20 Best PS2 Soundtracks

Tekken 4 has the rawest and most serious tone in the series, and its music follows suit, with electronic jazz and grunge in place of most of the older dance tracks. The jazz track Bit Crusher plays at the Shinjuku crossing stage, and Authentic Sky puts piano grunge on a Tokyo rooftop. One stage, Statue, even picks its music at random from the arcade versions of the first two Tekken games.

The music was praised for setting a serious but relaxed mood, and its reputation has grown over the decades. Only 13 players named the game, but collectors rate the album 4.73 out of 5, one of the best averages in this top 20.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 is the top rated PS2 game on Metacritic, at 97 out of 100, tied with Grand Theft Auto III, and GameSpot gave it a rare perfect 10. The official album, Music From And Inspired By Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3, opens with NOFX and then Sum 41.

Players still count it among the best licensed soundtracks of the generation. Collectors are cooler on the album, though, and its rating of 3.27 out of 5 is the lowest in this top 20.

Tekken Tag Tournament began in arcades as an upgrade kit for Tekken 3, running on the same engine. The PS2 port got a huge graphics upgrade, extra stages and new versions of the music, where the arcade original had MIDI tracks with an instrumental backing. Famitsu gave it 38 out of 40.

Players still single out its themes, from the intro to the closing credits. The official album took until 2021 to appear, and 354 collectors own it, with 228 more wanting it.

Need for Speed: Underground 2 used a remix of Riders on the Storm, by Fredwreck and featuring Snoop Dogg, as its title music. The soundtrack was nominated for Outstanding Achievement in Soundtrack at the 8th Interactive Achievement Awards.

Players still argue over whether it beats the first Underground. Collectors can't settle it for them: every copy of the soundtrack on record is unofficial, so the game gets nothing on that side, and its 46 player mentions alone keep it in the top 20.

Tekken 5 has a large cast of composers, among them Yuu Miyake, who also wrote most of Katamari Damacy, further up this list. The music swings between techno and nu metal, and the PS2 version opens with Sparking, sung by Tom Leonard and Jeff Pescetto.

Players name its stage themes, with Moonlit Wilderness among the favourites. Collectors rate the album 4.45 out of 5, and 260 of them own a copy.

David Bergeaud scored Ratchet & Clank, and he kept scoring the series through 2008. He had already worked with Insomniac Games on Disruptor, a dramatic orchestral score that switched arrangements to suit the action. Critics praised the 2002 game's soundtrack along with its graphics and humor.

Fans remember the music by planet, Metropolis and Rilgar included. It is the seventh most named game here, but the 2002 score never got an album, so it gets no collector points at all. If a soundtrack could carry a wrench, this one would have a grievance.

God of War's score came from a team of composers, Gerard K. Marino and Winifred Phillips among them, and reviewers praised its orchestral themes and its use of ancient and ethnic instruments. It was nominated for Best Original Score at the 2005 Spike Video Game Awards.

The album had an unusual release: Sony sold it only through its Connect Music Store, and people who bought the game got it free with a voucher code. It came back in 2010 as downloadable content in God of War III Ultimate Edition. Only 95 collectors own a copy.

Criterion had its own audio team, but working with EA let it fill Burnout 3 with licensed music through EA Trax: over forty songs, presented as a radio station by DJ Stryker of the rock station KROQ-FM. Critics loved the sound of the crashes more than the songs, and some found the DJ annoying.

Players overruled them. They still shout the chorus of Lazy Generation, by The F-Ups, and only three games scored higher with players. With no soundtrack album, it gets nothing from collectors.

Kingdom Hearts II brings back Yoko Shimomura and Hikaru Utada, whose new theme, Passion, became Sanctuary in English. Kaoru Wada arranged the opening orchestration and the ending credits theme, performed by the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Atlantica world turns The Little Mermaid into a rhythm game set to Under the Sea and Part of Your World.

Players still single out individual tracks, Lazy Afternoons and Sanctuary among them. Fewer collectors have this album than the first game's: 145 own it and 276 want it.

Katamari Damacy's soundtrack lays heavy jazz and Shibuya-kei over electronic game music. Yuu Miyake composed most of it, with vocals from J-pop singers and anime voice actors, and one track is sung and written by Charlie Kosei, composer of the Lupin III soundtrack. The team once planned music that would grow fuller as your katamari got bigger, then dropped the idea.

Players can't seem to mention it without singing it. Only 19 of them named the game, but collectors want the album more than any other on this list except Silent Hill 2's: 5,585 want it and 3,857 own it.

Akira Yamaoka scored Silent Hill 3 as well, and it is the first Silent Hill soundtrack to use vocals prominently. Mary Elizabeth McGlynn sings most of them, credited as Melissa Williamson, and Joe Romersa sings the ending theme, Hometown. The industrial sound of the earlier games turns into more of a cacophony, with loud tracks that jump out after long stretches of silence.

You're Not Here even turned up in the PS2 version of Dance Dance Revolution Extreme, which takes a certain kind of courage to dance to. Only 23 players named the game, but collectors carry it into the top ten: 3,484 own the album and 4,050 want it.

Masahiro Andoh, of the band T-Square, wrote the music for the first Gran Turismo, and his 1996 solo album Andy's became the basis of its soundtrack. That album includes the original version of Moon Over the Castle.

Players single out Gran Turismo 4's menu music. Its Original Game Soundtrack is one of the rarer albums here, with 131 collectors owning it and 207 wanting it, and those who have it rate it 4.71 out of 5.

Vice City holds nine hours of music, with more than 113 songs and commercials, and the team did extensive research to fill its radio stations with songs from the 1980s. Epic Records released the stations on seven albums, the Official Soundtrack Box Set, alongside the game in October 2002, and IGN called it "the most impressive list of songs in a game".

When players split the question into licensed and original music, Vice City keeps winning the licensed side. Collectors agree: 1,045 own the box set and 1,522 want it, and they rate it 4.73 out of 5 across 119 ratings.

Shoji Meguro scored Persona 3, with Yumi Kawamura as the main vocalist and Lotus Juice as the sub vocalist, and the soundtrack leans on vocals heavily. The battle theme, Mass Destruction, started out as a prototype, but people liked it so much that it went into the final game. Meguro says the PS2, which could stream music in real time, was the point where he could finally express his music without compromises.

Players rarely name Persona 3 without Persona 4. As one put it, "No, I refuse to pick between them." Collectors keep both close too: 1,307 own this album and 1,116 want it.

Fumito Ueda wanted a dynamic and gallant score for Shadow of the Colossus, like traditional Hollywood film music, while holding back on emotional expression as much as possible. Kow Otani, who had scored the Gamera films of the 1990s, wrote it, and the music had to adapt as each fight changed. The album, Roar of the Earth, came out only in Japan, in December 2005.

Its fans don't treat the question as a debate. Collectors are almost as firm: 2,401 own Roar of the Earth and 1,584 want it.

Rockstar partnered with Interscope Records for San Andreas, and the radio has eleven stations with twenty DJs, Axl Rose and George Clinton among them, and more than three times as many licensed songs as Grand Theft Auto III. The stations stopped looping, too, with random song orders and news that follows the story. Michael Hunter wrote the main theme, partly inspired by growing up on Yo! MTV Raps.

The game won Outstanding Achievement in Soundtrack at the Interactive Achievement Awards, and players still name favourite stations like K-Rose and Radio Los Santos. Collectors want the official album more than they own it: 953 against 790.

Shoji Meguro wrote Persona 4's score at the same time as the story and the dialogue, with Shihoko Hirata singing and Reiko Tanaka writing the lyrics. The opening, Pursuing My True Self, was written to show the characters' inner conflicts, and the battle theme, Reach Out to the Truth, their strength.

Players rave about it, and it is one of the few games here that both sides love equally. Collectors own 2,046 copies of the album and 1,555 more want it, with an average rating of 4.71 across 97 ratings.

Yoko Shimomura composed Kingdom Hearts, with Kaoru Wada arranging the orchestral music, and the title screen plays Dearly Beloved. Hikaru Utada's theme, Hikari, stayed at number one on the Oricon singles chart for three weeks, and Utada recorded it in English as Simple and Clean for the international versions.

Players remember that intro song as much as anything in the game, and only Final Fantasy X was named more often. Collectors are split down the middle: 405 own the album and 406 want it.

Final Fantasy X is the first main Final Fantasy where Nobuo Uematsu was not the only composer. Masashi Hamauzu and Junya Nakano joined him, though Uematsu still wrote 51 of the tracks, and Zanarkand and the theme song Suteki da ne, sung by RIKKI, are still performed at orchestral concerts.

Players named it more often than any other game, and the tracks they single out include Otherworld, sung by Bill Muir, and the battle with Seymour. Only nine collectors have rated the album, but they gave it 4.89 out of 5, the best average in this top 20.

Akira Yamaoka composed Silent Hill 2, and he wrote its main theme, Theme of Laura, at home in three days by combining a sad melody with a strong beat. He expanded the dark industrial sound of the first game, and the grinding machinery and low bass drones follow you through most of the game.

Players often name it in the same breath as Silent Hill 3, and only two games scored higher with players. Collectors settle it: 8,284 own the album and 7,942 want it, rated 4.83 out of 5 across 314 ratings, by far the biggest numbers on this list. Mondo reissued it on vinyl in 2019.