16 Best Nintendo 3DS Soundtracks

Yoko Shimomura scored Mario & Luigi: Dream Team, a suitably cheery, sometimes foreboding soundtrack made of new and old tunes. The villain, Antasma, even fights with music: he plays a tune that makes Mario and Luigi, and the rest of the island, fall asleep, so that their dreams power the Dream Stone. The bouncy adventure themes sit comfortably next to the stranger dream-world tracks.

Players who name it call the music amazing, and some think the whole series is underrated for its soundtracks. The score never got an album of its own, though, so it gets no collector points, and that is what keeps it at the bottom of this list. To hear it you have to go back to the game or find a video of it. It rewards a second listen, because the cheerful tunes carry a lot of small musical jokes that are easy to miss while you play. Start with the battle themes and work outwards from there.

Sticker Star was a great departure from the structure fans of the series were expecting. Its music was easier to love. One review singled out the jazz-infused genius of its melodies, where bosses clap along and mariachi shy guys add their strumming. It takes tunes you already know and hands them to a small, playful band.

Players still name it among the system's best soundtracks. Like Dream Team, it has no official album, so players alone carry it here. A score that stays in people's heads with no album to help it says a lot. Paper Mario fans had every reason to be wary of this game, and the soundtrack is the part nobody argues about. It is the best reason to give the game another chance.

New Leaf makes you the mayor of a town of animals, and the music changes with the clock. The upbeat, peppy music of the day slowly fades into a more somber, peaceful tune at night, and K.K. Slider now plays a nightclub, Club LOL, as DJ K.K. It is gentle music that never gets in the way of what you are doing.

Players love its tunes. Collectors are the problem. Every copy of the soundtrack on record is unofficial, so the game gets nothing on that side. It earns its place on the strength of the music alone. The music suits the game perfectly, and once you hear the evening tune you will understand why so many people keep the game running in the background. It is a score for slowing down.

For the three earlier Etrian Odyssey games, Yuzo Koshiro wrote the music for a retro sound source first, FM synth and chiptune, and upgraded it later. Etrian Odyssey IV changed that, probably because a 3DS cartridge could hold large amounts of high quality audio. The score got live recordings and real instruments, from jazzy town tunes to a rocking battle theme.

Players who name it rave about the music, and one review called the score head and shoulders above most dungeon crawlers. Few collectors own the album, which holds it at 13. If you only know the series for its chiptune roots, this is a very different and very good listen. The town themes are the ones to start with, since they make a dangerous labyrinth feel like a place you want to come back to. The battle music then does the opposite and gets your pulse up.

Echoes is a remake of Fire Emblem Gaiden, a 1992 Famicom game that never left Japan, so the 3DS was the first place English players could hear it. Takeru Kanazaki composed and arranged most of the music, using Yuka Tsujiyoko's original Famicom music as the starting point, and the official soundtrack covered five discs.

That old material is why the score stands out. Where many orchestrated Fire Emblem tracks felt bland, the Famicom tunes brought back rousing melodies, and one reviewer called the sound the pinnacle of the presentation, thanks to the soundtrack. It is a good pick if you like your battle music tuneful and easy to hum. It also shows what a fresh arrangement can do for a 1992 score, since the melodies were strong enough to survive the trip. Play it for the old tunes, and stay for how well they were dressed up.

Hirokazu Ando and Jun Ishikawa, the veterans of Kirby music, scored Planet Robobot. Somewhere in the sound files of Kirby: Planet Robobot is a cat called Tom. Star Dream, the game's final boss, was voiced by Shinya Kumazaki's pet cat, and its weathercock by Hirokazu Ando's pet chicken, Nago. Sky Blue Flight plays over a flying stage that works like a shoot 'em up, and the fight with Star Dream keeps up the series habit of excellent final boss themes.

Critics singled out the soundtrack in highly positive reviews, and players often call it one of the best in the series. The album has a 4.67 rating from collectors, though few of them own it. The whole score has the bounce Kirby fans expect, with a few surprises, and the boss music hits harder than you would guess from the cute art. It is happy music with real energy behind it.

In Fates the music shifts from the quiet environment to heated combat the moment an attack animation starts. Its themes run from Dusk Falls, the default battle theme, to Woleb Tsap, a reversed version of the battle music from the third path, Revelations. Try reading the name backwards. The switch makes every fight feel like it has its own little score.

Players still name it with real affection. The Japanese soundtrack album is on record, but only a few collectors own it. It is worth a listen even if you never touch the game. A quiet listen shows how much care went into the themes, and the battle tracks are where it shines.

Yoko Shimomura, Takeharu Ishimoto and Tsuyoshi Sekito shared the score, and Ishimoto remixed some of his own tracks from The World Ends with You for it. Kaoru Wada handled the orchestral arrangements. The orchestra gives the big melodies plenty of room to breathe.

Reviewers called it one of the most consistent soundtracks in the series, with some of Shimomura's best work. Players who name it often pair it with another favourite, Shin Megami Tensei IV or Fire Emblem Awakening among them. Only two collectors have rated the album, and both gave it full marks. Kingdom Hearts has always leaned on its music, and this entry is a polished one, with themes that stick after a single play.

Jun Ishikawa and Hirokazu Ando gave Triple Deluxe a rather extensive soundtrack of mostly new tunes, and reviewers praised it along with the level design. It also revives plenty of music from older games, with Kirby Super Star and Kirby's Dream Land among the favourites. Old fans get a wink, and new ones get a cheerful score.

Few players named it, but the Sound Selection album pulls it this high: 190 collectors own it and 124 want it. That is a lot of people who wanted to take this music out of the game and keep it. The score is bright and cheerful, and it is easy to see why so many people wanted a copy of the album. It makes a good pick for a sunny afternoon.

Hiroki Morishita, Rei Kondoh and series veteran Yuka Tsujiyoko composed Awakening, and the Japanese soundtrack came out as a five disc set. It was nominated for Best Soundtrack in Destructoid's 2013 Game of the Year awards. The big, hopeful themes suit a game about a world that needs saving.

One review found the soundtrack so versatile that every moment in the game has a perfectly appropriate song. Players still name it among the system's best, and the album has 68 owners, with 62 more wanting it. The themes are tuneful enough to hum after a single map, and the score covers a wide range of moods. It rewards a listen from start to finish.

Ryo Nagamatsu composed new music for A Link Between Worlds and arranged Koji Kondo's music from A Link to the Past, balancing the two to please old and new players alike. He also played the flute music in the milk bar, and a bard in Kakariko Village plays guitar and flute remixes of old Zelda tracks for ten rupees a song.

Reviewers put the music in the series' top tier, mostly for the orchestrations. Players rate it among the best on the system, and 300 collectors own the Sound Selection album. The old melodies sound brand new here, which is hard to pull off. It is the soundtrack to hand someone who loves classic Zelda and wants to hear it again with a modern polish. Listen for the old tunes, because they are the heart of it.

Sun and Moon are set in Alola, a region based on Hawaii, and Junichi Masuda, Go Ichinose and the rest of the team gave it a soundtrack that one critic called the best the series has ever had, a stellar return to form after the disappointing music of X and Y. The Super Music Complete album runs to four discs.

Players name the Ultra versions too, and the Ultra games share this entry. The island setting gives the music a warm, breezy feel. The album is a big listen, with room for both the relaxed island music and the louder fights.

The 3DS Smash has one of the largest music selections in the series, remixes included, and a My Music feature for picking tracks, pieces from earlier Smash games among them. It can even keep playing the music while the system is in sleep mode.

Some players call picking it cheating, since much of the music comes from older games. Collectors don't care: the two-disc soundtrack, a reward for owners of both the 3DS and Wii U versions, has 2,049 owners, by far the most on this list. It is a huge mixtape of game music, and a good one. Pick it for the sheer range, since it sweeps through decades of Nintendo music in a single sitting. It works best as background music when you want a familiar tune every few minutes.

Masahiro Sakurai asked composers from Super Smash Bros. Brawl to score Uprising, among them Motoi Sakuraba, Yuzo Koshiro, Masafumi Takada and Noriyuki Iwadare. Yasunori Mitsuda's studio handled the orchestration, and his label, Sleigh Bells, later released a three-disc limited edition of the soundtrack.

The score mixes live orchestral music with synthesized tracks. Players who name it rarely hedge, and one ranking of the system's soundtracks called it an easy pick for first place. Collectors agree in small numbers: six of them have rated the album, and every one gave it five stars. It is a lively, adventurous score that suits a fast action game. This one is made to be played loud.

The music is not by Shoji Meguro, the composer of Persona 3 and 4, but by Ryota Kozuka, with more tracks from Kenichi Tsuchiya and Toshiki Konishi. It bounces from an almost Celtic sound to techno, and one review said pretty much every song in it is worth hearing. The mix of styles suits a game about a world falling apart.

Players agree. Collectors back them: 102 own the album and 140 want it, and its rating of 4.65 comes from 20 ratings, more than any other album on this list besides Smash. It is strange and catchy, and it suits an RPG that does not play it safe. If you like your game music with an edge, this is the pick on the list.

Revo, the leader of the Japanese band Sound Horizon, composed Bravely Default, and before it his only big game work was the main theme of Atelier Iris 3. He aimed for the nostalgic sound of Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, and the track list nearly doubled during production as he found scenes that needed their own music.

Players named it more than any other 3DS game, nearly twice as often as Kid Icarus, the next most named. One critic called it the best original JRPG score since Xenoblade Chronicles, and 357 collectors own the album. It sounds like a love letter to the games that made the genre.