamored with this when i heard it, so.

"Setting Sail, Coming Home (End Theme)" (Darren Korb feat. Ashley Barrett) — i'm about to replay Transistor and maybe this as well (and still need to play their subsequent games) so I might reevaluate which Darren Korb/Supergiant tracks I include