An 8-bit RPG soundtrack that somehow sounds like childhood nostalgia distilled into chiptune. MOTHER's 1989 NES score, composed by Keiichi Suzuki and Hirokazu Tanaka, is deceptively simple and emotionally devastating. "Pollyanna (I Believe In You)" is one of the most optimistic pieces of music ever written for a video game, full stop.
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"Magicant" floats in this dreamlike space that the NES hardware turns into something ethereal, and "Eight Melodies" builds a whole emotional arc out of fragments you collect across the game. The vocal arrangements of "Bein' Friends" and "All That I Needed" give the soundtrack a singer-songwriter quality that was wild for 1989.
If you only know EarthBound, going back to MOTHER's score is like finding the roots of everything you already love.